[Daminc]

Ok, I don't know why you would have to post such a diatribe as you have but as an impartial individual I shall try and balance your attack.

Bull. If they do not offer you a money-back guarantee, they can simply take your money and run

I believe the context was different with regards to:

Offers of guaranteed rankings

. When I read it I remember the Guaranteed top placement blah, blah, blah what the customer didn't realise was the'top placement' may have been or a search term that nobody ever used. Red Flag means, in this context, use caution.

It's an SEO's job to know as much about the algo as possible.

That's true. But what has that got to do with Search engines do not disclose their ranking algorithms., which is also true.

Guaranteed rankings, BTW

PPC campaign by any chance?

Why explain your methods in detail?

Allows the client to itemise their budget, allows them peace of mind, increases their confidence in the SEO company which can lead to more referals.

That's a crock.

I'm tempted to get annoyed here but I don't know you well enough to judge whether you're egocentric (toned down) or just agumentative. The advantages of viewing a SEO 'specialist' online would be to get clarification on the strategies they use or the amount of respect given to them with the SEO community.

Marketing is in charge of conversions. SEO is in charge of rankings

Ah, sematics. In the company I work for we see SEO as part of SEM. If I was to optimise a page for specific keyphrase but didn't get any conversions that may show that I'm optimising for the wrong phrase.

Hey Brian

Links are king

Links are Queens, Content is King