Dori Friend and Brad Callen from SEO Link Vine Elite are ripoff merchants. They offer a link building service at the cost of $497 per month. They say it is unique and that it works but in fact it is just a scam.
I joined earlier this year and was looking forward to the benefits it would bring to my online SEO efforts. I duly followed the instructions and sat back to wait for the 'amazing' results Dori and Brad talk about in their promotional material.
Basically, the system works by you adding articles to an automated system that then posts your articles on a network of blogs, supposedly from PR6 to PR0. Overtime these articles are picked up by search engines and your site is supposed to benefit from the backlinks. Dori Freind claims this is a Grey Hat system and made light of Google's duplicate content filter. She actually says that Google loves
Bearing in mind that you have to write these articles (at least 100 articles) and then prepare them for posting, etc. The system is anthing but cheap, especially if you factor in your own time preparing the articles, etc. But I thought I would give it a go and see what results I would get.
The results were worse than anything I could imagine.instead of the links boosting my search results I actually lost position for all my major keywords. I was alarmed to say the least. I then chat with other Link Vine members and they were telling me they had experienced the same thing.
Upon contacting support about this we were told that we had probably over optimized our keywords and that we needed to do another 100 articles with links like 'click here', 'best price', etc. They stated that the links could be anything as long as they did not contain our keywords. Obviously we were less than pleased to hear this. Apart from the fact it would cost more money to do another 100 articles and prepare them for posting, it also meant a continuation of the membership at $497 to implement these changes. Considering the results we had seen so far we no longer had faith in what support were saying. They seemed to be cluthcing at straws.
I then contacted support by ticket/email (as they do not offer a phone service) about a refund as I felt I had been the victim of a scam. They emailed back to say 'we do not issue refunds once the articles have started posting.
A friend I chat with who also paid $497 per month, contacted them about their rank tool to say it was inaccurate (they have a rank tool so you can check your rankings) but it is anything but accurate. It gives you data that suggests you are ranking higher than you actually are. When this was pointed out to Dori Freinds team they just said they got their data from Google. They refused to acknowledge that there might be a problem with the tool - the implication being that they get their data from Google so it must be right. These people are really arrogant and their customer support is terrible. They've got your money so why should they bother to address any issues you may have. I know for a fact that the data on the rank tool was not coming from Google at all.
I would beg any of you considering joining this membership to give these people a wide berth. Your money could be put to much better use.
Don't just take my word for it - please google: 'Seo Link Vine sucks' and you will see exactly what I mean. I am not the only one who views this service as a ripoff. Dori Friend and her crew are shysters and will take your money. When the system doesn't work they will put the blame on you and deny you a refund. It is one big con. Most people on average lose around $1491 before they realise this is a scam. Considering Freind has five of these networks and each has fifty members - do the math - Freind is laughing all the way to the bank.
Please be warned; seo link vine sucks!
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