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New "Traffic Power" Scam?

Do not be deceived!

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.

Second Life is FREE!
Second Life is an online 3-D world with over 8 million residents. That many people can't be wrong.