Anybody who's anybody online knows exactly what the popular term "SEO" stands for. It is an abbreviation for the hot business of "search engine optimisation". Yeah, that's a mouth full, so now you can see why the letters SEO are far better to use.

My interest to write this article was spurred by a piece of spam email that I had recieved earlier in the day. It was from a company that was claiming to help me build my "link popularity" by buying link packages off of them.

The email was actually well written, and it definately gained my interest enough that I figured I would check it out. There were even 3 testimonials that sounded like this was THEE place to be if you wanted top search engine rankings.

Upon visiting the site, which was nicely designed, and very professional looking, I started to "play". Within less than 5 minutes I abruptly left the site, and will never go back....WHY?

Well, let me explain;

If you are ever contemplating paying somebody big bucks to do SEO work for you, there are few real easy tests you can run to determine if they are even worthy of you giving them the time of day. These are so easy, a 10 year old can do them, and they can save you a bundle!

You will need the Google Toolbar installed for these tests! Go to toolbar.google.com and download it for free. It only takes a few minutes to install.

The first thing I did was entered the URL of their website in my browser in 2 different formats. One with the www, and one without. The reason I do this, is because there are many sites out there that have different Google PR values with or without the www. This is simply determined on how they promote and link their site. If I am losing you here, let me show you what I mean;

'www.domain.com' may show a different Google PR rating than just 'domain.com'
I have seen sites that have a PR7 for just 'domain.com', and have a PR 0 for 'www.domain.com'. It's no big deal to you as an end user. All you are doing is looking to see if the site has any PR at all. In the case of the SEO business in question, it was a big fat ZERO in both cases. Imagine that, an SEO bsuiness that doesn't even have any PR...hmmmmm

On to the next step;

Since you have the google toolbar, just right click on the mouse, and scroll down to "backward links", and click on it. This is another neat feature of the Google Toolbar. It tells you how many other sites, or pages that link to the page or site in question. Very powerful tool. The site in question... ZERO! Imagine that :)

Even tho this is usually enough to deter me, there is one more simple test, that really takes the cake. Just do a search at Google for the term "SEO" and "search engine optimisation". Is this site listed in the top 10? The top 20? the top 100?

In our case, yep you guessed it... A BIG FAT NO!

Ok, so here is a site, selling SEO work, and offereng link packages to thousands of other sites, for hundreds of dollars, claiming to give YOU top search engine rankings when..

1. They have no links to their own site
2. They themselves, don't even have top search engine listings!

Don't get me wrong. There are plenty of successful SEO companies out there. It is a very competitive field, but if you are looking to pay someone to do this kind of work, you need to be informed.

Do some research, and ask some questions;

1.Do they themselves, carry top positions in the field they represent?

2.Do they have any real references? (It is not hard to get a top placement for keywords like "top used car salesman of the year award", but it IS hard to get a top listing for something like "used cars") if they have helped sites get great listings for top keywords, then they know what they are doing.

3. Do they offer a guarantee or some other sort of compensation if they can't deliver?

These are just a few things that should be considered when hiring out for SEO work, and always ask for advice, if you don't know what you are doing. Your actions can make or break your website, and your business!

Jer Strausser is the owner of the highly popular work at home community at WorkatHomeCommunity.com. Visit them for tips, news, and articles for your home business success.