itscoldoutside.com contacted me today

[instant-time]

Hi

I was called by the above company itscoldoutside.com and they asked me about my seo .. so we spoke for a few minutes and then refered me to a sales advisor whom was quite adamant its £299 inital fee +£100 a month !


They were trying to sell it to me right now ,get me to sign i said i would think about it and they were really trying to sign me up ... like it was "exclusive" and that they were only taking one comapny on !

They brought examples of companys in my industry that are tthe top of google and that they do there seo!

Now i imagine it to be a load of gargage ! what do th experts say?

[KidsBeeHappy]

Garbage. Any SEO company that needs to cold call to get clients isn't worth talking to.

Simple way to deal with all of these calls is to tell them that you want a no committment 30 day free trial, before you sign up and give payment details. Watch them run!

[chapelman]

Probably garbage. I have never heard of this company, but since the cold calling is done by the sales team not the SEO blokes that doesn't actually mean they are garbage. I know one of the biggest SEO companies in the UK do cold calling, now they might still be rubbish, but they handle PPC budgets in the tens of millions so somebody likes them.

I can't see any SEO company giving you a 30 free trial because basically it's very difficult to do anything much in 30 days, but you could ask them to agree to solid targets (paid by results) with you being released from any contract if they don't meet them.

The other possibility would be to ask them to give you a 1 month rolling contract, and tell them you also want to see a list of their work and to speak to their 3 nearest clients to you. Then if possible don't phone these people, actually go to visit them, if everything is OK and they are happy with the services and results they are getting, at least 2 of the 3 should be happy to give you a cup of tea and have a chat.

Having re-read this post I am aware that it might sound paranoid to some people, but it's your money they're after and you need to know if they can really deliver.

[VinceSamios]

I've done a lot of research into "its cold outside" and spent a bunch of time on the phone to them...

Why? We had someone come to us after signing on with ICO and watching their rankings plummet.

Why? Terrible terrible terrible spammy blog farm...

Let me elaborate.....

Check out the back links to its cold outside to find their clients http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=linkdomain:itscoldoutside.com%20-site:itscoldoutside.com (btw - any company that needs to put a link on a clients website is both unethical and desperate, clients don't pay to advertise you.)

Take a look at the back links to one of their clients: http://uk.search.yahoo.com/search?p=linkdomain:easyopen.co.uk%20-site:easyopen.co.uk

****removed the links to potentially bad neighbourhoods****

Seriously!!! I'm not even having to dig for this....


Itscoldoutside.com has a PR of 2 - while this doesn't normally say much, it does say this: With hundreds of genuine clients linking back to them from genuine websites for genuine companies, each of which is subscribed to Itscoldoutside.com's "seo services" and therefore each with thousands of backlinks, wouldn't you think they should have a PR nearing 6-7? Yet this isn't the case, their page rank is terrrrrible! Why? Because thier own links to their own clients are complete rubbish!

I don't need to state any specific conclusion - a monkey with half a brain could see through this rubbish.

I'm not specifically stating that ICO's "seo services" actually do damage - but I have noticed significant negative ranking changes for a series of ICO clients, and I am personally reporting the ICO link network to Google as spammy blogs (and I'm definitely not the only one)

Say no more?

[chapelman]

That's them out the window then.

Go to plan B.

The next time they phone pick up the phone and say "get stuffed"

[VinceSamios]

That's them out the window then.

It can't get any more definitive than that, can it! ;-)

[QVA - Emma]

If you want to know more about its cold outside you should see this old post from the forum.

http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=60453&highlight=cold

and there is plenty more where that came from :rolleyes:

Well said and clearly put though Vince:)

Emma

[KidsBeeHappy]

For their link building;

Per their conversation, in their own words, they own about 1500 websites, and they plonk a chunck of text about 200 words long on pages on these websites.

[Chris Ashdown]

we have had years of them phoning us up, if you ask them how they will effect your site and who does the changes, they will tell you they do not need to use your site, which suggests they use false home pages to rank the site and after you get hit by google a few months down the line you loose out but they still have a contract with you, win, win for them

[Christiane]

Lots of posts about them on here.

Be ready for a phone call every month or so from now on, they never remember calling you previously, etc. I got to recognise their phone number and tell them the ''person in charge is not in this week'' to get rid quickly. :rolleyes:

[FLAUK]

They call us a lot - yesterday was the latest instalment. As just.b stated above, they never remember the previous calls in which I told them not interested.

The guy that called yesterday was called Luke and started the conversation by asking if we knew of the recent 'whitepaper' from Google advising people to purchase links if they want good organic results, (I'm pretty sure they target adwords users). Even after I informed him Google have told people not to buy links, he decided to go ahead and transfer me through to Philip, who could show me in Google how it would help us.

When I challenged Philip about the whitepaper he admitted it was a white lie from Luke. Then in a complete turnaround he told me that he would email me the white paper. The conversation broke down shortly after but this email arrived 5 minutes later:

"After all that claptrap

You have a page rank of 3 – hardly anything to be proud of.

No keywords in the home page title tag either – very strange

The way you were talking then, I thought you actually knew what you were doing.

Unusual"

As you can probably tell from the tone of the email, Philip and I did not see eye to eye. Funny thing is they only have pagerank 2 lol :)

[Roj]

ICO did some work for one of my clients a few years ago. As already mentioned they do not do any on page optimisation on their clients' sites. They create a load of dodgy gateway pages with hidden text and links to some of their other clients.
The only high rankings they produced where for long tail keywords with little or no searches. So the end result was no real additional traffic for my client.
So I'll say it one more time, stay clear of ICO

[Ali-v-8]

I love its cold outside.
They are the best.
They educate you "how NOT to do SEO"
They are punishment for companies who think seo cost £100.
What I really love about them is how the stole the strap line from M&S.
"Dont ask evrythings a penny" and slightly changed it to "dont ask every seo package is £100"
like I said I love them because the clients come running back and pay with out hesitating.
And they listen.

Just like to say thank you ICO you are what make SEO the minefield it is.

[Spock]

I agree they are really bad news, so can't they be prosecuted for false advertising? Surely someone at Google should be notified of these threads for ICO on UKBF. Perhaps they can come down on them big time :p

I hate the fact they take a lot of money from companies who don't know a thing about SEO and are promised the world, it just ain't right :(

[VinceSamios]

I'm preparing an ICO review - which I'll seo for "its cold outside" - voila... educated the few gullible enough but smart enough to research.

[Online Trader]

Agree they should be taken to task by Google, I see they have the following Guarentee on their website :mad:

Google Guarantee

We're confident enough about our search optimisation skills that we're presently offering a special Google Guarantee programme. We'll get you to a first page position on targeted keywords that relate to your business.

[Ali-v-8]

Guys you are forgetting SEO is not meant to be a business that google likes.
if people pay an SEO and he mess's the website up then all google will do is laugh.
Why should they be bothered.
If you are able to break their system then google will sit up and listen. Only to stop you.

[QVA - Emma]

I'm preparing an ICO review - which I'll seo for "its cold outside" - voila... educated the few gullible enough but smart enough to research.

UKBF already comes up on the first page anyway for those smart enough to research - the post bounces up and down a fair bit when people add to it now and again - so apart from the obvious and picking up a few hits from your review, the only thing I can potentially think of happening is a big old letter from their solicitors landing on your doorstep. Not one I'd fancy :rolleyes:

Emma

[QVA - Emma]

Agree they should be taken to task by Google, I see they have the following Guarentee on their website :mad:

Google Guarantee

We're confident enough about our search optimisation skills that we're presently offering a special Google Guarantee programme. We'll get you to a first page position on targeted keywords that relate to your business.

I think you will find the phrase that seals that paragraph is "that relate to your business". Argument being you are a plumber and you are on page one for "plumbers in colchester with a van" relates to your business. I don't like it either but I can hear them saying it now...:rolleyes:

Emma

[VinceSamios]

so apart from the obvious and picking up a few hits from your review, the only thing I can potentially think of happening is a big old letter from their solicitors landing on your doorstep. Not one I'd fancy :rolleyes:

Emma

Posts on forums or posts on websites - same territory legally - so any posts people make on here are liable to the same risk :-)

Factual commentary is entirely without susceptibility to legal consequence...

[Ali-v-8]

Who cares when it comes to its cold outside.

Turning up the heat wont work. They'll just rebrand.

[QVA - Emma]

Posts on forums or posts on websites - same territory legally - so any posts people make on here are liable to the same risk :-)

Factual commentary is entirely without susceptibility to legal consequence...

Ah yes but I am sure a quick e-mail to the top dog and a subsequent "remove that post" to a forum admin would soon whisk it away if they chose to complain...

Factual or not you would be asked to prove it until you were blue in the face and lawyers being lawyers they would find a way around it :D

[fisicx]

I'm preparing an ICO review - which I'll seo for "its cold outside" - voila... educated the few gullible enough but smart enough to research.
Probably not my best bit of writing but : http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&safe=off&num=100&q=link+building+scam&meta=&fp=cdc670780f92bfbe or even http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&safe=off&num=100&q=it%27s+cold+outside+scam&meta=&fp=cdc670780f92bfbe

Doncha just love wordpress (apologies for the link drop)

[regencychess]

I wouldn't be surprised if like 'Edirectory' these guys undergo a rebrand sometime soon.

[maruby]

I wouldn't be surprised if like 'Edirectory' these guys undergo a rebrand sometime soon.

LOL
But we'll all know who they are really as I doubt their sales tactics will change!

[regencychess]

LOL
But we'll all know who they are really as I doubt their sales tactics will change!

Indeed.....

No matter what they call themselves the old timers among us will spot them a mile off... same script... different member of staff.... same old nonsense!

[SEO Positive]

Indeed.....

No matter what they call themselves the old timers among us will spot them a mile off... same script... different member of staff.... same old nonsense!

its all well and good us lot knowing who they are, but its the clients that wont know, and they are the people that these sort of companies are targeting, and damaging.

[regencychess]

Yes, I agree. At least posts like this will go some way to informing those that do a bit of research first... although sadly those who don't do their detective work will fall prey...

[Ali-v-8]

Yes, I agree. At least posts like this will go some way to informing those that do a bit of research first... although sadly those who don't do their detective work will fall prey...

Thats about 90% of the new website owners