CALL ONE -- 11:32 AM (from 702-835-0099)
Sales rep: "Is this the owner of import-reviews.com?"
Me: "Yes, it is."
Sales rep: "Well, I can help you get your site in all major search engines within 30 days..."
Me: (Laughing)
Sales rep: "We can submit your site and you'll pay just $.25 per click for traffic..."
Me: (Laughing)
Sales rep: "What exactly does your business do?"
Me: (Slowly stop laughing.) "I do SEO."
Sales rep: "You mean... Search engine optimization? But the site is Import-Reviews..."
Me: "That's a site I'm running on my own, for fun. For practice and experiments and stuff."
Sales rep: "Well, we can help get that site listed in over 200 major search engines..."
Me: "No, thank you. Have a great day."
CALL TWO -- 12:03 PM (from 702-835-0099)
Sales rep: "Is this the owner of import-reviews.com?"
Me: "Yes..."
Sales rep: "Well, I can help you get your site in all major search engines within 30 days..."
Me: "Yes, I just heard all about it from someone else from your company who called me just half an hour ago."
Sales rep: "Great. So you know that we can submit your site and you'll pay just $.25 per click..."
Me: "Yes, and I'm not even remotely interested. How did you get my number? Why are you guys calling me again?"
Sales rep: "Um... All of our information comes from a database of companies. I don't know..."
Me: "Alright. Fine. Thank you. I'm not interested. Goodbye."
MY CALL TO 702-835-0099 -- 12:08 PM
Automated system: "Thank you for calling US Website Builder. For sales, press one. For client support, press two. To be removed from our calling list, press three."
Me: I press three.
Automated system: "Thank you for calling US Website Builder. For sales, press one. For client support, press two. To be removed from our calling list, press three."
Me: I consider how cool it is that the system must just automatically read my caller ID number and delete it from their database. That's really pretty slick!
Automated system: "Thank you for calling US Website Builder. For sales, press one. For client support, press two. To be removed from our calling list, press three."
Me: I press three again. Harder.
Automated system: "Thank you for calling US Website Builder. For sales, press one. For client support, press two. To be removed from our calling list, press three."
Me: I press two. Then one. Then three again. Then hang up.
CALL THREE -- 1:34 PM (Unknown Number)
Sales rep: "Is this the owner of import-reviews.com?"
Me: "Woah."
Sales rep: "Well, I can help you get your site in all major search engines within 30 days..."
Me: "What country are you guys from?"
Sales rep: "We're located in California..."
Me: "This is my third call from you today. All three were unsolicited."
Sales rep: "I'm very sorry, sir. I can remove you from our calling list."
Me: "I realize it's not your fault personally. And it would be good if you could remove me from your calling list."
Sales rep: "I will make a note of this conversation."
Me: "Great. Thank you, have a great day."
Sales rep: "And did you know that we can help get your site listed in over 200 major search engines..."
Me: Click.
RESEARCH AND SPAM, SPAM, SPAM
Because now I'm personally involved. So these guys are listed with the BBB for fifteen complaints (all resolved, of course) and there are a couple reports on RipOffReport.com alleging Misleading sales tactics, poor account management, and deceptive contracts.
But I'm a broad-minded individual. So I went out to see what kind of SEO they're actually doing. It's unbelievably, laughably, textbook bad.
First off, on their actual web design clients, they add their own company name as part of the title tag. So we get sites like "Waterfront Bar and Grill Restaurant USWEBSITEBUILDER.COM." And there's a hidden link embedded with an image map into the footer of the site, pointing back to the USWebsiteBuilder site. Classy stuff.
The best part, though, is the landing pages that get built onto other sites. Check out this one!
http://www.mail-order-brides-blossoms.com/USWEB/
It doesn't look TOO bad, until you click and drag on the page to select all the hidden text. And view source to look at the meta tags. There are hundreds of hidden links on that page. The Meta Keywords tag almost fills up an entire page all by itself.
For just $30 a month, you can be a part of all this?
Tell you what. For $30 a month, I'll just delete your site and get you the same results.