Late last week, a site named VerifiedSEO.com came under scrutiny of the SEO community. In short, they wanted to know who and how can one person claim to be equipped to verify all the SEOs out there in the world. People were insulted and taken back by such a claim.
Just scan through some of the early comments about this at a Sphinn thread:
Charles Preston. An SEO out of Austin, Texas have decided that he along with other Industry Veterans are going to start a Verified SEO service. You the SEO will pay them $99.00 per month, it was $199.00 when first launched, to give them most of your client information. They in turn will do who knows what with that information and then give you a dynamic Verified Pro SEO Badge for your website.I've been pinging this young man on Twitter for a few days now to find out who the Industry Veterans are behind this new organization. He has not answered. Most of you know I've had my ear to the ground in this industry for quite some time, why have I not heard of Charles Preston? And, who are the Industry Veterans behind Verified SEO?
The sad thing is, there are SEO companies that will pay that, and it will be those that suck.Just like that ridiculous TOPSEOs site that give you a little badge if you pay them enough.
The thread goes on and gets interesting, where Charles Preston himself supposedly replied to all the questions about this service.
On Friday afternoon, the site was transformed as a April Fools joke. The content was pulled, Rickroll videos were posted and the industry laughed. The question was, was this legit and the guy running it decided to act like it was a joke or was this an early April Fools joke?
All in all, Edward summed up this experience well:
That's the bottom line. Our industry is self-regulating. Kudos for that discussion insight, I liked that. :)
Oh, and be prepared for April Fools Day this Thursday, be prepared.
Forum discussion at Sphinn.
