Here’s a quick test that helps me when I have any doubt: go to Google, type in the url of the website (like internetscam.com for example) and look at the results.

People who claim to be big players can be found out very easily with this method. Not a lot of results? Probably haven’t been around too long.

Are all the results directory listings or otherwise neutral? Are they all ads? They’ve probably done some SEO but still not a definitive result.

The jackpot is really blog and forum results where somebody writes quite clearly “so-and-so is a rip off” or even “so-and-so is legitimate”. Look for real people giving real reviews and unsolicited feedback.

One company offers first place ranking in Google for £650. Their small print says that if this doesn’t happen they’ll refund you but keep an admin fee of £75. What’s more, their “first place” seems to be in sponsored ads not organic results. You can buy those yourself.

The second was a phone call saying that they had a spare place on the first page of Google for “insert relevant keywords here”. I thought wow, who is this guy? Does he actually run Google? Because I hear that they don’t exactly need the money.

For any of you who are in the dark, let me make this absolutely clear: no one can guarantee you any place in the search rankings for any keywords.

Check out Google’s own guidelines on this. (Scroll down to No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.)