Stephanie Faust Bottom Line Search Not an SEO Expert; Not a Web Designer; $6500 = Zero Site Traffic, Internet
I contracted with Stephanie Faust and BottomLineSearch.com on November 25th, 2010. She promised to bring traffic to my website through SEO tactics that she had learned over many years. She presented herself as an expert in the field.
As of March, 2011, her work has provided virtually NO hits. I am publishing this complaint so the innocent public can be informed about Ms. Fausts extraordinary and inexcusable incompetence.
STEPHANIE FAUST IS NOT AN SEO EXPERT
Stephanie Faust recommended that I buy new domain names using keywords that would attract business. I agreed, since I didnt know any better. As it turned out, these keywords were not active. Google ranked most of them at zero. This means that users were not entering the terms in their web browsers, so we could never achieve any traffic from the major search engines. Stephanies grand plan was to post blogs that would create new traffic for the terms. But her concept was foolish. Most of the traffic on the Internet is generated by requests made from search browsers such as Google. You cannot create your own traffic in any significant numbers. Certainly my experience backs that up. So what gave Stephanie Faust the nerve to claim she could bring results through these useless methodologies? The answer is simple: each time she suckers somebody into one of these business arrangements, she gets paid. In my case, I had to pay in full upon completion. When a month went gone by without results, Stephanie blithely announced that she was too busy to help me. She advised that I should continue her program on my own or I might lose business. I had no time energy or desire to continue her idiotic program. So now she can point the finger back at me and blame me for not following through.
I did a real search for an SEO expert this time using Google itself to see what SEO specialists were at the top of the rankings and interviewed a half-dozen of them about Stephanie Fausts work. Here is what they all said:
(1) The domain names that Stephanie had me purchase were odd keyword combinations, and were not being actively searched on Google or other major search engines. They were of no use whatsoever in attracting users to my site.
(2) Posting blogs with links was hopeless; traffic is gained when you tap off of existing search terms.
(3) Stephanie had me buy hosting from GoDaddy.Com (maybe she got some affiliates fees? Go Stephanie!) My site load speed was so slow that even if I attracted users, they would not stay.
(4) Stephanie also put all of my domains under one server with one IP address. This is a major non-no; Google ignores all web pages involved in such scenarios. (Stephanie later denied this, since she had no intention of drawing Google traffic. Thanks for the warning, Stephanie!)
(5) The site was full of SEO defects, including broken links. Only a hack amateur would post a website with a broken link.
STEPHANIE FAUST IS NOT A WEB DESIGNER
Stephanie spent nearly three months to get my site fully operational. She said this was my fault, since I was so demanding. In fact, what I demanded was that the site be clearly readable. So I had to teach Stephanie about how to use a cascading style sheet to create space around words and between bullet points, etc. I also had to correct Stephanies tendency towards amateurish design and her inability to understand visual coherence.
A month after Stephanie walked away from this project, she was still officially listed as the owner of my domains. I had to demand that she remove herself and her emails from my public records, and return all rights to me. She seemed puzzled as to why I would want control of what I had paid so dearly for. This testifies to her level of arrogance and indifference towards the rights of her clients/victims.
STEPHANIE KNOWS HOW TO WRITE A SELF-SERVING CONTRACT
Stephanie Faust is clever enough to create contracts that explain her services. Since the contract is a long, complex legal document, the average person signs it without understanding that Stephanie is releasing herself from any responsibility to perform on her verbal promises.
My only remaining remedy is to publish my experience to forewarn the general public about Stephanie Faust and BottomLineSearch.com.
1 Updates & Rebuttals
StephanieFaust
United States of AmericaFAR FROM WHAT ACTUALLY OCCURED - YOU CAN TELL WITHIN HIS OWN CONTENT
#2REBUTTAL Owner of company
Sun, November 20, 2011
Yes, Stephen was very aware that I was in the search engine marketing business for years prior to our contract. But he was also aware that the website had to be published and THEN backlinks had to be sent to it to produce any notable amounts of traffic. It does not occur in this industry where the website is made and then the traffic immediately comes in organically. However, the website(s) should be created with a search engine friendly foundation which it was.
I made it completely clear that monthly links would need to be placed in order to realize traffic. This was my indication of that taken from my e-mail to Stephen dated 11/23/2010:
Monthly costs will range from $1000 and up depending on your budget and how aggressively you want to go after the monthly linking for SEO and frequency of social media updates. Without the monthly work which he did not continue with the rankings and traffic would not follow.
Stephen notes:
As it turned out, these keywords were not active. Google ranked most of them at zero.
The following is taken from my e-mail dated 11/24/10:
This is the keyword, followed by the monthly searches as reported by Google, followed by the domain:
Fast Easy Ways to Make Money 15000
fast-easy-ways-to-make-money-online.com
How to Write a Good Resume 9000
how-to-write-a-good-resume.com
How to Get Rich Quick 11000
how-to-get-rich-quick.com
How to Become Wealthy 6000
how-to-become-wealthy.net
Job Interview Tips and Questions 2666
job-interview-tips-and-questions.com
Ways to Make Money without a Job 1666
ways-to-make-money-without-a-job.com
Sample Job Interview Questions and
Answers 3166 sample-job-interview-questions-and-answers.com
How to Get Hired in the Recession1 666
how-to-get-hired-in-the-recession.com
Get Hired without a Resume 1666
get-hired-without-a-resume.com
Resume Advice 7333 resume-advice.net
The keywords in my recommended domains produced an overall 59,163 searches. Stephen then insisted on keywords that targeted his book better. However, the topic of his book is something that is not searched for directly. He insisted on keywords that were more relevant and had less traffic. Some of these keywords we ended up with were even the ones on the list above and altogether they still had thousands of searches.
Furthermore, these are blog sites. The keyword in the domain is not the only keyword to be targeted as you continue to write blog posts with titles of other keywords. These sites would have potentially branched out into dozens and even hundreds of other target keywords.
I never claimed to be too busy to continue to the linking for the sites to generate traffic. Stephen was very particular about how the content for the sites and blogs were written not in a sense that the basic grammar and SEO strategy was there but in a sense that it matched his own thought patterns and constant revisions. This is something I never experienced with any client. This is not the normal amount of feedback and revisions. I continued to spend additional days doing work that he requested that was not in the original scope of the project to ensure he was satisfied. He even complimented the website and continued to work with me revision after revision until he was satisfied and made the final payment. He even notes in this review that he made the final payment. WHY WOULD SOMEONE WHO FELT THEY DIDN'T GET WHAT WAS IN THEIR CONTRACT MAKE A FINAL PAYEMENT? Furthermore, he did not even reach back to me to express any dissatisfaction until a couple months after finalizing the project.
And then Stephen mentions he contacted SEO experts and:
(2) Posting blogs with links was hopeless; traffic is gained when you tap off of existing search terms.
Posting links from blogs to your website is a driving SEO optimization tactic especially when the anchor text matches the target keyword of the landing page. If SEO "experts" told this to this gentleman I would be highly concerned.
(3) Stephanie had me buy hosting from GoDaddy.Com (maybe she got some affiliates fees? Go Stephanie!) My site load speed was so slow that even if I attracted users, they would not stay.
Stephen approved GoDaddy from the very beginning and the plan could have been upgraded or if he was that dissatisfied later on I could have moved his hosting.
(4) Stephanie also put all of my domains under one server with one IP address. This is a major non-no; Google ignores all web pages involved in such scenarios. (Stephanie later denied this, since she had no intention of drawing Google traffic. Thanks for the warning, Stephanie!)
That's correct that you don't use the same class C IP addresses, but it's ONLY RELEVANT if you're interlinking between them. That was not the strategy. We were to link from third party sites to our landing pages. This method is much more preferable for search engine optimization because these third party sites have gained much authority already in the search engines and therefore a link from one of them is much more valuable. The sites that were all on the same class C IP were to be the recipient o the links and traffic, which is fine as long as the only plan was not to the send links between them.
(5) The site was full of SEO defects, including broken links. Only a hack amateur would post a website with a broken link.
The most intensive part of the site was the customization of a PHP shopping cart to function in very particular ways that Stephen requested that was not an out of the box solution of the shopping cart we were using. Customizations and testing had to be done. There was such a large amount of work done for the amount of compensation and he notes something so minor a couple broken links out of what was probably hundreds.
The claims here where I said I was too busy and he was too demanding did not even happen. I have every e-mail back and forth between this gentleman and me telling a much different story and my tone was no where near what he is representing in this review.
I have dozens of previous clients that are extremely satisfied with my work and rankings established on keywords with 50,000 monthly searches with references.
My verbal promises were also in sync with the contract, that the site prepares for the linking... but subsequent months of linking is what will generate the traffic. I am sorry this client heard what he wanted. I even asked for a discussion on the phone with him after I saw this published to work something out and HE denied it. This was an attempt to get money back. I have this all documented in e-mails. Should a prospect be reading this I would like to mention that I have numerous references I can send you to. I am a very moral and faithful worker and highly passionate about my industry. I run numerous lead pages that receive leads regularly through search engine rankings and all my clients are extremely satisfied with me. I even volunteer, design and drive traffic to non profit websites.