Beat web traffic scammers at their own game

Every web business will eventually receive the phone call. It starts by sounding like a professional call from a local business. In fact, at first, it sounds like someone wants to build a joint venture, or make a purchase. It might even sound like someone needs your help.

Once the small business owner is hooked, the tone changes slightly, the company has something to offer you, but they are not spammers. They are always a partner with someone big that you have formed an alliance with such as Google Adsense, Ebay, Prostores, Amazon. com, or maybe your web host.

Now, the bomb drops. They promise to increase your traffic and put your web site at the top of the search engines, guaranteed.

There is only one plan of action – hang up.

Avoid Web Traffic Schemes

There are a few dozen schemes out there, none of them are legit. There is no legal way to guarantee that a website will stay on the first page unless a) the keywords are obscure or have a low ROI, and b) they are selling the top spot in the PPC program.

One way to identify a scheme is by asking them to step away from their script and answer some SEO questions:

1. Does this program use a link farm?

2. Will this program involve newsletters or email campaigns?

3. Do you guarantee that the site will never be banned?

4. Is a banner exchange involved?

5. Does a PPC type of script need to be posted on the web page?

It is almost guaranteed that the conversation will end before a single question is answered.

Many of these programs use hundreds of spam MFA (Made For AdSense) sites floating around the web. In fact, one company was closed down in 2005 for using an automated software program that published 2000 new websites a day. In 2007, Google started a new program that involved banning MFA sites and cancelling the owner’s AdSense account, forever.

Unfortunately, many of the advertisers are also at risk for being banned from AdSense. Once banned, no one in your family, or yourself, may ever have an AdSense account again.

Black Hat SEO

The best way to avoid web traffic schemes is to become aware of ‘Black Hat SEO.’ These are tricks that will result in a website receiving high hits, for a few months. But, once the search engines find the ‘trick’ they ban the site forever.

There are a few dozen popular Black Hat SEO tricks: doorway pages, link farms, invisible text, mirror websites, etc..

Quality Hits

Many of these companies have software programs that not only hit a website repeatedly, but even click the PPC campaigns. This is not ‘real traffic’. People who get caught on an MFA site and ‘clicked out’ just to escape is not a good click.

A quality hit is a visitor who actually wants to buy what is on your site. Success is not about hits, but quality hits.

Make Money

The best way to beat web traffic scam artists at their own game is to understand the different types of traffic. The most important type of traffic is a person who has been surfing the web looking for something to buy – and they find your website.

One website can make $10 000 a month, with only 100 000 hits.

Another site can make $100 a month, with more than 2 million hits. Success, and the chances of making money, is all tied up in the quality of hits.