Back in 2004 I posted a couple times about ‘black-hat SEO company’ Traffic Power (later First Place or 1P). I thought I would do a quick refresher, since they are still out there. My last post about them has garnered 19 comments with warnings and tails-of-woe.
FYI: SEO means ‘search engine optimization’ and black-hat means ‘bad’. A good review of the history is here.
Their MO:
- They do outbound telemarketing for their services, and they bite hard!
- They make promises to get you to the top of Google.
- How they do their SEO work is not the point here, but it relies on techniques that have been judged as ‘against the rules’ or ineffective.
- They operate so many URLs, addresses, and phone numbers they are hard to nail down. (Their current main website 1pfirstplace.com has just one hit in Google right now. This post will make it two.)
- They wrap themselves in the shroud of the BBB like this.
While the Las Vegas BBB has publicly listed the number of complaints and the Wall Street Journal has written about them, they continue to dodge true legal action, from what I can tell.
I just wanted to remind folks out there that this stuff is still going on two years later. Not sure if there is anything can be done that hasn’t already been tried. Posting this should help those ‘marks’ who are smart enough to search for info on this company/group and dig thru the maze of names and URLs.