Rankpay has a very good system of performance based SEO and is a US based company. Their Customer Service is responsive and the pricing is clear and upfront. You only pay when you Rank.
Cons:
Per keyword pricing can become expensive and they only target low competition keywords.
2 Reviews
rebelmouse says: October 18, 2013 at 1:30 pm
Blasphemy! LOL Just kidding. Ive study comparable points on other blogs. Ill take your word by making use of this. Remain solid! your friend.
Mr. Nobody says: February 5, 2012 at 4:06 pm
Stay AWAY – From RANKPAY!!
I have been a Rankpay customer since April of this year. What drew me in was the ability to pay as I see results. After all, not many people can afford to pay an SEO firm thousands of dollars for something that, let’s face it, is rather intangible and unguaranteed. The money is not the issue, it’s trust as well. After all, there are a lot of rogue SEO firms out there that either run away with your money or have no idea what they’re doing. But RankPay seemed different. Their website was promising, their FAQs section stated that they only use ethical SEO practices, relevant blog posts and quality links. Their website looked professional and that text area that asks you to enter your keyword on their homepage – BAM, it hits you as soon you get to their domain and you’re drawn in. What a great call to action! And then it tells you all the possible traffic you can get and you start thinking about all the extra sales you could get – total euphoria.
Truth is, like that siren at sea in the night, it’s all just a beautiful song to lure you in. I had activated 6 keywords, both single word, competitive keywords and long tail, less competitive keywords. The result – no results at all. I am still in the same spot for 3 of the keywords and the other 3 keywords, I have dropped by about 15 to 30 SERP positions.
Here are the things that bother me with RankPay.com:
They have very friendly customer service, which makes you stick around and give them another chance, hoping that one day your ranks will go up. They usually respond the same or next day, but their responses are so diplomatic and evasive (think a presidential candidate during the primary debates). Their responses consist of 1- reiterating what you told them your problem is, 2- acknowledging your frustration, and 3-telling you to be patient as SEO takes time.
And there is the problem. Their answer to everything seems to be that SEO takes time. You could send them a complaint as straightforward as, “Hey, you misspelled one of my links” and you know what the answer will be? “SEO takes time.” Always the same answer.
Their keyword search estimates are wrong so make sure you check it first. I didn’t know this, but check your keywords against Google’s keyword tool. For one of my keywords, RankPay.com’s estimate was 8,000 global monthly searches in Google. Well, it turns out that Google’s keyword tool actually estimates the global monthly searches at 320 (yes, 320) for this particular keyword. Needless to say, this mistake currently costs me $44 per month for a measly #22 spot in Google. Let’s say I get a 1% CTR for this particular keyword. I will have a whopping 3.2 new visitors to my site per month. Not bad for $44, huh?
They get you with a contract. A long 6-month contract. And you can’t drop them just like that after 6 months because it would look unnatural to Google if you stop building links abruptly. But don’t fear, they will “maintain” your site at the same SERP level for you at half the cost, whatever that means.
And I think it’s funny how they charge you when you go up in ranks, yet when they butcher your ranks and they go down drastically, you get nothing from them. I know I’m hiring you to build up my rankings, but my site’s been around for a while and I’ve put significant effort into getting it there. What gives you the right to worsen it?
And I know, you may say that it’s all in Google’s hands and Google is so unpredictable with their algorithms. But keep in mind – RankPay is charging you for a service. It is their responsibility to be on top of Google and know the latest that is going on. Their success depends on it.
So, you may say, if RankPay really is butchering your SERPs, why are you upset? You don’t pay if your rank doesn’t improve. That’s true, but I throw in the argument that every site has some SEO effort already put into it when it signs up for RankPay. Therefore, I would at least expect to maintain the same rankings and not go down. The problem though, is that you DO pay even when your rank goes down. RankPay runs a report on every first and every Sunday of the month. You will be charged based on what your rank is on the first of the month. The funny thing is that they select the Google/SE databases that give the highest rankings for the 1st of the month. I’ve tested this myself on the different Google databases. Lo and behold, they keep me at rank #12 to 16 for a keyword that really is at #20 and charge $150 a month for it (original rank before I hired them was #16 by the way). I’ve tested the other keywords and it’s true. The funny thing is that when they do the other reports each Sunday, they don’t pick the best performing databases so your rank, according to them, drops. So, you’re constantly in this circle where your rank keeps dropping, yet by some miracle, on the first of the month, your rank increases (while your wallet decreases).
RankPay has great interest in keeping you at the same ranks. If you made it to the top of the SERPs, you’d put your account on maintenance, pay half the cost and immediately cancel your contract after 6 months. But this constant push and pull prolongs the hope that one day you could better your SERPs through RankPay and you basically remain hooked while dishing out your wallet to them every month.
So, how are they able to control this? After all, isn’t Google deciding who’s on top and who is not? While Google’s algos change all the time, there is something that doesn’t – quality SEO gets you to the top of Google. And that’s exactly what RankPay lacks. Their website is not transparent enough about where the links that they obtain for you are coming from. Sure, they’ll give you a list of the “10 most recent activities (links)” that they have done on your site, but this is just a sample. I’ve asked them about this and they have told me that they are not able to provide it as it is too much information. So let’s delve into the kinds of links they get to you, but we’ll need a new bullet for this…and let’s add numbers, too…
1 – they are obsessed with Twitter. But Twitter to me is overrated as far as SEO, especially the way they use it. They have a bunch of different Twitter aliases with an embarrassing 3 to 10 followers and then just comment the heck out of them. By the time you refresh their twitter page, your site is already at the bottom. It’s nice to be lumped in with advertisements about nudist beaches, Christian theology, and something called aisle runners (whatever that is). And two tweets down from my company’s tweet you’ll find that “because of Animal Crackers, many kids until they reach the age of ten, believe a bear is as tall as a giraffe.” So, being lumped together on this diverse twitter page not only ensures that my company’s reputation is compromised, but the page relevance absolutely proves to Google that the link is worthless. After all, how on earth are nudist beaches and Christian theology supposed to be related content-wise? And did I mention that because you are using shortened URLS, you are at the mercy of the shortened URL company to deliver a good redirect to your site, which most people don’t trust anyway because they don’t know what’s hidden behind that shortened URL. Definitely a good domain branding opportunity gone to waste.
2 – RankPay boasts, quite frequently actually, that they use syndicated blog posts. Yet, when you go to those blogs, they’re awful. It just looks like a robot chewed on the dictionary and spit out a bunch of nonsensical paragraphs with a link to your website embedded in there somehow.
3 – Did I mention that those syndicated blog posts are duplicates? Yep, you will find the same blog post across several domains. Yes, our curtain business is quite proud to be associated with blog posts titled “The Birth of the Snow” and “The Witch’s Wife”, which are conveniently identical. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never heard of snow being born and I’m pretty sure that witches are single, grumpy ladies (if nothing else, I’m pretty sure they’re interested in men).
4 – And did I mention that RankPay touts these blog posts as great because of their high PR of 2 and 3? You guys know darn well they’ll be in the archives 2 weeks from now with a PR of n/a, never to be crawled by Googlebot.
5 – And this is something that I never understood. If you decide to do some deeplink SEO, meaning that you want to optimize an inner page as opposed to your homepage, RankPay will build links for your inner page, yet they will charge you for the rank of your homepage if your homepage happens to be higher in SERPs. That’s so silly. If I want to optimize an inner page and you are building links using my inner page URL, then darn it, why are you using my homepage to calculate the rank? Never mind, I know the answer to this question (it’s money).
6 – RankPay also boasts that they have added a bunch of .EDU links to your site, yet when you go in to research your links in Google webmaster tools or Yahoo Explorer, there’s not a single .EDU link to be found. Strange.
7 – RankPay also does manual directory submissions and oftentimes, the link description will be that it is a “popular directory established in 1997″, yet when you do some research to find them, you soon realize that it should say “last updated, not established, in 1997.”
So, that is my opinion of RankPay. I hope that you will use my experience to guide you next. In the last 7 months, which should have been plenty of time to see significant SEO results with RankPay, I have thus far spent $850 to pretty much remain the same rank for 3 keywords and drop down by about 15 to 30 SERPs for another 3 keywords. I hope that this review/testimonial is of help to you. You judge for yourself if this is something you want. Who knows, hopefully you will not have bad luck like I did.