I have recently built a site for my father.

I have told him that I could build the site but as far as SEO I really don't have the time to do it or run a linking campaign. So, I showed him some websites and told him to start researching... Well to make a long story short, he has been looking at finding a company to do SEO for him including linking.

He found a couple of things:

1. http://www.linknet-promotions.com/50-links-a-month.php - This is a page that says that they can get someone indexed in days. Is this as bad as a link farm?

2. He contacted a site www.911seo.com - an SEO company which claims that they will get 20 of your keywords on the top 10 (or) 20 search engines. Apparently, charge a monthly fee after you are on page 1. But there is a upfront charge of 1200-2000.

I think these are rip-off's but I'm not a pro so what do you guys/gals think?

I know he won't do it but I'm curious for my knowledge. My understanding is that there are no free lunches and no get-to-the-top quick schemes that work. However, maybe I'm wrong.

When I was talking to the guy from 911seo.com it seem very "sales pitchy" in that he was saying things like "OH, you have a -1 on our system from google and that's not good... We need to immediately look at your site before your blacklisted from everyone". And, then he asked me who did the site, and I said me... "Oh, do you know xhtml? and css?"

I think he was just fishing but my other questions are:

3. Does XHTML give you any better results in the search engines??

4. Does CSS give you any better results?

5. Does having a .com name over a .ca name give you any better results??

Any help is appreciated.

I've worked with SEO Matrix thorugh my workplace before and they have proven themselves to be trustworthy and effective.

I think you're exactly right in what you're thinking about both companies your dad found. The linknet-promotions is probably going to cause more harm in the long run and the 911seo site has no clue. I have no idea what that -1 thing is all about and your site isn't in any danger of being blacklisted.

It's also interesting to note that the 911seo experts show a PR of 0 for their site and show exactly 0 backlinks as well. PR isn't what ranking is all about, but an seo firm with none is an seo firm that doesn't know any seo.

As for the other questions I don't think you gain an seo advantage using xhtml over html. I'm sure there are those who think you will, but I haven't seen it.

It's similar for css though I'm more inclined to think css can make a difference. CSS can reduce a lot of the code on your page which may make it easier for spiders to index your site. Some think less code leads to higher keyword density, but I don't believe that since search engines are stripping out your code anyway prior to determing who ranks for what.

You can though organize your content in a different way using css which I think can have an effect. You can code your page in a way that your content appears first and other page element appear after. You reorder your text in ways that may have a minor effect on where the page ranks.

There are many many examples though of poorly coded web pages at the top of the results. Ultimately your rank will depend on the quality and quantity of the backlinks to your page and site and the content that's on the page.

There may come a time where having a well coded valid page does lead to better ranking, but at the moment that's not the case.

I can't think of a single reason why a .com name would give better results than a .ca name

Defnitiely make sure your dad stays away from both companies. All they do for him is empty his wallet. There isn't an easy path to seo like you're thinking. You build a good site and ideally do everything you can do to make sure a search spider can find all your pages. You want quality content on those pages hopefully containing a few keywords phrases you want to page to rank for and then you atrract visitors through links on other sites. The more quality those sites are and the more relevant those sites are to yours the better.

There's obviously more details, but I feel safe in saying 911seo doesn't know what they are.

WoW! Great response. Thanks!

You mentioned that CSS is better to code with. I tried designing a site strictly with <div></div> tags once and not using tables at all. The problem I found was that IE interpreted it different that FF and Opera, etc. I couldn't get the layout compatible with all of them.

Do you think there is enough of an advantage for me to figure it out (hours) or do you think I would be more advantageous focusing on content, linking, and such?

I do think using css to layout a site is worth the time to learn it, but dont feel like you can't be successful using tables. There are many successful sites that probably aren't using a single line of css.

What css can do though is lighten the overall code you need to use on a page and across an entire site, reducing load times. It will make a site much easier to maintain and change. You also gain more control over your presentation using css.

There are some who think css will help you when it comes to seo, though I'm still unconvinced. I understand the theories, but haven't really seen the proof yet. I think in time in might help, but I'm not convinced that time is here yet. Others will disagree with me of course. It's not clear cut at the moment the effects of css on seo.

You'll be better off for the moment concentrating on building links. It is worth the time though to learn css. It can take a little while to get it all down, but it does get easier with practice.