Comments on: Get Rich Quick with Fast Hosting!

By: Gary

Gary — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 00:04:50 +0000

Nice post! Here in Australia there seems to be a renewed wave of SEO ‘scam artists’ peddling the false information that a few changes (such as speed) will ‘guarantee’ untold riches.
The amazing thing is that supposedly intelligent and well educated people actually believe the hype!

By: Lawrence Dudley

Lawrence Dudley — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 17:11:25 +0000

Really good article – I’ve had phone calls from UKFast and they wind me up no end with their dishonest marketing practices.

We’ve written a blog piece referencing this one with some tips on how to actually increase website speeds (no, don’t buy an “SEO Server”, what ever that is) which you can find here: http://snapshotmedia.co.uk/blog/the-importance-of-website-speed

Quite tempted to make a complaint to trading standards about UKFast to be honest…

By: Weekly Search & Social News: 04/28/2010 | Search Engine Journal

Weekly Search & Social News: 04/28/2010 | Search Engine Journal — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 14:59:16 +0000

[...] Get Rich Quick with Fast Hosting! – Kay Dinsdale [...]

By: Al Mackin

Al Mackin — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 09:02:00 +0000

There isn’t a lot of credit given to the people who appear on camera.

Their name is flashed up on screen for a few seconds, but they aren’t even name checked on the UKFast Site.

It seems a shame that these people give up a few hours of they day, and may have even had their hair done especially for the event, and they aren’t given more “props”.

By: Kev Strong

Kev Strong — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 06:23:36 +0000

Hi Kay. Fantastic article, i must say. I wrote about UK Fast earlier with regards to their emailing campaign using the recent speed factor as an over-egged reason to upgrade you hosting ( goosh.co.uk ). At the time i had not seen the roundtables (thank you for the indepth background btw) but it confirms what my inital thoughts were - a scaremongering tactic.

By: Andy @ FirstFound

Andy @ FirstFound — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 15:53:11 +0000

I thought speed was only going to be a factor in less than 1% of searches (if Matt Cutts is to be believed). That’s hardly the huge, game changing issue that it’s made out to be by some hosts.

By: Kay

Kay — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 11:59:29 +0000

Thanks William, Simon & Tim for your comments

I was referred today to another blog post on this matter by Kev Strong. He makes an interesting comparisson between websites hosted by UKFast and those of his own clients.

http://www.goosh.co.uk/online-marketing/i-introduce-to-you-a-new-type-of-snakeoil-salesman/

By: William Cross

William Cross — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 11:35:00 +0000

It would appear others are indeed already picking it up…

http://www.goosh.co.uk/online-marketing/i-introduce-to-you-a-new-type-of-snakeoil-salesman/

By: William Cross

William Cross — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 09:36:28 +0000

I have to agree with Kay, Tim, and Simon here Jonathan, sorry. The pitch of your roundtables and the way you guys have come across in them make it look extremely bad for the points that Simon expressed above, as well as the marketing metrics you provided that Tim touched on. From a marketing perspective, as Tim said, you are appearing to take credit for a meteoric rise in revenue which simply has never been seen by me in 13 plus years, switching many clients from one hosting provider to another, without some form of direct push, be it press releases, community updates, newsletters, etc.

Yes, speedier pages have been shown to account for better conversions, even minimal speed increases, however, not to the extent you have described. Not speeding up a page alone. That said, I do agree that it helps.

As for being a ranking factor, at least at this time Google has stated plainly that it is a minimal factor and will only affect about 1% of searches. Your claims make it sound like merchants/webmasters are going to see dramatic improvements, when that simply is not the case. They will likely see no difference in rankings by switching to your hosting on that factor alone.

Seriously, so far the comments here have been civil. I have seen them get much worse, and others are sure to pick up this story. I would suggest to rethink things and make clearer your statements meanings before that can happen. Preventative damage control would be the proper terminology I think.

By: Simon Wharton

Simon Wharton — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 08:39:15 +0000

Jonathan

I think UK Fast is a fine hosting company that delivers an excellent service, however your marketing has seriously over egged the speed factor. Very seriously. The roundtables are a nice marketing device but they clearly are just that, a marketing device. The issue is that you have strayed into territory where people are sensitive. The SEO industry has suffered for years from cowboys making unverfiable claims and selling gullible SMEs a pig in a poke. I dont for a second suggest that UKFast is unscrupulous by the way. However, in this case, you have made very strong unverifiable claims that cause or sector problems. Hence the response from some of the most senior and knowledgable practitioners in the North West.

Yes speed and resilience are critically important in hosting but the plain fact of the matter is that UKFast have made strong claims that are unjustifiable and, at this time, unverified. Without taking steps to reasonably address that issue, you are damaging your brand in front of a vocal client base.