This is one of the companies with pretty nasty business practices. That's mostly lying and promises that are not kept. Taking good care that none of them are in writing, of cause. And avoiding writing anything if possible if not possible, then writing as little and vaguely as possible.
Ok, the story is as follows. They call me offering this fantastic deal, they'll design me a bespoke website and optimise it so it will come up on the first page of Google. They can do this because they have this special deal with Google, where they can get websites on the first page easily. The page will be optimised to be on the first page for 10 search terms. All this for just 400 vat. -Wow now that's fantastic! - Yes it is and a bit too fantastic too. Anyway, I only do a quick check on them, there doesn't seem to be anything alarming about them on the net, they have a street address etc., so looks like they are a respectable company. They say they will start designing it straight away and I'll get my first drafts in a day or two. The site should be ready in 2-3 weeks. And they'll also make me a temporary website for the time it takes to build the real one.
It sounds a good deal. I'm willing in principle. I'd expect to pay part in advance and part on delivery. The sales rep tells me that would be too much work for them in a bit of a bullyish manner. At that point I'm not familiar with that side of his manner yet, as I will be later on. And not careful enough, I let that pass and pay up front. After some pressing from me he does send a mail saying they'll provide these services but no mention about delivery times.
Anyway, after I've paid, start the delays: The sales rep wants to allocate me their best designer, but only he's busy with other work. So could I wait till next week? Well, first week gone. Then it's more like the designer will call me in two days, or next Tuesday, the dates come and go, no call. With the sales rep it's similar, he promises to call, mostly doesn't call. And with the temporary website it takes 10 days and a lot of pestering for that to happen. Outcome is, well, embarrassing quality, and also very little to do with the specifications I had submitted to them. So I can't really use it for anything, unfortunately.
An interesting detail is about their references and lies. The sales pitch says they get 90% of their customers through referral a good laugh? They gave me a couple of links to websites they'd made in an email. These were reasonable looking, not brilliant, but could do. On the phone the rep gave me names of two companies on my line of business that he said they had worked for. I called them to check on this and hear their experiences. One, that is on top of my category in Google, said they hadn't heard of Key Search. I have some personal contact with them and trust their word. The other one that the rep had said they had built the site for as well as optimised it, was pretty unhappy. They said they'd paid them for SEO some while ago, but since then their position had gone down from page 2 to page 3. And also Key Search had charged them, without their consent, for web hosting which they hadn't wanted and hadn't had. Key Search hadn't built their site.
So in light of this it's hard to find a reason why anybody would want to give their money to this rogue company. If you can come up with one, let me know! And of cause would be nice to hear about others experiences.
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