Here is the Story
I recently received an email from an Indian SEO specialist. He was looking for freelance work. ‘Nothing unusual there’, I hear you say! We all get loads of spam email all the time.
The unusual thing was that he named a specific SEO company in Ireland as his last employer. He also stated what keywords that he was ranking them for. I have noticed that a while ago they were very high for these keywords but have dropped back lately. Not naming names but this company proudly declares that they only use Irish employees.
What I Did Next
Used to foreign companies and people making outrageous claims about SEO I sent a heads-up to the company. They thanked me and stated, “This is very disturbing that someone can claim they are working for us”.
It wasn’t a definite no! It was just a statement! Got me curious!
So
Curious I sent back an email to the Indian SEO specialist. I told him that the company had never heard of him. In reply, he sent back the owner’s skype address.
He could have got this in numerous different ways!
Again So
I looked a little more on the company’s website. While having several staff members there are no photos of them. Nothing conclusive there! I did try to find the staff members on Linkedin with very little luck. For a company with a good few members of staff, I was only able to find 3 of them. IT people ( like me and maybe you) like Linkedin. It is a solid platform for reading interesting and serious posts and meeting like-minded individuals. Also good for finding your next role. IT people have a high turnover rate and rarely stay anywhere overly long.
Secondly, I read through some of their posts and pages. There were all written in the old style of keyword stuffing for search engines. They were hard to read by a person as the text does not make great sense. It also seemed that English was probably not the author’s first language. If English was their first language I actually feel no need to apologise!
Lastly and most damning in my eyes. They never warned people on social media about someone falsely claiming to have done their SEO for them.
I would conclude that this Indian SEO specialist was indeed doing some work for this Irish SEO company.
Why have I wasted your time on this?
I am a big detective story buff! When I come across something a little strange I am inclined to gawk when I should really be working.
Secondly, it’s St Patrick’s Day tomorrow. While I have a nice article lined up for next week this might give you a little something to talk about. You might have a couple of pints and wonder what company this story is about. It is mainly about one SEO company, but I actually know a couple more like it. This company is not doing anything that many other SEO companies are also doing.
Personally, I am not a big believer in hiring foreign companies for SEO work. Simply because English is not their first language and it is very hard to do keyword research if you are not fluent!
But if they are giving businesses the results they want then these SEO companies should just declare that they are using foreign employees. If it works, nobody cares!
Anyway, have a Happy St Patrick’s Day and don’t get too drunk!
Sláinte!