New "Traffic Power" Scam?
Do not be deceived!
Phil Craven | Updated Aug 2005
During late September 2004, two new seo forums appeared. Both
are there to promote "Traffic Power" and their new
site "1P First Place". They each have very similar
sub-forums that are dedicated to individual seo companies and
people, and the posts in each forum praise "1P First Place"
and "Traffic Power", but berate the rest. The forums
are fakes. My guess is that they are targeting people who have
been very outspoken against Traffic Power in the recent past.
Why would people speak against Traffic Power?
Traffic Power is an seo company who, through their own fault,
had their own and their client's sites banned by Google. They
used seo techniques that are against Google's guidelines, and
they used them for all of their clients.
I find no fault in the techniques they used. In fact, I recommend
them if it is necessary, but only if staying within the guidelines
doesn't achieve the desired high rankings, and only with the
full knowledge, understanding and agreement of the client. What
Traffic Power did wrong, is that they used the techniques for
all of their clients, regardless of whether or not it was necessary,
AND without their clients' knowledge or agreement. They claimed
that their techniques were within search engine guidelines, and
their clients trusted their word. After all, they were supposed
to be the experts.
Their technique is to auto-generate a lot of auto-redirecting
doorway pages, which are designed to rank highly for specific
searchterms. These pages are placed on their own servers and
automatically redirect people to the client's site. Because doorway
pages have a bad name (wrongly), Traffic Power called them "Search
Engine Entry Pages" in a successful attempt to deceive potential
clients who may have heard of doorway pages.
Eventually Google banned Traffic Power and their innocent
clients. But did it stop them? No! They are continuing as normal,
but instead of calling their doorway pages "Search Engine
Entry Pages", they now call them "Advertising Pages".
They will still take you on as a client and, without telling
you, they will risk you site by using the same technique that
got their previous clients banned.
At the time that Traffic Power and their cleints were banned
from Google, Traffic Power's business developer, Steve Powers,
told a client, whose sites had been banned because of Traffic
Power's technique, that he failed to understand that getting
banned by Google is part of the business. He also said, "Google
can kiss my ass. This is the wild wild west. As they [Google]
get hip to a trick, they change their rule. Google cannot control
my business."
Traffic Power's technique is just about as old as the search
engines themselves, and a lot older than Google, so they were
hardly performing a new "trick". Powers was right that
getting banned by Google is part of the business, but only if
you do things that Google doesn't want, and Google stated a long
time ago that it is against the technique that Traffic Power
uses. There was no change of Google's guidelines or rules.
Why did that client not understand that getting banned is
part of the business? For the same reason that none of their
clients understood it until it was too late - because Traffic
Power claimed that they worked within the search engines' guidelines.
Their clients had been deceived.
The story of that particular client, and Traffic Power's dealings
with him, is here.
I should add that getting banned is NOT part of the search
engine optimization business unless the client is fully informed
of the steps that are being taken and the risks involved.
Because Traffic Power became widely known as having had their
clients' sites banned from Google, they came up with a new site
("First Place" - 1p.com). Take a look at First Place
and click on "Tutorial" on the left column. It's a
lengthy tutorial, so be patient. Notice the list of things that
are needed to gain top rankings. First on the list is "Advertising
Pages" - yes, those Traffic Power Advertising Pages. Following
the list is a description of what each of them are and why they
are needed. But the Advertising Pages are not mentioned. They
are skipped. Why? Because they are the reason that their clients
were banned from Google! They are not going to describe what
those pages do in case you've heard that such things could get
your site banned.
More information about Traffic Power can be found at Traffic
Power Sucks!
The new scam?
Two new, apparently independant, seo forums have appeared:- (Seo
Forum and Web-Advertising-Info). The posts in these forums praise
Traffic Power and First Place (1p), and berate everybody else.
The forums are fakes! They are there for no other purpose but
to mislead people. They look as though they've been set up by
Traffic Power to relentlessly lure gullible clients into their
clutches, where they will run the very big risk of being banned
from Google.
At the time of writing this, all the posts there are written
by the forums' own people, under various usernames. They are
not 'open' for other people to post to. Every post is put on
hold until it is cleared. If you want to post something bad about
HighRankings or the others, or if you want to make neutral posts,
your post will be cleared. But if you want post anything that
criticises Traffic Power or First Place (1p), or even asks what
they've done about their problems, your post won't be cleared.
I know - I've tried.
Proof
There are many proofs that the forums are fakes, but I'll just
show you this one.
On the 24th June 2004, "mikeb" posted at the HighRankings
forum. His post was entitled "Banned From Google Hired Traffic-Power,,
Spam company aka First Place, and 1p.com" He asked if his
site had been banned from Google for using Traffic Power's seo
services. It was posted at the time when Traffic Power's client
sites were banned from Google.
On the 28th September 2004, "linkmebitch" posted
at the seo-forum.net forum. His post was entitled "Banned
for using highrankings.com?" It suggested that he had been
banned for using HighRanking's seo services.
Both posts were identical. The HighRankings forum post was
stolen, posted in seo-forum.net and its meaning changed so that,
instead of being about Traffic Power's seo services, it is now
about HighRankings' seo services.
Here are screen shots of both posts. They were saved on the
1st October 2004.
# HighRankings post - notice the date
# seo-forum.net post - notice the date
Those screenshots prove that the forums are fakes, and there
are other fake posts there that have been lifted from other forums
(including the forum on this site) and reproduced as genuine
posts. There are also fake "discussions" that praise
Traffic Power and First Place, but try to damage certain other
seo people and companies.
Those forums are there to fool anyone who doesn't know any
better into thinking highly of Traffic Power and First Place
(1p.com), and to maliciously damage people who have been outspoken
against Traffic Power.
Is Traffic Power / First Place (1p.com) responsible for them?
It certainly looks that way, although it is quite possible that
someone else with a hidden agenda could have set them up. Either
way, the content of the forums should be ignored, and Traffic
Power / First Place (1p.com) should be avoided if you really
don't want your site to be penalized by Google.
And finally...
Some people call me unethical because I approve of doing what
it takes to get top rankings. If staying within the guidelines
doesn't or can't work, then I will go outside the guidelines.
But I only do it with the full knowledge, understanding, and
agreement of the client. To my way of thinking, that's perfectly
ethical.
Traffic Power / First Place (1p.com) are very different. They
don't even try to get top rankings by staying within the guidelines.
They only work outside of them, regardless of whether or not
it is necessary, and they don't inform the client of the potential
risks. That's what I call unethical - perhaps even fraud.
Updates
# Two more of the forums have come to light - seo Talk and Seo-Professional-Forum.
They the same kind of fake forum with fake members posting fake
information as the first two.
# The scam is being talked about in various reputable seo
forums. Here are a couple of discussions:- WebWorkshop :: SearchEngineWatch
August 2005:
Traffic Power hit back at the bad publicity they had by suing
several people, including Aaron Wall who is being sued for comments
that people posted on his blog. The claim is that he and others
published Traffic Power's trade secrets, and that they "maliciously
published or caused to be published false and defamatory information
over the internet concerning Plaintiff and Plaintiff's business".
There are no trade secrets in seo. All the methods that can
be used are public knowledge, and Traffic Power didn't invent
anything new. It is understandable that there are things they
would like to be kept secret, after all they did get their clients'
sites banned, but that doesn't make them trade secrets. As for
the "false and defamatory information" claim, Traffic
Power came under a barrage of condemnation for what they did
to their clients, and rightly so. Stating the facts about what
they did is not stating "false and defamatory information".
It was certainly undesirable to Traffic Power, but they should
have thought of that before they abused their clients.
There's a forum discussion about the case here.
Interestingly, the fake forums have been removed. Could it
be coincidence, or could it be in preparation for the lawsuits?
Who knows? Perhaps we'll never know.
url where this article came from - http://www.webworkshop.net/traffic-power.html
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