Lend Me Your Ears, or, Who You Callin' a Faggot?

Are all companies that sell search engine optimization services swindlers and crooks, as I've heard? Surely not, but my own experiences with an SEO firm called eBoost Media quickly turned surreal, so I'd like to share the saga here — and in return invite your wisdom.

Let me cut right to the heart (and the height) of the bizarre goings-on: on Friday evening, I received an anonymous, sneering, jeering voice-mail from an eBoost Media customer service rep. She called me a "faggot" and a "queer." I shit you not. This was her apparent retaliation for my demanding a refund due to the fact that the company had, for multiple weeks, not delivered one iota of what they said they would. I got tired of the excuses and wanted out, and they were giving me the runaround, so I laid it out simply enough by phone and e-mail: either you give me my money back or you'll be looking at a police complaint and a possible fraud investigation.

Here's the message I received in return. Actually, there are two. The first one (relatively polite, though the strained friendliness is pretty evident) is from an eBoost Media customer service manager called Denette. The second message, left just minutes later, is the fascinating one in which I'm addressed as, let us say, a flamboyant friend of Dorothy's. Is it the same woman on the recording, times two? Sounds like it to my (musically well-trained) ears.

In case you can't get the recording to play (I've embedded it above but it doesn't seem to work on all PC/Mac/browser configurations; you can also download the small WMA file by clicking here, or the MP3 by clicking here), this is the verbatim text:

"Hey Roger van Fucko, you are a faggot! So listen to this, queer!" [unintelligible background noise and talking, then the name 'Roger' again, then she hangs up]

When I called him yesterday, eBoost's acting CEO Michael Luvano agreed to listen to the recording. He then acknowledged that the second call had come from someone at eBoost Media, but curiously enough, he denied it was Denette. The mystery culprit, he said hours after hearing the messages, had already been "dealt with" — she'd been "severely reprimanded." When, puzzled, I suggested we ought to let other people listen to the messages on the Internet and solicit their opinions on whether or not it's the same voice, he got huffy and accused me of being out to badmouth his company.

Nonetheless, Luvano offered to have the CEO, Kevin Johnson (who he said was on vacation) write me a personal apology. He also said the company would finally refund the dough, which I appreciate.

Let's see if the money arrives. And Johnson's note, too.

Anyway, help me out here: Isn't the woman on the two voicemails one and the same? I'm curious what you think. (Remember, Luvano has already admitted it's someone who works for him at eBoost Media, and that that person has been disciplined, but that was all he would say on the matter.) Does anybody else suspect, as I do, that he's just blowing smoke by denying that the deranged individual who left message number two is the very same woman as the caller who left the first message?

Listen carefully and take the poll!

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P.S.: During the initial sales call, the eBoost Media sales rep made much of eBoost's purported "special relationship" with Google, and talked about what terrific partners the two companies are.

Turns out that's a lie, at least according to someone who ought to know — Kasia Chmielinski of Google Corporate Communications. I received this kind e-mail from Kasia today.

Hi Rogier,

Thanks for getting in touch with us.

As a matter of policy, Google does not provide assistance to, preference for or recommend any particular SEO company. You can read our thoughts about employing an SEO firm here, in our help center. A few paragraphs in particular I'd like to point out:

"Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a 'special relationship' with Google, or advertise a 'priority submit' to Google. There is no priority submit for Google. In fact, the only way to submit a site to Google directly is through our Add URL page or by submitting a Sitemap and you can do this yourself at no cost whatsoever."

"While Google doesn't comment on specific companies, we've encountered firms calling themselves SEOs who follow practices that are clearly beyond the pale of accepted business behavior. Be careful."

In addition, I did a quick search on them [eBoost Media] and found they have been cited for their scams.

If you have any additional questions, please let me know.

Thanks,

k.

So, is eBoost Media a swindle? A fraud? Affirmative, says Google, but perhaps others can shed additional light on the subject. Feel free to post about your experiences with eBoost Media — at least if your IP address does not match any of eBoost's corporate computers...

P.P.S.: Others are shedding additional light, courtesy of Boing Boing, the most popular blog in the world. Overall, the picture emerging is, um, no great credit to eBoost Media. Looky here. Pay special attention to moderator Teresa Nielsen Hayden's mini-investigation, comment #52.

Comments

[Sandy]

Don't know about the phone messages, but SEO services are almost all bunk. The few who are useful essentially tell you how to optimize your content, help you fix any problems with your HTML, and poor design decisions that hurt search engine optimization. Most skilled web developers and designers should be able to do these things. What the SEO people may do, which should be sold to you as marketing services, is help you manage a Google AdWords account and ad placement on relevant sites.

However, if they guarantee you "top placement in at least one of the top ten search engines" and five of the ten are ones you've never heard of, it's a scam. This is 99% of advertised SEO services that I've seen.

The ones that aren't scammy are pretty expensive, too.

[Ragnar Danneskjöld]

The clear response is to make all of you follow up calls from now on with the most affected lisp you can muster. Lots of gay double-entendre and Freudian thlips, I mean slips.

[Mindy]

Not all SEO companies are scammers, but sadly most businesses do not know how to find a good one. That company you link to has a homepage that is not in Google's index and is about the most search engine-unfriendly page/site you could possibly design as it has no content save a bunch of hidden keywords stuffed in behind the flash.

If you'd gotten references, Googled them, did some basic research about SEO or even shopped around they'd have been exposed before you ever signed up for their services.

A good SEO firm will not only fix the problems with your code and copy but will add great content to your site, understand how to encourage conversions from your visitors and will where and how to promote your site online to get links to help improve your search rankings and bring you additional sources of good quality traffic. They will be able to help you understand how people search for your services online.

A good SEO firm will also never sell you rankings - they will improve them, sure, but they'll talk to you about improving the amount and quality of your traffic and, more importantly, the number of leads and sales you get through your website.

[Justin]

Roger, I am sorry to hear that you had a bad experience with a search engine optimization company. I can assure you that not every company practices these bad techniques.

If you ever decide to use an SEO again I would suggest you ask them for results they have produced along with names of people at the companies they can contact.

If they have a site that is in all flash (similar to the one you used) that is typically not a good thing. The biggest warning sign is if they guarantee you a particular spot in the rankings, no company can control where you will display in the search engines unless they are performing pay-per-click

[Gregor]

You might want to nofollow that link to eBoostMedia - you don't want to get them a single thing that might benefit their search engine ranking!

There are good and decent SEO companies out there - you just have to choose carefully.

That's an appalling experience you've had!

[Seologia]

To the anonymous commenter: "What the SEO people may do, which should be sold to you as marketing services, is help you manage a Google AdWords account and ad placement on relevant sites."

That's what we reffer to as SEM, not SEO. Not all SEO services are scams. There are some people that really know what they're doing out there. :)

[Carolyn Price]

Whew! Looking at their site, I wouldn't touch them with a yardstick. The worst damage they've done here of course is to the entire SEO industry.

SEO is about so much more than "top placement in at least one of the top ten search engines", as alluded to in the first comment, or about managing Adwords campaigns. I feel sorry that you had such a bad experience and hope that your next encounter with an SEO company results in you having an ongoing relationship and a Web site that visitors want to come back to again and again.

[David Brown]

Wow! Sorry for your experience... it will be interesting to see how the company replies to this blog post and what stance they take... in this world of Web 2.0 that's just how it goes...

@Sandy the reason that the SEO's that are not "Scammy" are expensive is because we make our clients LOADS of money ;)

db

[Michael D]

Too funny. As a small business owner that gets hounded with calls from these so called "SEO" companies, I think writing about experiences (both good and bad) is helpful to others. With enough people writing about the companies they are dealing with and sharing information about service quality, we can hopefully weed out the bad apples.

[Joe Hall]

After taking a quick glance at their site, I think its really funny that a so called SEO company uses a site made completely out of flash, uses very very aggressive keyword stuffing in their meta tags, and uses JavaScript to hide more keyword stuffing in the body. Oh and not to mention that they are using non-standard compliant markup that looks like it came from the 90s.

[Jonathan Bentz]

I think the people who are hurt the most by this incident are smaller SEM and SEO companies. Because they don't have the name recognition of some of the bigger firms, they get bunched together with companies that pick up negative pub. This obviously needs to be brought to light, but hopefully it won't have a negative connotation for smaller SEOs.

[Phil Nelson]

Clearly, the moral here is Blog About SEO, Get A Fuckton Of Hits. Eh, Rog? Good 'ol internet.

[Jay]

Oh man. Their support email address is no longer valid. I was about to rip them a new one. :-(

[Q'iu]

Not only am I certain that it's the same person, but I believe I hear her call you "Roger von Fucko." Anyone else think so?

Not only that, but how many vulgar or insulting messages does one get on their VM? I've never gotten one, and I'm almost a ripe 40.

[Anonymouse]

Wow, that is some sweet customer service. They are definitely on the do not want list. You can tell it's the same person by the greeting "Hey,(ascending)Roger!" albeit maybe a little drunk. Also, I think she called you "Roger Von F**co however in that last message, which isn't nice at all. Let the CEO know that you are indeed a homosexual and that you are expecting a very large check in the mail for the pain and humiliation that was caused by this. Also, tell them that you never "came out" and were still in the closet and that you're whole family was there on that day for a family reunion when you played the message and they all heard it. That alone is worth at least $50,000 IMO. Don't take a stock option though if it's offered, I have a feeling it will be confederate money soon enough.

[max]

I spliced the 2 pieces of audio from both messages into a new linear composition.

If they were different voices the result would sound as if 2 people were talking. My result is one person talking.

your friendly neighborhood audiophiliac,

max

[Gerben]

Ain't this a cute posting. Nice to hear that even seo'ers seem to be human :-)

no, just kidding around. If it was a eBoostmedia sales rep, common, who can even take this company serious anymore?

[Gerben]

By the way:

http://www.eboostmedia.com/ who will trust a company telling you they know seo, don't have visible pagerank, and don't seem to http://tinyurl.com/6htq6m understand it themselves either?

[Bruce]

It didn't sound quite the same to me. I'm betting this was a prank-gone-wrong: a co-worker (with a similar voice) was in the office with Denette when she made the original call, after she hung up, they discussed the situation, how much they hate their jobs, and "don't you just wish you could say what you feel?" then they laughed and hit redial, and when your machine beeped, one started talking while the other was supposed to hang up, but somehow just didn't quite hit the button right...

[Meghan]

It is absolutely the same woman. Listen to how she pronounces your name in both messages. In both, she emphasizes the "Ro" as "Raw" and adds a curt "jer" on the end. Like handwriting, it is technically possible for two different people to skewer your name like that, but *highly* unlikely.
Though honestly, I can agree with the CEO not giving you details on the ongoing case. They are not required to let you know what employee's name was that called you (like a credit card company won't tell you who illegally charged your credit card).
Assume that Denette (and doppelganger Denette) have been dealt with - no company would risk loosing customers over rude support (especially if it ends up on the web).

[d.w. erewolf]

@MAX

Can you post a link to the linear composition you created?

[JacquelineZ]

Like the others, I'm sorry you had a bad experience - and I agree with all the commenters that mentioned eboostmedia's website is like a "what not to do" list for SEO, and that second message is unforgiveable, especially coming from a so-called professional organization.

There are some really good SEO companies out there, though, who really know their stuff and most importantly, offer performance tracking reports and accountability to their clients. In fact, that is a good thing to look for in an SEO agency - whether or not they will explain their process and give you regular reports that detail what SEO and internet marketing techniques they performed each month.

[John Gormann]

SEO "experts" are like car mechanics. Some will rip you off, leaving you stranded while others will charge you little and you end up getting many more miles out of your car.

To anyone who says that any good developer can do SEO...there's a difference between knowing how to change the oil and how to dyno a hotrod or add nitro.

Leave the SEO to the experts and always do your research before hiring.

[miguel del Pimpstik]

Second voice sounds sounds more like a teenage boy than the first caller, especially the way s/he says "queer". First voice sounds more female.

Either co-worker prank as above, or co-incidental dumb prank from random caller.

[guest]

Try some spectrum analysis on it, that should tell you with pretty great certainty whether or not it's one person or two. Voice biometrics are fun.
Seems clearly the same voice to me though, just not the same phone or phone not held the same way relative to the mouth. The second call is (1) quite possibly intoxicated and (2) in company of others, seems to me a kind of "watch this, I'll call that (pesky customer) and tell'im off" attempt of payback prank call boasting.