Posted by Jeremy Scott in Uncategorized | 86 Comments
eLocal Listings, Don’t Hire These Guys
We here at Keystone offer our clients SEO services. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, and it’s the process of helping your website communicate your business and your keywords to the search engines. There are a host of companies out there making outlandish promises regarding search engines, and they con a lot of people out of their money.
From time to time, we get an email or a phone call from one of these companies, and I gamely play along. I act stupid and ignorant of SEO practices and let them give me their snake-oil salesman routine so that I can better help you–the client–steer clear of such scams.
Today I got a fun call from eLocal Listings, offering one of the shadiest SEO pitches I’ve ever received. We’ll just call the guy Bob, because I was so busy trying not to laugh that I forgot his real name. Bob started out by telling me that his company could help us land tons of new clients through search engine placement. I’ll just list the errors, omissions, and outright lies I found in what he said, and then explain why he’s wrong:
1. He didn’t do his research. The first move Bob made was to not research our site and see that we offer SEO services ourselves. So he could have saved himself some embarrassment by not trying to lie to someone who knows more about real SEO than he ever will.
2. He didn’t test his theories. Bob had done just enough research to know that Keystone offers Network Administration services (helping clients with their office computer networks) and that we were located in Hendersonville, TN. So Bob asked me to go to Yahoo and search for “network integration hendersonville, tn” so I could see that we don’t rank well for that keyword phrase. Problem is… we do. We were #1, in fact (because I do my job, and do it fairly well, and also because there simply aren’t a lot of “network integration” companies in the small town of Hendersonville, TN).
I pointed out to Bob that we were already #1 for that term, and it was the first of many times to come where he was a bit speechless. “Well, you’ve got that one organically, don’t you?” Yes, Bob. Yes we do. Any other brilliant sales pitch techniques you want to run by me?
Bob’s solution to this sales roadblock was to say “Well, what if you search for ‘web development hendersonville, tn’?” I ran that query and as Bob started to point out how we didn’t rank for that, I interrupted him to say that “Well, we’re not number 1, but we’re on that first page… 8th down the list.”
So Bob clearly didn’t run these queries before calling me. He was just banking on the fact that he’d be right, and we wouldn’t rank at all. Eventually he found a phrase we didn’t rank for, and seemed to feel some pride about it. Good for you, Bob.
3. He used Yahoo for his examples. Bob, if you really knew about SEO, you’d know that Google is the dominant player, with over 60% market share, and that Yahoo is a VERY distant second. It should be noted that I really could care less how well or poorly I rank on Yahoo. But Bob was basing his entire pitch on a search engine that only has 17% of the search market at best.
4. He made vague boasts about his services. Bob said, “We have a special relationship with Google and Yahoo, because of the fine work that we do–in fact, both companies are considering buying us. Google’s been to our offices and we’ve been to theirs. Because of this special relationship, we can submit your keywords to them directly instead of going through the normal channels.” Ugh. So, I’ll deal with this more in a moment… for now, just know that no SEO has a special arrangement with Google or Yahoo that allows them to circumvent normal SEO practices. It’s somewhere between a sneaky sales tactic and an outright lie. Oh, and just because you have been to their offices (which I doubt) doesn’t prove some secret pact with them. I’ve been to the White House, so does that mean I have a “special relationship” with President Bush?
5. He uses link farms. Bob said that in addition to submitting my keywords to Google through his special relationship with them, he would also be providing me with a one-page website about our business. And because they give these one-page sites to all their clients, he can also then promise hundreds of links would be set up to be directed at my site. Links can, indeed, be helpful for SEO. But there is a HUGE difference between links that occur naturally and links that are part of giant spammy link networks. The former is helpful, the latter can get your site banned from search engines altogether.
6. He lied to me. Bob said they had Google’s logo on their site, and had it because of their “special relationship.” He told him which page on their site had the logo, and I saw 
a little button that says “We follow Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.” And there’s a small graphic with Google-colored circles in it. But it wasn’t Google’s “logo.”
Bob went on and on about how hard it is to get Google to let you use their logo, so that MUST mean eLocal is legitimate.
Whatever, Bob. That’s not the real Google logo. Besides, I can right-click and “save as” on any graphic I find online, and then post that graphic on my website… it doesn’t prove anything.
Bob’s real lie, however, is in that button’s claim that eLocal Listings “follows Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.” No, Bob, you don’t. See, I clicked that button, and it took me to this page on Google’s site, listing some of their qualifications on what makes someone a good or bad SEO. There are three key passages on this page that I want to highlight to you, where Google takes the time to warn you about shady SEO people. Here’s the first one:
Be wary of SEO firms and web consultants or agencies that send you email out of the blue.
Amazingly, we get these spam emails too:
“Dear google.com,
I visited your website and noticed that you are not listed in most of the major search engines and directories…”Reserve the same skepticism for unsolicited email about search engines as you do for “burn fat at night” diet pills or requests to help transfer funds from deposed dictators.
Amen, Google. And Bob here just cold-called me to offer unsolicited SEO services. Sure, he didn’t email… he used the phone. But I think I’ll go ahead and put him in the pile with the rest of the diet pill and Viagra solicitations I get. Here’s another section I want to point out:
No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.
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 through the Webmaster Tools and you can do this yourself at no cost whatsoever.
Let me emphasize my favorite part… “Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, (or) allege a ‘special relationship’ with Google…” Bob… buddy. Pal. You already told me on three separate occasions during this call that your company has a special relationship with Google. Then you took me from your site to Google’s Webmaster Guidelines site that explicitly tells me to avoid people that do that. Are you trying to kill your own sale?
Okay, here’s the last part of Google’s warnings that applies:
Avoid SEOs that talk about the power of “free-for-all” links, link popularity schemes, or submitting your site to thousands of search engines. These are typically useless exercises that don’t affect your ranking in the results of the major search engines — at least, not in a way you would likely consider to be positive.
So, again, you’ve linked me to a Google page that tells me to steer clear of link schemes, after you promised your link scheme would help me rank better. Which is it, Bob? Do you want to give me a bunch of spammy links to help my rankings or have me listen to Google (who tells me the opposite)? I asked Bob directly why he was promising to use links in a way that this Google page said was bad, and do you know what he did? He changed the subject immediately, and started talking about how they can choose the best 10 keywords for me and submit them to Google. Deflection is the oldest shady sales trick in the book, people. “Hey, look over there!”
7. He told me they would pick my keywords. If I’m paying someone to rank my site better on Google, I at least want to have some input as to what keyword phrases are targeted. For instance, even if Bob had been able to show that Keystone doesn’t rank well for “network integration hendersonville, tn”, it wouldn’t have bothered me. “Network integration” is not a very common search phrase. Maybe “network administration”… definitely “office computer networks” (which we rank on the first page for, by the way). But not “network integration.” If this is the kind of keyword phrases Bob was going to be able to rank me for, I have to wonder how valuable that service is.
8. He didn’t follow through. Before we hung up, I asked him to send me something in writing via email… some overview of their services so I could “sit down with my boss and talk over our options.” He agreed. Here we are, 6 hours later and I still haven’t received it. So either Bob lied and never intended to send it, or he sent it and it was caught by my spam filter. Either way, it doesn’t reflect well on him.
The list of errors could go on and on–and I’ve already written a novel here. The point is, be on the lookout for shady SEO pitches, and run from them.
For reference, here is the main launchpad page for Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. It details pretty much all the do’s and don’ts of SEO, and will help you determine if that joker on the phone has any clue what he’s talking about or not. Or… better yet… just call me when you have a shady SEO offering you unrequested services. I’ll be happy to tell you what I think–for free. And if you want to forward me any unsolicited SEO services emails, I am compiling a nice collection of these losers and would love to add yours.
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All I can say is check with your Better Business Bureau….there’s hundreds of companies, including high tech ones, with AAA+ ratings.
This company’s rating is a D.
Plus, they are very high pressure and aggressive. Means they are pushing for a commitment BEFORE you have time to evaluate and dig up any dirt.
omg… have you guys seen this! eLocal seems to be having some issues with old employees whistle blowing their company’s practices…
http://ripoffreport.com/reports/0/403/RipOff0403083.htm
A company who’s own employees are now fighting against it, says a lot about the company. I am simply flabbergasted…
We were contacted by this company, my husband thought, WOW what a great deal. I said wait let me check them out. Looking before you leap expecially with your CC is a great idea. Thanks for the heads up.
We have had an ad with elocal plumbers for several years, and had never had a customer lead until just lately. (As far as I can recall we never placed the ad with elocal plumber. I think they saw that we had good placement with search engines and placed us on their site.) In the past 3 weeks we have had 2 requests from customers needing bids for work from this elocal plumber ad. What a coincidence!
It was only 1 month ago that we had declined an offer from elocal listing in Temecula, CA. Are “elocal plumbers” and “elocal listing” in Temecula, CA affiliated? It seems too coincidental that for several years there’s been no response from the ad. Then after declining the elocal listing offer, we get 2 potential customers that are interested in our services. I think elocal might be sending us fraudulent responses from our ad to see if we will respond. Why would they do that? I’m thinking they will use the bogus customers to try once more to get us to sign on with elocal listing.
Does anyone know? Are elocallisting and elocal plumbers affiliated? There is also an elocal eletrician.
Thanks, Janis
It seems their is a community of seo professionals who are building a community against elocal on twitter lol check it out. http://www.twitter.com/elocalscams
I got scammed by elocal. They contacted me offering placements on the first page of Google and Yahoo for my vacation home. There was an initial fee and a monthly fee. Our site was never up on any of the phrases that they promised us, so I canceled after paying over $450. They kept charging my credit card and have done so for four months after a written cancellation. I am taking it up with the credit card company because they say that I never canceled even though I have an e-mail to one of the principals of the company. Don’t believe anything they say they are totally dishonest. When dealing with them trying to get my money back they pass me from person to person and put me on hold forever.
You think I would learn, I must just be stupid. Another company named Ilocal listing contacted me with a better deal. I told them I was not interested and a gentleman by the name of Michael Poirier, who said he was one of the owners of the company gave me a written guarantee that they would place my vacation home on the front page of Google Yahoo and MSN. Again paying them over $250 for the initial setup I was contacted by their company who promised me five phrases and said they could only deliver two. This was after Jack and me around for another month. They never made good again I had to contact my credit card company to stop payment on this scam.
I have been using net biz and it’s costing me a little bit more but they have my site number one in Google every time I check. So I decided to pay the additional amount and continue with this company. I will see what happens, RJ
You will be happy to arm yourself with a new set of ammunition against elocal listing: They have just done a MASSIVE reduction in staff. 26 elocal listing employees, largely consisting of customer service (odd, since we have seen in this blog alone that they are severely inadequate at catering to their employees on the phones already) The reason why? eLocal Listing has spent months dedicated to cross training and consolidating jobs; offering false promises of raises and implementing incentive processes ONLY to get a full view of departmental numbers with the sole intention of firing their hard working employees without any prior warning to meet a 15 million dollar investment requirement. What kind of sick company does this after their employees have created a more consistent and efficient business core and structure?? eLocal Listing.
If eLocal Listing holds a weekly production pep rally to promise it’s employees that they are soon to be millionaires and to swoon them into believing they are part of a unique FAMILY, and then fires nearly all of them for an investment opportunity, do you really think that they hold ANY value in their customer base!? The fact that they reduced and plan to outsource a large portion of CUSTOMER SERVICE truly speaks volumes for this company. eLocal Listing is not about a corporate family. eLocal Listing not about providing value to it’s customers. eLocal Listing is about selling themselves to the highest bidding and most ignorant investors possible.
eLocal Listing investors, think twice. If there are this many people that are THIS passionate about the shady business tactics, there is something wrong. Take a look at the product for what it really is. Yes, there is value. But not enough for you to invest in. This company thrived when it was a corporate family that genuinely cared about it’s employees and customers. They are a new company with a new plan….they stopped being honest with customers, investors, and their own employees nearly a year ago.
A disgusted ex employee.
My phone was “supposed to ring off the hook”according to e local.
I would hardly consider two calls in four months, off the hook. I then canceled the monthly fee and opted to pay per call. Now they billed me twice for the one client and three times for the second. They even note that they know the caller is the same person. What a mess.
Rick Harris-General Contractor.
PS. They are not as bad as Service Magic or Idearc. I am still trying to get back thousands of dollars from those goofballs. E-local just makes themselves unavailable to complain too. I tried ten days in a row and was promised a call back from Tech just so that I could get onto thier site. Absolutley no response as of yet.
I know these guys. Known them for years. I believe they do some shady things. However, keep in mind. How many satisfied customers are going to rant about how great the service is? If something is working would you tell the world and create more competition for yourself? The dissastified spread the word 10x more voraciously as it’s fueled with anger.
When they first started a couple of years ago, they did a better job. I saw almost every one of their clients get top placement in both google and yahoo. But, as in most business when you try to scale you sacrifice all the things that got you there in the first place. Sounds like they’ve made a mess of it.
Mark, had they not told us blatant lies, I’d probably have a little more compassion for them.
eLocal listing has no product, Their “fast found technology” is nothing but submissions to the 2 major search engines; Google and Yahoo. If you look at the work provided for the amount being charged you will understand, how does $59.00 dollars a month sound to you, not much right? How much does being charged $59.00 a month for doing absolutely nothing sound to you? Not good right? That’s what has been going on for years now, how does a company justify charging $59.00 a month for something that is done in 5 minutes, especially when software automation/macros are being used. If that isn’t bad enough how about being charged for this “technology” on a monthly basis, for a process that does not need to be managed. You see this company’s “business model” is based on two factors, One the company relies on a subscription model to maximize scam profits, when you have more subscribers then cancelations business is good. Two, because this business is also designed around reoccurring billing the scam proceeds without being detected, no one till this day has been able to call out elocal (except a former online character named “V”) on these scams because most of the people they have done business with are uneducated or unfamiliar with the technology thus becoming just another victim. Anyone who is knowledgeable in this field has said the same thing http://www.elocallisting.com, elocal listing LLC, search initiatives LLC or any of its other names is simply a scam… eLocal listing is crumbling and they are in desperate need of investment funds to keep managements personal interests intact (like the nice house in wine country Temecula that is being paid for by the company to keep party alive). Any individual or company that is planning to invest anything into this company is highly recommended they get their heads checked. Do efficient research on this company especially if they are trying to hook you on investing, take a look at their “fast found technology” look at the people who have been running this company, how much prior investment has the company had and ask yourselves do you really want to invest in something that is a ticking time bomb? Ask yourself how many times has this company received investment capital to perform the necessary tasks to take the company to the next level and yet they have failed, ask yourselves who are the ones making all the poor decisions and then again all you have to do is look into a mirror. Employee relations is a completely different subject that is also neglected at this workplace, if you look at the latest ripoff reports (ripoffreport.com) on this company employees are whistle blowing the company’s heavy drug use, hell people’s names where mentioned and yet HR did absolutely nothing. How can you have a functioning company when the ones running it can’t perform their jobs? This company has been hacked multiple times, where customer information was compromised, yet the company/upper management kept things quite to avoid lawsuits and never reported anything to customers. How can a company with such poor business ethics remain? Simple, fire all the ones who know too much and keep the new and ignorant, almost sounds like their sales tactics run parallel.
this is the reply I got from them;I cancelled within hours, they did not do anywork for me, still they want to keep my $79.00!! DO NOT EVEN TALK THEM ON THE PHONE BIG SCAM!!!
From: Customer Service (Add as Preferred Sender)
Date: Thu, Jun 25, 2009 2:39 pm
To: sales@designershardwood.com
Good afternoon Sam,
Unfortunately there is no refund due because we provided our service to you which was just beginning. We submitted your local listings to Yahoo & Google, and had built your eLocal Profile. After beginning the process, you decided to cancel service with us, which is unfortunate. We cannot provide a refund, as we began as our service to you.
Although we regret losing you, we do wish you the very best in all your future endeavors.
Thank you for your patience
Sincerely,
-CJ
On Sat, Jun 20, 2009 at 11:38 AM, wrote:
Hi CJ,
I am waiting refund on the only charge you have made,it looks like it shows on your end as may8th, on my end May 12th,not the date matters, you have charged me $79.00 for the services I never received and cancelled immediately.I have never received any refund so far.
Please advise.
Yeah so I worked there and everyone is pretty brain washed it tripped me out. And they screwed me over, but I must say we made good money there. I knew people making over $2,000 a week over there. But they don’t care if they actually get people on the first page and blah blah bullshit, they’re just trying to make money. So Im going to be honest about elocal, they do tell you when they train you that people can do this themselves and basically they have an explanation for everything negative pointed towards them. The intentions of the company are not good they just make it seem that way to whoever they’re selling the product to. The meetings were meant to boost sales and in all reality everything is about money and everyone there is so damn money hungry that yeah, of course they’re gonna see all the money that Todd is flashing in front of them and say whatever they need to say to make a sale. You can’t really blame them, they’re just trying to make money. So yeah this company is a pretty bullshit company and anything written about them to defend them is an employee. But don’t go after the people who are making the calls because they are doing what they are told in order to support their families, make a living, etc. They have that position in the company because they want the money so bad. I defend them because there are some really good people in there and trust me most of them don’t even know that they are working for a bullshit company. So its the top dogs in the company to talk shit on. And the guy who called you Jeremy was probably some new hire that was saying things he wasn’t supposed to. So I don’t know I just felt I had to say something because the people who are making these calls are just trying to make money and are just doing their job the best they can just like most everyone here has a job and they all do it the best they can.
I am an ex employee of this shady company as well. They had me do some very unethical things to save money.
Example 1: A customer who had been paying for the service for over a year, realized he was not even up on their local search results. When we looked into it, their account was not even setup. So they had me “cover up” the incident by setting up the customers account, then changing some dates in our crappy CRM to reflect that the account had been active since the initial payment.
That is just the begining… I could go on and on about the upper management embezzlement and defrauding of customers.
Well done on your writings of this company Jeremy Scott. I have reported them to the BBB and the California State FTB. I’m glad there are good SEO business’s out there such as yours.
It seems ex elocal employees (Celestial Being) are now building a site dedicated to exposing the company’s bad business practices and scams its actually quite amusing.
http://www.elocalscams.com
There seems to be guides on how to do everything elocal does, from SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to Local Search Submission to SEM (Search Engine Marketing)
Please help me! I have been called by E Local several times and also Fast Found Tech. How can I tell who the good guys are? E Local is listed on topSEOs.com as the #7 best company. What’s the real deal here?
I am trying desperately to help my boss drum up business. He has been in business since 1987 and we are about to go under. I’ve been with the company since 2003. I hate to see all his lifelong hard work go down the tubes. I would like our company to be more visible on the web. We have our own website but not sure how to get us more visibility.
Any suggestions?
Thanks in advance!
They are listed there because the list isn’t very big to begin with, elocal doesn’t really do anything but submit your info to Bing yahoo and Google and build you a lame profile that is completely obsolete, that is something you can do on your own. Maybe you should ask Eric since this is his blog, I am sure he knows what he is doing. You should also elaborate if you are tech savvy such as a web design or just a assistant so we can better determine a path to guide you in.
Amen brother. How many of these calls have I receieved? Research, research, research.
I received many calls from these Idiots Elocallisitngs, what they are offering is available on Google for Free Map placement where they will put on Google search on homepage on the map from lets say A-Z etc which you can do your own self for Free.
Amazingly they offered me 10,20 city package for $299 but also charge you for listing fee additional.
I came to find few days later that the whole sales pitch they were trying to offer me was complete lie.
Any How don’t trust these Scumbags.
As a SEO consultant & content writer, in recent months i have received a fair amount of leads from my L.A. sales team from customers who have had dealings with Elocal listings, and their collective experience was bad!
This company is just the latest version of the age old Internet rankings scam which will continue long after they have been pushed off the Internet map, and sadly enough some other shady unethical company will take their place!
It is truly a shame that today’s websphere is blogged and bloated with countless companies just like Elocal!
I WAS A SALES GUY FOR THIS COMPANY FOR ABOUT A YEAR AND LET ME TELL ALL YOU BUSINESS OWNERS OUT THERE BEWARE, WITHOUGHT A QUESTION THIS COMPANY ELOCAL LISTING IS A COMPLETE SCAM ,IF ANYONE FROM THIS COMPANY CALLS YOU HANG UP DO NOT GIVE THEM THE TIME OF DAY. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!! PEACE
Very good article – and warning! We hired these people a few years back at an old job I had and true to your article, they did not produce. So we dropped them! Like you, we thought – Yahoo? haha.. and so – we do it ourselves now!.. Great article.. Thanks for taking the time. By the way – I found you by doing a simple search on Elocal ..! wow – great title tag.. haha…. best regards…
I have used both elocal and elocalplumbers and both are useless. I lost hundreds on one and thousands on the other (plumber) buyer beware of anything elocal
Thanks for the insight. This is so unfortunate. The only problem is the name eLocal seems to have been tarnished. I am planning to run similar service for a much lower rate of one-time fee of $199 year. The only question I have is, is it a problem if my domain name has a prefix eLocal in it?
The name I have in mind is eLocalPros.com
Please advise
Thanks
I’m considering using e-local because I’m an electrician that needs something to happen I’m broke I’m loosing everything, I’m so don’t need to be scammed I need clients so I can survive so please enlighten me steer me in the right direction if they are so bogus!
Well have you tried http://www.elocalscams.com ? they have elocallisting’s “$199″ product on video tutorial, it teaches you everything they are doing for you. Just follow the Videos its that simple and its free so being broke shouldn’t be a problem as these are services offered by search engines for free.
for those who still are question elocallisting’s integrity.
watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViUkYOn-ea4
Yea its true this company sucks they told me that i will b on local page of google top of everyone. but they put me in rong city dat i don evan need it. Now i want mi money back and they r saing i am in contract. Dont sign up with them. Their is other companies that are best SEO service like Local Promoters and Local Splash they do the best SEO for small businesses.
Keep up the good work! Look forward to reading more from you in the future. I think it will be also nice if you add “send to email” tool so people can forward the articles to their friends easily.
I found out too late. They charged my card. I cancelled the card. Thanks for posting his information. I wish I has seen it sooner. Live and learn.
Put your company on a do not call list. If elocallisting.com calls you again sue them, you have every right!
They recently changed their url. Now they sell the same lousy services and more under http://www.localsuccess.com.
I signed up with ELocal on a monthly basis. It took them at least 30 days or more to get our lising to show up. Finally we were able to find our listing by the map or just below it. We’d click on it and it would take us to our website. A couple months went by and I couldn’t find our lising but didn’t have time to follow up. I took time yesterday and no matter how many times I tried, I could find our listing. I found a listing with our city but when I clicked on the link it took us to our corporate site not our individual website within the corporate site. Some above was right, no refund. They told me you are cancelling because you are not happy with the service. We provided the service so there is no refund due. I don’t have the time for energy to fight them. They best not charge me for next month. I was hoping I’d find a site that I could voice my frustration. E-Local – not what they advertise!
Try http://www.elocalscams.com, They are getting ready to file a class action lawsuit with old customers and employees. They maybe able to help you get some monetary compensation. Either way it would not be a bad idea to leave your experience on the site so other do not have to pay the price for your same experience.
PapaGeorgio, you may want to check that URL again…it’s not pointing at anything useful anymore.
SA please look at the link again! PapaGeorgio is correct! All the URL’s are coming in for me! I believe this company is a scam as well! My company has recieved several calls from this company and many others like it. Don’t buy into any of them. They are all scams! EveryContractor, Elocallisting.com…. and so on. There really are too many to write down, so please do your research! Our economy is in bad shape already and these people are taking our hard earned money!
SA the URL is fixed. We had been receiving DMCA’s and other takedown requests. The reality is that elocal was paying lawyers to try to take the elocalscams site down, but failed horribly. it seems that only a couple of days ago they began to layoff all their sales employees. You can find out more about this at the elocalscams.com site.
Thanks for notice SA.