TopSeos.com – SEO agency reviews base on paid advertorial?
Posted on: August 10, 2016
A customer recently asked why we are not listed in the top 10 listings for SEO agencies on TopSeos.com? We were surprised when this was brought up to us as we have never heard of this website before. We decided to pay a visit to this website.
Claims from TopSEOs.com
From the website, Topseos.com offer a directory listing and claim that they have sort out the top best Internet marketing agencies in different countries. They state that their mission was to offer “comprehensive and independent advice to assist buyers in making purchasing decisions from internet marketing vendors.”
Source: http://www.topseos.com/about-us/
We decided to investigate this issue and below are our findings:
$15,000 USD to be listed in TopSEOs.com
Patrick Altoft, Director of Strategy for branded3.com once decided to check how much it would cost to get Branded3.com listed on TopSEOs for all the services they offer.
See below for his findings:
Patrick said: “It took about $15k USD per month for being listed in TopSEOs.com. TopSEOs state that this fee is for research and time is spent on reviewing your organization and talking to your clients.”
Source: https://www.branded3.com/blog/topseos-com-15000-per-month-listing-fees/
$1,000 per month to even be ‘considered’
There was another feedback from Mr Rodger, a Houston SEO guru.
He stated that “I sent an email today and one of the owners of the company said that it would cost $1,000 per month to even be ‘considered’ and ranked on ONE list. So it would cost an additional 1k for every list you want to be on- and that’s PER MONTH. What a joke and what a scam! Nobody in their right mind should buy into this and consumers need to beware as SEO firms are simply buying their way to the top. I can understand a reasonable one-time fee so that they can research your company to rank it. But to ask for 1k per month is extortion!”
Source: http://forums.seochat.com/search-engine-optimization-28/topseos-com-scam-stay-away-350023.html
TopSEOs.com disclosure
We look through their website and find out the following under the disclosure page:
“We charge a standard fee from agencies and software vendors for our time to evaluate. If an agency or a software vendor doesn’t have the finances available and we deem them to be a star performer based on research done on another tool or service, we may still highlight them on our Rankings list. Service agencies and software vendors may also commit funds towards the continued research and development and marketing of the topseos.com brand to further assist buyers make more informed decisions.”
To add on, there is no way anyone can recommend any agency to be listed as it is 100% base on their discretion. See here: “The Rankings don’t currently include a way for users to provide their own recommendations for where agencies and software vendors should rank and which agencies should be added to or removed from the list.“
Source: http://www.topseos.com/disclosure/
Results Don’t Lie
We have decided to contact them for more details, however, we have not received any reply from them.
Based on our findings, we recommend that companies or business owners who intend to engage an SEO agency, base their decision on a good track record and not via advertorial.
Impossible Marketing disagrees with the practice of paying in order to be listed as the “top 10 SEO agencies” in Singapore. We prefer to show genuine SEO results to our clients. End day, SEO is about ranking and we are consistently ranked #1 in Google search.
| Keywords | Average Monthly Searches | Google SEO Ranking |
| Internet Marketing Singapore | 390 | Number 1 |
| Internet Marketing | 590 | Number 1* |
| Online Marketing Singapore | 390 | Number 1 |
| Online Marketing | 480 | Number 1* |
| SEO Singapore | 2400 | Number 1 |
| Singapore SEO | 260 | Number 1 |
| SEO | 3600 | Number 1* |
| Search Engine Optimization | 880 | Number 1* |
| Search Engine Optimization Singapore | 110 | Number 1 |
* When you Google keywords without “Singapore”, Google tend to return results from international websites (Eg. Wikipedia), related news articles and pictures. However, we are still ranked number 1 for the local website in the search results.
