SEOs are scratching their heads and trying to figure out how to game the new Google search algo reinvented as Google Caffeine. Google’s timing of releasing this new search engine algorithm may be a mere coincidence with the newly re-tooled Microsoft Bing, but I think it’s just that a coincidence. A major algorithm update like this takes months if not years to bring to the testing phase and knowing Google’s long beta testing cycles this change must have been in the works for over a year or more.

The main differences you notice from a user perspective is speed, it’s really blindingly fast. What Google’s Mat Cutts tells us that this is a complete rewrite of their indexing and file systems, but as SEOs we are more interested in the SERPs than what’s under the hood so we have added Google Caffeine to SEO Studio’s ranking reporter tool.

Please download SEO Studio and check out the differences with your keywords side by side Google’s old and new engine.

How can SEO firms guarantee top 10 rankings while others bulk at even the notion that the SEO client should get anything in return other than a statement of work and at the end of the month some fancy reporting about hours spent on link building, article submission and other seemingly important search engine optimization tasks. The truth as always is between the two different camps of SEO firms who either guarantee top 10 ranking or don’t.

So, why some SEO companies offer performance guarantee, while other SEO companies don’t?

Before start our investigation, we have to set some ground rules here of course to make sure we compare only reputable SEO companies with at least 3 plus years in business and a customer portfolio of at least 2-3 dozen clients a year. Oh, and of course the SEO companies we compare have all achieved decent rankings results for their clients and their clients would not hesitate in recommending them to their friend, business partners or family members.

Now that we got these important benchmark out of the way, let’s examine what is at the heart of the SEO guarantee and the sometimes very heated discussions surrounding it.

The issue is quite simply trust

The trust by the clients placed into the hands of the SEO companies to do the best they can to achieve the first page ranking results they were hired to deliver. So, it comes down to which company can sound more convincing on their website touting their SEO services with fancy graphics, customer case studies, testimonials, badges of affiliations with SEO organizations and being member of better business bureau. But does this really make a difference in how competent a SEO company is?

If the company can’t convey enough trust to the potential SEO client on their website, they might as well close the shop, but sadly even when a potential clients feel in their gut there is something inherently wrong with forking money over for services that don’t have a tangible outcome, they still sign on the dotted line. How sad, but it doesn’t have to be this way.

You have the right to demand to know what your hard earned dollars buy

So, here is where the guaranteed SEO services can truly make or break a deal from a reputable SEO company, but there is more to a SEO guarantee, than simply writing a few over used slogans on a webpage and hope visitors will listen.

These are the criterias you should use to hire an SEO firms who guarantees results in writing.

• Get references from as many previous SEO clients as you can. The SEO company should give you a list of previous clients’ contact information cheerfully and with lots of pride. After all they are going to be only as good as the last client they have dealt with. The most important questions to ask previous clients is, how long it took the SEO company to achieve the results and were they able to hold onto those rankings long term.
• No money up front. You should not pay a dime for any type of setup costs or other silly administration costs. It takes nothing more than 1 hour for seasoned SEO to come up with a thorough analysis of your site and to create a proposal for you. The cost of this should be not be coming out of your pocket, so never every pay for any type of site review or report up front.
• Specific ranking results for Google. Google is still the king of the online searches with over 60% of the total worldwide search market and you should not accept a guarantee that includes any mention of Yahoo or Bing (MSN,Live) in the contract. You should simply say you are only interested in Google natural results.
• Verify rankings independently. Always find out what type of ranking report generation tool the SEO company will use. The rankings have to be checked daily and a history of the rankings must be available to you at any time.
• What constitutes a SEO guarantee being fulfilled? In other words how many days of the month do the rankings have to in the top 10 or top 5 for the ranking guarantee to be fulfilled. Ask for a minimum of 15 days of each calendar month for the site to be in the top 10 or top 5.
• Don’t pay for all the SEO fees when the rankings are achieved in the first month. Once you agree on the total SEO fees, you should demand that you pay over a minimum of 6 months as long as the site remains on the first page of Google during that period. If the site drops from Google’s first page for more than 15 days in the previous calendar month you should not have to pay and roll the contract term forward another month.
• Ask them how much their maintenance plan will cost you, once they achieved the top rankings and the contract expired. Be careful if the SEO company wants to charge you the same rates they charged to get you on the first page of Google in the first place. The link building and optimization effort needed will be substantially costly and you should get a decent break on the SEO fees, if you choose to extend it.
• Transparency of what they plan to do to get you on the first page of Google. Ask very direct questions if it’s not spelled out already in their statement of work or contract, what methods will be used to get you in the top 10 on Google. If all you see in the contract is optimizing page content and some directory submissions, it’s most likely not going to get you what you want. You want to see in the contract specific references to one-way permanent link building, not rented, permanent links only. Ask them for a sample of links they have acquired for other SEO clients.

SEO can be extremely effective to increase leads, sales, whatever you objective may be, but too many times decision makers in businesses blindly accept SEO contract terms put in front of them simply because they don’t know the questions they should ask. It’s your duty to exercise due diligence and part of your research when choosing a SEO provider is to know what you get in return for your money, and what are your options if the promised results are not achieved.

With not much opening fan fair, Microsoft’s new attempt at building a reasonably popular search engine went live, it’s called BING.

Microsoft decided to scrap the Live.com search site, that had served search results from MSN and Live.com’s own site. Bing has a colorful background picture of a beautiful Greek island, a little weird for search engine or at least it’s very unconventional, but hey, the search relevancy is the most important factor and Bing may be just it when it comes to taking a chunk out of Google’s market share.

Very similarly to Google, there are tabs for Video, Image, News and Map search. Bing is making an entrance into the world of top 3 search engines at the starting gates sitting at the number 3 spot with about 8% percent market-share. It will be interesting to see how the users will find the new searcg engine compared to Live, but most importantly compared with Google which still commands 68% of the total worldwide search audience.

Performing a few quick searches with our main keywords we are not fairing so bad at all, SEO Software, Guaranteed SEO just to name a few are sitting on the first page.

How impressive is this? Kyle MacDonald of Montreal, Canada has already traded his way up from a single red paper clip to a 1991 Bombardier snowmobile in less than five months. His story was picked up by the Canadian National Post and was also interviewed on CNN today.
A few months ago the million dollar home page was making waves on the Internet as people watched with envy from around the world how a London university student was making hundreds of thousand of dollars with a single web page, selling pixels by square blocks. Today a story surfaces of yet another Internet entrepreneur blogging and trading his way towards ownership to the house of his dreams. Starting with nothing more than a red paper clip he was able get bigger items with each trade. His story originates back to his teenage years when he was playing a game of Bigger and Better along with his friends. He would knock on doors for the best and most impressive prizes to out wit his peers.

Now comes the most bizarre part of the story. Just imagine submitting a paper clip for barter on craigslist.org and hoping someone will actually offer a trade. Well that’s exactly what Kyle did. Within a few days he had an offer to trade the paper clip for a fish shaped pen. By the end November the young entrepreneur netted a Honda power generator by bartering his way up to bigger and better things.

Today, Kyle is waiting to take possession of the used Bombardier snowmobile he got for an instant party kit from a New York man. On July 12, 2006 will be the one year anniversary of his trade swapping endeavor. Kyle is confident he can pull off enough trades in order for him to reach his ultimate goal, a house of his own before or on the first year anniversary date.
Why couldn’t I think of this idea first?

I am sure there will be plenty of other copycats to follow Kyle’s lead, but just like the creators of the million dollar home page, everyone else who follows in these young entrepreneur’s footsteps is just a wannabe.