Dancing over people’s angst and despair has always been fertile meadow for the unscrupulous. And when these kind of extreme negative emotions erupts broadly, the overall misery becomes paradise for the parasites. The ones who are most susceptible are the ones who will prone to trust the untrustworthy.

So after Google unleashed the notorious Penguin update which had a huge murky impact on many small business owners who operates online, it was an obvious cue for the darkness to begin preying on the vulnerable. Nothing like a brutal widely-influential algorithm alteration to draw out the snakes from their lairs.

On one side of the Penguin ScamLand you can find the purely bullshit swindlers that mostly prowls the unsavvy whose SEO knowledge is very limited. But on another side nests the other form of vile carnivores, perhaps even more dangerous. Deceivers who masks behind the facade of a legitimate operation, an SEO agency.

While many frustrated site owner understands how nonsensical are the former, lots will still flock to the latter. Through the guise of a valid SEO business, the manipulative hawkers can offer their shady “Penguin recovery” services under people’s fraud-radar, sometimes at ridiculously costly fees.

By the way, those “SEO agencies” and their dubious promotion methods are also largely responsible for the odious scent of SEO as a practice. They are the worst… the worst!

But what are the pitching tactics those fake SEO agencies using to entice Penguin-slapped site owners? I think it would be best to demonstrate by a few real examples… which will also be a good opportunity to expose some of the crookedly crooks out there.

Fresh Web SEO: 30-45 Days To Recover
[freshwebseo.com/budget-seo-management/penguin-recovery-services]

This lovely firm claims that most websites can recover from the Penguin within 30-45 days… but alas! The last Penguin refresh was about four months ago, so the 30-45 days recovery time-frame remains as a mystery… (or not when understanding their true greedy intentions.)

Fresh Web SEO only asks a lousy $1,500 for this Penguin recovery enigma…

e-Intelligence: Penguin Success Stories
[e-intelligence.in/ranking-recovery.html]

This India-based digital marketing firm points out on the most ludicrous “selected Penguin success stories” as a “proof” for their ability:

• One recovered website which been hit A MONTH AFTER the Penguin launch (how is that possible??).
• One recovered website which been hit A WEEK AFTER the Penguin refresh (again, not possible).
• One recovered website which not only observed a demotion in rankings, but ALSO suffered from a significant drop in traffic (nice Sherlock).

Measurable SEO: The System
[measurableseo.com/penguin]

You guys! Measurable SEO has a “system” {gasp} to help websites recover from the Penguin! All you have to do is to purchase the Penguin Package (skimpy $300 to $900 a month) and the “system” will lift you out from the deep hole you fell into {only to drop you inside a deeper hole}.

Canada SEO Professional: Higher Rankings Than Pre-Penguin!
[canadaseopro.ca/penguin-recovery.html]

This dreadful company not only claims it regained the traffic of many Penguinlized websites “in a very short time period” (even though it is totally infeasible) but also has the audacity to assure better rankings than even before the Penguin had stroke the client/mark!

I guess that if those Canadians already decided to lie, they might as well go all the way…

Penguin Recovery Service: “Nothing To Warry” [sic]
[penguinrecoveryservice.com]

I don’t think this site even qualifies as a fake SEO agency but it was still worth to mention it: A website with no contact information, about page or any content at all for that matter, offers to salvage your website for $167 to $3,000 {WTF??} a month. I do however managed to find his photo… say hi little scammer:

Gyan Infotech: We Are Experts!
[gyaninfotech.com/recovery-panda-penguin-seo-plan.html]

For $300 a month I would expect to get the royal treatment from the most professional SEO experts. Gyan Infotech claims it employs “the most Well experienced and skilled professionals in the Market,” so why nobody told those experts that filing a reconsideration request won’t work with the Penguin?

SEO India Company: Panda and Penguin Combined Recovery Plan
[seoindiacompany.com/seo-plan-recover-panda-penguin-update.html]

It’s hard to create two separate pages for fake recoveries from the Penguin and from the Panda updates… so why not just create one shoddy page for a combined plan? It’s not like those are two completely different algorithms which targets different things… right…?

Indeed, The Night is Dark and full of Terrors…