Frequently Asked Questions
1. How Long Does It Take To See Results?
Since we are not the search engines, we cannot gaurantee
a specific time or date that your name will start appearing
on the search engines. We can tell you that our company
prides itself on providing accurate data for your business
to the search engines and while doing so increases your
turn around time and indexing. Our average turn around is
seven to ten business days after your activations and we
guarantee to complete your optimization process within thirty
(30) days.
2. Can I Use My Website? Your web site
can be used if independently optimized. For the most part,
Local List and it's relevant subscribers do not have enhanced
web sites and therefore can only list their web site on
their web page provided by MyServiceProfile.com network.
MyServiceProfile.com acts as a conduit to our private network
of subscribers.
3. How Can I Track My Hits? For LocalList
clients, our directory comes with a log-in control panel
to provide you with graphs, hits and reports on your keyword
traffic. For our website development projects, our add-ons
with Google, we can provide you details on your website
Impressions, Page Views and Bounce Rates. Our engineering
staff reviews this information daily to provide the best
service possible while increasing your maximum R.O.I. (Return
On Investment). We also can provide a web page hit report
for when a client does visit splash web page within our
network. Our web page hit report includes date and locality.
4. Can I Change My Keywords? One convenient part of our service is our ability to manage and direct your campaign. Knowing that most business services or product lines change with the season or trend, our engineering staff is well suited to manage your changes in keywords with ease. Just give us thirty (30) day notice and watch your campaign change with the season.
5. What Does The "Completion
Of Optimization Process" Mean In Your Guarantee? As
noted in our application disclosure statement, eGumBall
offers a unique Thirty (30) Day full refund optimization
process guarantee if we do not complete your optimization
process within your first Thirty (30) days from the date
we receive your signed application. What is the "optimization
process"? The optimization process is the completion
of campaign requirements prior to your activation date.
Campaign requirements are your search engine marketing consultation,
keyword analysis, three page micro-site development, stock
video development, map to your location and fully executed
phone activation. We guarantee your thirty day optimization
process to alleviate the frustration of delays in development
and implementation of your internet marketing campaign.
6. Why Do I Have To Sign An Agreement?
Although we can truly appreciate the fact that a potential
client may find a "no-obligation, no-contract"
agreement more appealing. eGumBall is not a high turn-over
client based business. All of our clients are serious about
internet marketing as we are as serious about making your
campaign a success. So many "SEO Firms" are opening
daily and promising the world with "Sounds To Good
To Be True" terms and conditions are later found to
be firms with little or no experience in web site development
and or search engine optimization. Other "SEO"
companies that sell Pay-Per-Click (PPC) as SEO do not like
contracts due to the fact that they cannot increase your
monthly budget in an agreement within a paid placement environment.
7. How Can I Impede Upon eGumBall Services? Since you have hired eGumBall to either manage your website SEO or your Local Listing, you are hiring us to structure your campaign. Any modifications to either project without our consent will create a conflict in your strategy and a decline in your results. We also must be able to have access to your website design during campaign.
8. What Is The Difference Between Organic Optimization
and Pay-Per-Click? Organic optimization is the
method of building a keyword enriched web presence through
different SEO methods within the "Free Directory"
of the search engines, whereas Pay-Per-Click advertising
leaps all the organic optimization applications and advertises
your business on the search engine for a cost per visit
or cost per click price for which you bid; also known as
"Paid Placement". Pay-Per-Click advertising can
be more cost effective if you are in a niche business with
little if any search engine traffic.
8. What Is Web-Crawler, Spider or Bot? A
search engine "crawler" ,"spider" or "bot"
is a very simple form of an automated browser. When a "crawler"
,"spider" or "bot" visits a web page it first
reads the text on the page and then tries to follow links
from that page off to other web pages and web sites.
9. What Is An Algorithm? An algorithm
is a complex set of computer-based rules for how to interpret
and rank web pages when users do a search for a particular
word or phrase.
10. Why Can Duplicate Listings Hurt? Although
nobody in the world can tell you what the search engine
may think, we can only tell you about our experience. In
our experience we have documented that the search engines
local directories do not like "Duplicate" listings.
Duplicate listings being more than one listing with the
same address or with the same phone number. In areas where
there is more inventory to choose from, the search engines
block duplicates from gaining front page exposure in the
local directory. Duplicates can be viewed as spam which
means any effort from us will be blocked out by the search
engines spam blockers. We sometimes cannot recognize duplicates
until we get into the root of your campaign. It is important
to our success that you disclose any previous address and
phone number used.
11. Why Should I Inform eGumBall About All Internet
Marketing? In the a day of internet, web sites
and search engines, you must understand how delicate search
engine processes (algorithms) are. By asking you to be actively
involved with your campaign doesn't mean you should do our
job, it just means that you should let us know about any
other internet marketing campaigns you are actively involved
in or want to be. eGumBall prides itself on compliant data
submissions that are accurate and relevant. It is very possible
that another service who duplicates our service can, without
diligence, overwrite your listing in the search engine's
directory index and if this continues on for a period of
time, not only will you compromise your results, but very
well your future with SERPS (Search Engine Result Pages).
The only one local listing profile you are allowed to have
per locality is put into a pending status each time there
is an attempt to claim your listing. Revolving attemtps
to claim your listing will continually keep your listing
in a pending status.
12. If The Search Engines Local Listing Directories
Are Free Why Do I Need Your Service? Most companies
use our service to professionally analyze and create campaigns
to compete for the top spots in the search engine's local
search directories. Since the directories are free, the
directories are filled with an enormous amount of inventory
for the search engines to choose from. Our service provides
specific and relevant content to the search engines index
while allowing the search engines to understand more about
you and your service so that you are found ahead of your
local competitor. We continue to make adjustments and calibrate
your keyword positioning for search engine queries and we
keep you up to date with all the changes in the local search
market place. We are your employee and your industry professional.
13. Why Do I Have To Pay Before I See Any Results?
When you hire eGumBall's staff to manage and launch
your campaign we put a tremendous amount of effort into
your market analysis and campaign set up. We review your
local area and the results within the SERP's (Search Engine
Result Pages) to determine your campaign metrics and we
implement your relevant text link campaign (also known as
link building). Cost for these services are invested prior
to your results being found on the net.
14. Can I Change My Business Information? You
can change your business information by faxing (1-877-890-8940)
or by emailing (engineering@egumball.com) your change request
to customer service. Please be advised that any changes
made to your profile on the search engines is subject to
verification by the respected search engine; which will
delay your results in ranking. If changes are made within
the first sixty days after your initial set up, your ranking
results will be delayed for up to thirty additional business
days for update. Please make sure that all information
on your application is correct. Once we submit your
the information within your application to the search engines
the search engines will crawl, spider or visit your web
profile for indexing (update). Any changes made after activations
and the after the initial crawl, spider or visit can and
will take up to sixty days for the search engines to again
re-crawl, re-spider or re-visit your web page profile for
indexing (update).
15. What Is The Sandbox Filter? The Sandbox
Filter is normally applied to a brand new website but has
been known to be applied to website domains that have been
around for a long while. Since most websites do not make
it past a full year, the sandbox filter will prevent a brand
new site from getting quality rankings for competitive keyword
terms. It is also known that brand new sites will still
rank for non-competitive keywords from the "supplementary"
index.
16. What Is The Knockdown Thirty Rule Filter? This
"knock-down" thirty rule applies to website that
utilize spammy SEO tactics. Doorways, JavaScript redirects
will drop your ranking by 30 spots.
17. What Is The Bomb Filter Do? The bomb
filter was implemented to filter out a obsessive number
of inbound text anchor links that all have the same text.
18. What Is The Duplicate Content Filter? The
duplicate content filter is for websites that duplicate
data from other sites that have already been indexed or
cached.
19. What Is The Domain Name Filter? The
domain name filter is also applied with the sand box filter.
The age of a website usually determines the websites rank
for competitive keywords. Older sites typically rank higher
than newer sites.
20. What Is The Reciprocal Link Filter? Google
has made their view on reciprocal links very public. Depending on your website, in most cases too
many reciprocal links can hurt your page rank value.
21. What Is The Link Farm Filter? Link
farms are sites with high page rank that are established
to increase the page rank of the site's linked to. A site
with more than ten links is can be considered a link farm.
Regular monitoring of these outbound links to your site
should be performed.
22. What Is The Porn/Casino Filter? This
is the first filter that was designed to filter inbound
links from porn and casino websites. If your site has an
inbound link on a website identified as a porn/casino site
or you site is linked to a porn/casino site, then your website
can be considered relevant to porn and casinos and removed
from the "primary" index.
23. What Is The Broken Link Filter? Broken
on site links will cause pages from not being crawled, cached
and indexed. If pages within your site, like your home page,
do not have a link back to your home page on all pages this
can count against you in the SERPS (Search Engine Results
Pages) and your overall trust score for things like Page
Rank. This is not just SEO malpractice and horrible site
design but this is really bad for your on site users and
will cause poor traffic and poor SERP results. Remember,
developing your site to be user friendly is key for higher
ranking in the SERPS.
24. What Is The Slow Load Filter? The
slow load filter is very easy. If your site takes to too
long to load then a crawler will time-out and crawl past
your website and or page. You will never get your website
and its pages cached and indexed. End result, your page
will not appear in the SERPS.
25. Why Choose eGumBall Over Other SEO Firms? eGumBall
is a national SEO servicing company with over 3,700 active
clients and performs SEO on a daily basis. Our volume provides
our engineering staff with opportunity and repetition to
test and troubleshoot changes in market conditions ("algorithms").
LocalList clients are also provided the security in knowing
that our directory is seasoned well pass the "Sand
Box" period and is well managed by SEO professionals
who understand the entire filter system.
26. Will My Service Fees Increase On Renewal?
Here at eGumBall we appreciate your loyalty and return business.
In an effort to illustrate our loyalty to our clients, we
extend all our clients thirty (30) day renewal period at
the end of our agreements. So long as we do not have to
remarket your zip code we will renew our agreement with
you.
27. Does eGumBall Have Any Special Arrangements With Google, Yahoo or MSN?
The answer is NO. These search engines do not share any
decision making with any firm outside their own company with
anyone. BUYER BEWARE of any company that claims that they hired
an engineer from one of these search engines or claim that they
have special arrangements which control the SERPS (Search Engine Result
Pages). This is false and misleading.
28. What Should I Look Out For After Signing Up
With eGumBall? Although we cannot tell you who
to do business and who not to. We can tell you that in past
we have heard that our clients have been contacted by "other"
SEO firms claiming that they are a major search engine or
that "they" have control over our work while solicting heavy
cash transfers to hold the position eGumBall is managing
for your business. If you do receive a call such as this,
ask "this company" to provide a written proposal outlining
the specific scope of project and contact our offices immediatley.
If you would like to inquire upon one of our products or
services contact
sales@egumball.com to request a free consultation.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (F.A.Q.S)