One of our clients was contacted by a telemarketer working for Network Solutions. Network Solutions is offering a SEO/SEM service.

Reading over their site made feel like I was reading over a site from 3 years ago. The thing that caught my interest the most was the guarantee:

Terms of Service
Network Solutions, LLC guarantees a minimum number of top ten listings across 12 search engines within 10 months from completion date. Most engines will index your site in about three (3) months, but it takes time to gain the popularity and ranking needed to compete on competitive phrases. The search engines included are: AOL, AlltheWeb, AltaVista, Ask.com (formerly known as AskJeeves), Google, Hotbot, IWon, Looksmart, Lycos, MSN, Netscape, and Yahoo!. The minimum number of top ten listings guaranteed is 5 for the 20 keyword phrase package, 10 for the 30 keyword phrase package and 20 for the 50 keyword phrase package.

Take note of the Search Engines they mention. And note these in particular:

• AOL
• AlltheWeb
• AltaVista
• Hotbot
• IWon
• Netscape

None of these supply their own results, either natural or paid.

• AOL gets its paid and natural from Google.
• Alltheweb gets its results from Yahoo!
• Altavista gets is results from Yahoo!
• Hotbot gets results from Google, Ask, and DMOZ
• IWon gets results from Google, Ask and DMOZ
• Netscape gets its results from Google, and DMOZ

What does all of the above tell you? The only SEs that seems to matter is Google, Yahoo! and MSN.

Read this line very carefully:

The minimum number of top ten listings guaranteed is 5 for the 20 keyword phrase package, 10 for the 30 keyword phrase package and 20 for the 50 keyword phrase package.

If Yahoo! should rank a site well, it will rank well in AltaVista and Alltheweb. So one ranking in Yahoo! will count as three. Check out the results from each of the three for “insurance.”
Yahoo!, Alltheweb, & Altavista

The second thing to remember is Network Solutions must agree to the keywords. If we were to stick a site up tomorrow about insurance and we wanted to rank for terms like: life insurance, insurance, travel insurance, home insurance, auto insurance… and so on, we feel we would be turned down as a client. If not, Network Solutions, sign us up!