Local Linkup

EntrepreneurWannabe

Free Member
Sep 14, 2010
16
0
Just because a select few idiots that have a high and mighty opinion of themselves tell other people something is a scam without backing anything up with any evidence - doesn't make it a scam.
I could easily reply to every single business idea and say they're all a scam and 99.9% of the time I'll be completely wrong - I'd only do that sort of thing though if I either; 1) was doing poorly in business; 2) I was jealous; 3) I wasn't very professional; or lastly 4) I was just a sad pathetic loser.

Now thank you for the English lesson Grandad, but the guy who messaged me said if I wasn't happy they would offer me a no quibble refund on my set up cost.

P.S. I doubt trading standards would be bothered about wasting time on you, nor would I, but the report button takes a split second to click and I don't think the admins would be happy with a great big log of reports to go through.
 
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Wannabe change your name to victimwannabee.

I AM an SEO an I will deliver what local link up are offering you.
In fact i will do it cheaper £250.
What i need from you is a business name and company address so that i can set you an account up.

Pm me the details over.... oh no already have them :D

Telephone House
Fenton Street
Lancaster
United Kingdon
LA1 1AB

Amazing they can even spell kingdom right
This thread will soon join the ranks [removed by mod].
Ew if you are a real person i feel sorry for you on three levels.
1) you are trying to pitch people
2) you don't even know how [removed by mod] you sound trying to convince people who are wise to internet marketing that local linkup are good. [removed by mod]
3) You have your choice go ahead waste your money. but tell us what it is now that you do and we will watch anxiously for your business to make billions .
 
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Mystro

Free Member
Aug 20, 2009
1,107
378
Essex
I've already been through this question. Your avoidance of my question however only tells me that you're too 'proud' to admit that you could be wrong.

I'd just like to hear some unbiased opinions because I want to see the bigger picture before I decide whether or not to give this a go. I've read more about these companies on things like blagger, and now I've done a bit of research I'm a bit more reserved about it, plus £300 is a fair bit for someone who only has a mediocre job - but if it worked it would be a good move, right?

Here you go heres my unbiased opinion save your money and go to the pub, youll have 100% more chance of making a sale in there then you would by using their service

When a whole forum tells you not too there is normally a good reason why
 
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shotfox

Free Member
Nov 22, 2010
1
0
Hi all

Interesting read - although i guess a lot of the good stuff has been removed by mods.

I too have been approached by LLU and was about to part with some cash when I came accross this forum.

So I suppose my question is now: who should I approach to optimise my website for long term results and how much should I expect to pay?

Cheers

Shotfox
 
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Good stuff!! you don't know half of it. Don't think LLU will ever come on here and lie about their business model again.
There is another thread that went crazy on here somewhere. Very interesting read.
 
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the threads alive again....... My only advice would be not to spend cash willy nilly, look for a proffessional who can back up what he is telling you and not just by spamming sites, but the best thing to do is to listen to the SEO guys on here loads of good threads from Harryboon

best of luck though, I would tend to go for a company that offer some form money back guarantee or someone who charges less but is completely honest with his approach i.e he or she will tell you the kind of keywords or phrases they expect you to be successfull with but will tell you straight which ones wont get you there unless you pay loads of cash, a proper seo pro will know straight away,

Good luck just dont get scammed and rush into parting with cash research who ever you use and set out your expectations, and there capabilities, hey lets face it we cant type anything bad on here about LLU because it will be removed but all am saying is I wouldnt use them and I doubt anyone else on here would either except those guys who work for them who are always on here.
 
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hoops2011

Free Member
Jan 12, 2011
1
0
I have had dealings with these people. In my experience they are unscrupulous operators and provide one of the poorest services I have ever known.

My experience of them includes them taking money from a bank account without prior authorisation, failing to provide the service paid for, failing to update account details and being very pushy trying to sell services that were not required.

I am sure there are some people who are very satisfied with them, funny how they haven't posted here though!

For me this is a company that I wouldn't ever touch with a bargepole in the future but by all means make your own judgements. :mad:
 
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steve preston

Free Member
Apr 22, 2011
4
0
Completely silly amounts....I was lured by a £300 set up then as i say silly amounts of perhaps £10 per month...I have tried to cancel with them..Cancelled my DD they then debited my origional Credit Card..Been on to them to dispute to debits..There harder to get rid of than Athaletes Foot!
 
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Completely silly amounts....I was lured by a £300 set up then as i say silly amounts of perhaps £10 per month...I have tried to cancel with them..Cancelled my DD they then debited my origional Credit Card..Been on to them to dispute to debits..There harder to get rid of than Athaletes Foot!

Yes in these situations it is best to cancel the card.

It will probably save you money if you apply this situation to future buying decisions.

I think most people get caught out, i did at the start.
 
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locallinkup

Dear all

First a personal comment. I usually decline to comment on this forum as it seems to be often frequented by people who clearly have an agenda but tonight I felt compelled to say something. If you are inclined to make personal comments and suggestions about people you don't know then you must really have questionable character yourself! I think I am an honourable person who fights hard to give our customers a great service. I am sure we don't always get it right but I can assure you that myself and everyone employed by my company feel the same. If they don't, we don't want them to work with us.

Local Link Up has over 30,000 customers on various services and over 3000 regular subscribers to our PLINK product. The founders have been involved in the UK Internet sector for 14 years and sold a business three years ago to BT for £20 million pounds after substantial due diligence by one of the UK's largest telecoms companies. How many of you experts who criticise us on these boards have managed that? In addition we are not in competition with BT. They offer completely different services.

That said we have learned much over the years from our previous business and spent a lot of time building new products that are great value for our customers and frankly we get better all the time. I am not saying we have not made mistakes in the past but we try very hard to put them right. The market we work in has changed considerably during the last few years and has become very much more competitive. You only have to look at Yellow Pages magical shrinking book to see how many businesses have struggled to make products that appeal. We have always tried to appeal to a mass market. We have looked at the products out there and have come up with a suite of internet advertising products that we think are second to none. People on here that criticise us are very often competitors who don't like what we do because it offends their ideas of what the market is but we see it differently!

Our main product, a PLINK is a free website that comes with a domain name, hosting and email. It is fully editable by the customer (including the description) in a sophisticated content management system that is also free. We don't control what is on the page, the customer does. We do offer a content writing service, again free, but the customer can change and update what we write. We don't write spammy unprofessional pages and I have to agree that the example description that is on the page shown is pretty poor. I wouldn't write something like that and neither would my team I am fairly certain. We write over 75 customer descriptions a day and we pretty good at it. Again not perfect I am sure.

We are called Local Link Up because we focus on local SEO. We only charge our customers very small monthly fees based around local phrases that they choose to be ranked on and only if we manage first page on Google. Our customers pay nothing else. We are the only company out there that has the courage to offer a free product based only on results. Some people suggest that those phrases are not competitive but they are I can assure you, we compete very hard to make sure our customers get found for what they choose. All customers choose a range of phrases from popular to less popular and they are priced accordingly. Some are easier than others for us to get found but we get people found for phrases they are not currently found for so for a tiny monthly fee they are getting ranked on the first page of Google.

We have over 250,000 phrases ranked on the first page of Google currently and the service has only been available since September 2010 and we are growing weekly. Despite the unpleasant comments we get lots of businesses who choose our service and see it as great value and are getting lots of enquiries through Google.
Google doesn't work for everyone but you can't do better than being ranked on the first page for your phrases so if people don't want your service that's not a fault of our service. That means being on Google won't work for you. There is no cheaper service than Local Link Up to find out if it will work for you either!

But that's not all. Our service is totally free until you get first page results. Our customers can upgrade to a fully functioning website, again with a sophisticated CMS. We recommend they do but many don't preferring to stick with the PLINK as it works for them. If our customers choose to upgrade they get access to one of the highest quality web design services at very low prices and again with no monthly hosting fees or domain renewal charges unlike almost all other companies.

On either of our products no customer is charged anything monthly until they get rankings on Google. We measure those rankings four times a month. We have an unlimited refund policy and we prefer our customers to pay by direct debit which again by the very nature of the scheme has an unlimited refund policy. If someone wasn't happy with any part of our service they can cancel at any time with NO NOTICE and claim a refund at any time if they don't think we did our job.

As well as charging extremely low prices we cap our customer's bill at 25% of the total value of their campaign so that they don't get any bill shocks when we start to get lots of phrases found.

Mr Preston I usually am not prepared to discuss our client's cases in public but I believe we have only ever had one Steve Preston cancel his service and it is simply false that we debit someone's cards after they cancel their direct debit. We usually only hold one payment method at any time on our system and we have taken payments since November via your credit card on your most recent account. You had two packages with us and cancelled one in February and the other in April. You chose in February to keep the second one and then cancelled that one in April. It is disingenuous to claim that you didn't know your card was debited and indeed you were corresponding with people making enquiries via our service as late as the third of April 2011. WE have the emails from you to the enquirers.

If any of our customers ever has any questions they can call us directly. Our telephone lines are open during normal business hours and are staffed by friendly UK based people who are always willing to help our customers. We don't have a queuing system on the phone but then you would know that as you have called us many times in the past. We of course, have the calls recorded! We dealt with an email from you to us to cancel your package on the 15th of April but you were notified on the 1st of April to your yahoo email address that your payment for a whole £9.08 plus vat would be taken on the 15th. Due to the banking system we would submit that request on the 12th. We have not taken any payment since you notified us you wished to cancel your package!

Mr Preston I am really sorry you felt the service didn't work for you but please note that you were on the first page of Google for the most competitive phrase in your sector and that part of the service was costing you £1.85 per month. Indeed now after you cancel the service you can be sure that one of your competitors will be there instead. We would love to attract you back and I am happy to offer you six months totally free service to prove to you that the service will work for you which I am sure it will. If you wish to take up this offer please call our telephone number and ask for me.

I hope that this thread does not continue to attract negative comments from other providers but I am willing to put our service and value proposition up against any other internet business. If you are ready to criticise our service please be prepared to compare our service to what you offer and I will happily show you in public why what we offer is better value. If you really want to judge the quality of the service we offer why not become one of our resellers and then you would really find out just how hard we work to make our customers happy.
Stuart Forrest
Local Link Up
 
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Dear Everyone who has read this.
There is a cheaper service than this. Its call Google places...Its free.
There is free listings in many directories.

Now just to clarify, we spoke to one of your staff who constantly lied on here about your service which can you stop calling SEO.
It is nothing more than directory pages linked together with other advertiser.
If you are looking for people to say they are great you have come to the wrong place.
Or have you changed your policy
 
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First a personal comment. I usually decline to comment on this forum as it seems to be often frequented by people who clearly have an agenda

No agenda other than i hate seeing people get a raw deal.

In addition we are not in competition with BT. They offer completely different services.

You are...

We are called Local Link Up because we focus on local SEO. We only charge our customers very small monthly fees based around local phrases that they choose to be ranked on and only if we manage first page on Google. Our customers pay nothing else

Regardless of the price your not delivering a return on investment to the poor sods who part with their hard earned money for a plink page.


We have over 250,000 phrases ranked on the first page of Google currently and the service has only been available since September 2010 and we are growing weekly. Despite the unpleasant comments we get lots of businesses who choose our service and see it as great value and are getting lots of enquiries through Google.
Google doesn’t work for everyone but you can’t do better than being ranked on the first page for your phrases so if people don’t want your service that’s not a fault of our service. That means being on Google won’t work for you. There is no cheaper service than Local Link Up to find out if it will work for you either!

I have yet to see a plink page ranked for anything worthwhile. Your pages target phrases that are easy, and even still it's a bodge job for the easy terms.

WE have the emails from you to the enquirers.

They will be false enquiries or the majority of them will be, you know that as well as we do.

you were on the first page of Google for the most competitive phrase in your sector and that part of the service was costing you £1.85 per month.

Feel free to post an example of what you deem the most competitive phrase for his sector. Since you have gone out of your way to post on this thread you might aswell back up your statements.

I hope that this thread does not continue to attract negative comments from other providers but I am willing to put our service and value proposition up against any other internet business. If you are ready to criticise our service please be prepared to compare our service to what you offer and I will happily show you in public why what we offer is better value. If you really want to judge the quality of the service we offer why not become one of our resellers and then you would really find out just how hard we work to make our customers happy.
Stuart Forrest
Local Link Up

Stuart your only making people on this forum laugh to be honest.
 
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locallinkup

Mr Massey

I am glad I provide entertainment for you. In fact you did to me too. I laughed my socks off at the quality of your website. Nicholas Massey co uk In all your 23 years you must have gained such insight into the world. I was providing internet services when you were 9!

I think I will leave at that with you. Carry on posting nonsense on here and I will take other action. Think again if you think I will ignore this tripe you post about my company. We work hard to do a good service. If you dont like it thats up to you but let my customers decide if it works for them. Thankfully 3000 companies have decided it does. There is nothing stopping them leaving.

How many customers do you have?
 
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locallinkup

Brilliant Ali-v-8! I wasnt aware you had been given the licence to decide what could and couldnt be called SEO.

Again I am not about to start a slanging match and I am certainly not looking for compliments on here but you seem to be missing the point slightly. Normal Google listings are also free if you have the skills and the time to get yourself listed. We just do it for you for a very small charge and you only pay when we get results. Building a wall is free if you have the bricks and the place to build it but I never try to build my own walls.

I have no idea which service you are looking at. Our service gives each person their own website. You may see it differently but I do have some experience of the internet as I stated earlier. For reference I also founded a company called the Search Engineers Ltd in 1998. That was one of the first SEO companies in the UK market! Exactly 12 years before you registered your business and a lifetime in the internet as you know.

With the greatest of respect Ali it appears your business was established in late 2010 and is based in small short licence office premises. (I know I have visited the business centre) but yet you claim to be "a group of leading SEO consultants, PPC specialist, website designers and communication experts who specialise in organic Google search engine optimisation and online business marketing". What is your pedigree? I note that as late as March 23rd 2011 you were stating that you decided your new business was now a media company, before that you were unsure. Whether you like what my business does it is distasteful to find a fellow professional coming on here wasting their time criticising another service. Why not focus on your own service. I don’t doubt that you can offer a quality experience because i have no evidence to suggest otherwise and I have no agenda to come of these forums posting about your business. I would usually refrain from that sort of thing.

I note that one of your quotes is "British businesses are not grasping the various concepts surrounding internet marketing" and that "most business have yet to understand the reach that the internet has. Google has become the new high street and unless you have some presence there your prices and your reputation won’t mean a thing." so why do you object to my business getting people a presence on Google for a very low monthly fee. Is it perhaps because you offer a traditional SEO service like thousands of other companies who charge people a fee for you work before they get results? As I said we don’t see the market that way. We have a different perspective and we have been reasonably successful in the past with our alternative view on the market. Perhaps you would like to meet up and see what our company really does.

Can you tell us a little about your service? It is a great platform to explain what you do and how that is better value etc. Do you have your own CMS system or do you just white label one. Perhaps you could show me how I can get a look at your products. If they are better I will take my hat off to you.

I note also you have various accreditations on your website. They are very small and I am not able to make them all out but can you perhaps highlight what they are and who you are registered with etc.
I would really like not to spend my time disputing the credibility of my service or indeed other services like yours on here. It would be very sensible if people focused on their own businesses rather than causing bad feeling making unfounded and unpleasant claims on here.

I like your logo!
 
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Mr Preston I am really sorry you felt the service didn’t work for you but please note that you were on the first page of Google for the most competitive phrase in your sector and that part of the service was costing you £1.85 per month.

Feel free to post examples of what your plink pages are capable of ranking for. We would all like to see.
 
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locallinkup

Mr Massey. I dont have to justify myself to you do I. Are you the same Mr Massey who also claims to be a plumber and an electrician as well as an seo expert. You have done some things in your 23 years. Do you also offer business advice. Can I make an appointment.

Lets agree to disagree. I personally dont think your input will provide any useful feedback on my business for users of this forum but I wont tolerate random slanderous comments. I will let my customers decide if they value our services. I think you should stick to doing the same with your customers.
 
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steve preston

Free Member
Apr 22, 2011
4
0
Have read your lenghty and detailed reply...Like you have somthing to defend!
All i want is to cancel my contract with you..I feel i have been 'Miss-sold' and inspite of trying to cancel with you..inspite of cancelling my Direct Debit you still persist in telephoning me and debiting my Credit Card! This doesn't fit with your Money Back comment!
If your that good..Let me go..Hey..I'm not competion..Just ONE of your disgruntled customers...Fast Track Maidstone. Cancel my contract..Stop taking my money. Thanks
 
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locallinkup

Yes Mr Preston that is the email I referred to that was dealt with on the 15th of this month. We have much to defend seemingly. We operate with integrity and try to offer an open and honest service. We all speak to customers and always try be be courteous, friendly and efficient. You wouldnt always believe that reading some of the nonsense posted on here by our competitors who frankly have no experience of what we do. Some people dont like our service but then thats their choice. There are many services out there that I dont like that cost thousands of pounds to test the water with. Our service is by far the cheapest internet advertising service out there unless you are prepared to manage your own campaign instead of teaching people to drive or any of the other thousands of services our customers offer.

I only offered you free service as I believe over time you would come to value the package but its up to you if you dont want that of course. I am sorry you feel it doesnt work for you but we have lots of driving instructors for customers around the country and they seem to get plenty of enquiries. Like any form of advertising you have to decide where it is best to spend your money. Remember we are not really the advertising service, Google is. We just try to put you on the first page very quickly and then leave it to the Google users to decide if they want to use your service of course.

I maintain that we didnt (and would never) debit anyone's cards after they asked us to stop. You knew the account was still active and indeed made a suggestion for a change to our messaging service on the 6th of April. You were replied to shortly after saying we were looking into making a change. Surely those are not the actions of a man who cancelled months ago as you suggest. You also answered several emails to potential customers who made enquiries through the Local Link Up system. You dont mention that you were still using the service and communicating with potential clients and our tech support very recently. I appreciate you have decided you dont like the service but you implied that we took payments after you explicitly told us to stop. There is absolutely no evidence of that.

In any case I can confirm that your account has been cancelled as of the 15th of April and no payments will be taken from your account at any time in the future.

You are welcome to take up my free offer any time you see fit in the future.

Many thanks

Stuart Forrest
 
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Dear Stuart,

I am an SEO specialist. I have been for a number of years. If you have a problem with how I work please show me a single technique I use which is questionable.
I dont think I need to get into a slanging match with you either.
I also dont think that you realise what you fellow colleague said on this forum a while ago.
You are being honest that you provide web presence, but you cannot class that as SEO.

The end.
 
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locallinkup

Ali-v-8

There must be some confusion. I came on here to defend my company from spurious claims made by people who have very little idea about my business and the efforts that go in to our products. Nobody from my company has ever posted on here with our authority and I have read the rest of thread and many of your comments which in some cases are fairly unpleasant. I would hope that you will refrain from this in the future. I do not tolerate any member of staff posting on any forum and we have had disciplinary cases previously because of this. I ordinarily would not bother myself but I felt very upset when reading some of the nonsense on here which in the main was completely untrue.

As I have stated previously, everyone at Local Link Up has the best intentions to provide a truly excellent service. We are constantly strive to get better and better and we focus all our efforts on our services not out competitors. I am comfortable that we in the main provide a high quality package and with 3000 paying subscribers in a few months we can’t be doing too badly and 17,000 other customers with various packages in just over twelve months since inception.

I really don’t mind if you don’t think it is not SEO. I think after 14 years of optimising websites I can decide for myself if that is what I choose to call my service. The important thing is that we charge people for successful first page Google listings for phrases they have chosen. To achieve those we create a website and then we optimise their website for them to get first page rankings where possible. We revisit the site up to several times a month and optimise it further. How is that not "search engine optimisation". I would argue that we work much harder than your typical SEO company and we have to because we don’t get paid unless we succeed. How many other services are that brave to put all their revenue on the line based on performance that you know of? We can agree to disagree if it is SEO or not.

What is important is that it is highly unethical for fellow industry professionals to come on here and cause unrest about another industry professionals services without knowing anything about what they do. I am sure you would be disgruntled if I took to these forums to post criticism about your business because clearly I have nothing to base that on. I have no interest in anyone else products and I am far too busy running my own business to spend my time criticising you or anyone else. I will always defend the excellent service myself and my colleagues always work to offer.

I have many ,many friends in this industry who also run SEO services and although I think ours is better I have never ever been tempted to go online and try to make myself look good by criticising their offerings. I hope you can see that is the correct approach to take. I know at least ten other large businesses that all do traditional SEO and not one of them would go online and post about my business either. They are all busy making money from their customers charging fees for their work. I personally think that’s an unfair model but each to their own and the important thing is that their customers are happy with what they do.

I am happy to draw a line under this and wish you every success for the future in your business.

Best wishes.
 
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locallinkup

Ali-v-8

I mentioned what our products are earlier in the thread. If this is yet another effort to find something criticise about our service I am disappointed. Surely your concern should be with your own services but you seem to be unable to resist worrying about what we do and how we do it.

Our service is a proprietary service meaning enormous effort (a software development team of ten) and thought has gone in to how to best get customer's results as we don't get paid if they don't get first page rankings on Google. As I have also said previously we are (as far as I know) the only company that puts all their revenue on the line depending on results.

We only work on new websites because we all too often find that existing websites are poorly built from inception and would take too long to correct, are often managed by bedroom designers that resist every effort to make them better in the interests of looking clever to their clients and are sometimes hosted in ridiculous places and perform poorly.

All customers get a free domain name which they can transfer out at any time or can transfer in their own domain. They get hosting free for as long as they pay for the service. They also get free unlimited use of our excellent CMS system and all for a very low monthly success based fee with no upfront charges. It is a completely different offering from traditional SEO. The investment for our customers is ZERO until they get results including domain and hosting charges.

Once again and if you are really interested in what we do I am very happy to meet up and discuss it as we are expanding our reseller base and you might surprise yourself and be impressed. We have several ex SEO businesses as resellers already who feel that our managed service is better for their business profitability and for their customers. If you wish to just give me a call otherwise please lets draw a line under this thread as I am sure we both have better things to do. [FONT=&quot]
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