Don’t use Main Street Host for Web Hosting!
Someone just called me at work about “Main Street Host Dot Com”. Now, whether that’s mainstreethost.com or main-street-host.com or mainsthost.com, whatever. They telemarket, so they obviously can’t make money by offering good/fair service. Don’t use them. And as long as I’m on a rant about crappy web hosts, if you want to procrastinate whatever it is you’re doing and have a laugh read this account of Lunapages misguided insertion of link farms on their customers’ 404 pages. The comments become puerile and ranty. In fact, I haven’t seen such childish bantering since 1996 bbs flame wars.
2009.03.09 Update Since this rather random little post continues to get a lot of traffic and comments, I thought I’d offer some useful links on SEO [via Lifehacker 2009.02.28]
- Lifehacker’s SEO Made Easy – covers a diverse range of search engines
- Whitehat SEO tips for bloggers – by Matt Cutts, the search quality manager at Google
- Having a Say in What Google Says About You – by Lifehacker’s editor, a step-by-step guide if it’s just your good name you’re looking to get out there with your site
2009.10.26 Update I have noticed that a lot of the relatively few pro-MSH and most of the name-calling rude comments are coming directly from mainstreethost.com IP addresses. I try to occasionally post their IPs publicly when I find this. Note however, it’s very easy to use a proxy server to fake your IP address so any comments could be by MSH employees and I would not be able to trace it. I am not saying they have zero happy customers, but I would caution that based on simple statistics so far, to use a healthy dose of skepticism while reading the following comments.
Wendy Hacker said,
April 24, 2008 @ 2:25 pm
Main Street Hosts is so desperate they’re going to dog breeder web directories and calling dog breeders for business. My client and her friend received calls to buy their services for $20. My client immediately called me to see what I thought. I thought no one does SEO for $20, it had to be a scam so I googled the company and read a lot of negative comments about Main Street. I’m sure it’s smart on their part to target people who won’t know what they’re talking about but it’s a shame for the person who falls for it.
Jerry P said,
May 6, 2008 @ 1:01 pm
I just got a call from Main Street Host as well. Their price was still $20 and I asked them how they can make money from charging $20 and they said that basically they don’t. That this is a special that they are running. And that they do it over the phone. They analyze your site and then call you and walk you through the process of updating your web pages for SEO, meta tags, etc. They don’t like to send it in email form because the masses don’t understand what the information means or how to implement it. It seems to me that using a live person on the phone to walk someone through what can be a complicated procedure can be time consuming and expensive on their payroll. I don’t see how they can do it. And I’ve googled them and the comments are overwhelmingly bad. I’m going to pass on them. I’ll do my own SEO.
Jerry P said,
May 14, 2008 @ 10:55 am
Just a follow up to the last post I made. I’ve been on the phone again with Main Street Host to talk over what they can do for me. They showed me many results where they got their client to the first page of google. And it turns out that they do email results to you on the diagnostic deal that they were offering. I got that wrong. And they do follow up with a phone call to walk you through it. But since I’m operating on an ultra shoestring budget I’ll have to wait to use their services until the budget allows for the investment. Not that I can’t afford $20 (their full service costs more of course) but I don’t want to start a program until I can see it through to the end. I’m not sure about the bad comments from before, but they certainly are willing to work for your business and work with you to find a business solution that suits your budget. If I had the money I might give them a shot. But for now I will have to fend for myself.
mahalie said,
May 14, 2008 @ 11:26 am
They cold call telemarket…that’s all I need to know. If you want to rank highly the best thing you can do is offer quality content on your website so that REAL people link to you. I would NEVER refer a client of mine to a service that obviously spends a lot of time and money on their phone sales force.
Jess said,
August 2, 2008 @ 2:48 am
I received a call from Main Street Host yesterday afternoon. I agree with the previous posters that they are obviously targeting small businesses assuming we have no idea what we are doing. In fact, thanks to my website statistics that I check daily, I even know where they found me LOL… My used clothing store has been open for only 2 months, I do have a small website that I use to market online, and do all of my OWN SEO, and have done very well with it since I originally started out in eCommerce and have a pretty good knowledge of what I am doing and have had previous websites get some very good rankings. They obviously thought that they were talking to someone who had no clue what they were doing when they called me, by the way they threw words around trying to make themselves sound important and talented. Though it was obvious that the person on the other end of the line was a salesperson, and not a good one at that, they spoke very unprofessionally, and was probably hired as one of those work at home telemarketers. They offered me these services for a whopping $9.95 ONE TIME FEE… YEAH RIGHT lol! Im not stupid! Too many red flags in the phone call itself, so I decided to come online this morning and check and have found nothing but NEGATIVE reviews… good thing Im on a tight budget and couldnt even be tempted by them LOL! I will continue to take the free GNC Web Creations SEO Courses and improve my Search Engine Standings on my own… for free… hehe
Tom Corwine said,
August 12, 2008 @ 9:28 pm
I came across this blog while Googling for “main street hosts.”
I got an email from my mom saying she renewed her contract with them, and I had no idea who they were. After a quick search cam my suspicions were confirmed. Their cold calling method is a red flag.
The only person who has the login credentials for the server is me, so how can they be doing any SEO? My mom told me, “They submit her site to search engines for her.” Man these people piss me off.
Gusero said,
September 23, 2008 @ 8:16 am
I just got a call from these people today as well. It started off a promotional rate of $19.95, and that also included diagnostics for my second website, which I didn’t have. Once they found that out, then they were able to instantly give me a $10 discount since I only had one website.
At first, I was tempted to give it a try for only $10, but I wouldn’t be here if I had fail for it. I just wanna say thanks for the post and the comments.
canndee said,
October 28, 2008 @ 10:48 am
I also have received a few telephone calls from Main Street Host for a “diagnostics” of our website. I Googled them to check out what they are all about and 99% of all the comments are not good, but the comments are from people who have not utilized their services. Is there anyone who can comment on their services?
Flak said,
November 11, 2008 @ 10:42 am
I’ve been using them for several years, and I would say I’ve had mixed results. They are very hard to deal with, and to get them to do what you want. They are always trying to sell you more stuff, high pressure calls. Their SEO service is questionable, I am not ranked where I want to be, but I do think that I would have a lower rank without their service. They point to my page rankings on 3 word phrases, but 2 word search terms are where I really need to be ranked, I am missing 70% of my business because they can’t get me up there. I am thinking about a new SEO, any recomendations? I would have switched a long time ago but don’t want to hurt my rankings during the switchover, but at this point I’ve dropped so low in my primary search terms it hardly matters. When I tell them this they say I need to buy more optimization from them, bah.
Miami Escorts said,
December 2, 2008 @ 9:30 pm
I got a call from them too, I’m so thankful for this information
Remodeling Home Miami said,
December 2, 2008 @ 9:35 pm
I’m thinking of trying their services, but now i’m a litle confused by their reviews
josephat said,
December 19, 2008 @ 1:59 pm
If you Google “web site optimization” which is their business, they don’t come up on the first 3 pages of results. If they can’t do any better than that for themselves, how are they going to do it for their customers?
Jeff said,
December 30, 2008 @ 1:40 pm
I recieved a call from these guys about an hour ago, saying that we will charge you a one time fee of 9.95 to “better position your website within MSN, Yahoo, and google”. It sounded too good to be true, so i was like ok sure, and i was goiong to pay him through paypal but it wouldnt let me go any further because it was asking me for my credit card info and I wasnt about to give it to them because Paypal should of had it on my account already. The guy was like well if u hadnt used it in a while thats why. I was like I used it last month and he was like thats why. I told him dude I had this for like 5 years and I’ve never had a problem. I asked him for his contact info and he was real reluctant to give it to me. He finalyl did and I did a serach for the company and found numerous complains, even on the Better business Burea gave them an unsatisfactory raiting
http://search.buffalo.bbb.org/codbrep.html?ID=30001289
It sounds like these guys are absoulty crooks. I even looked up there business on Google maps and its showing its like accross the street from a trucking company, so. Hmmmm.
Watch yourselves.
Mainstreethost SEO Scams and Main Street Host SEO Rip Offs. | ojthedog.com said,
January 5, 2009 @ 3:34 pm
[...] I had only known to: 1.) look at their website, this is the best they can do? 2. type their name, Mainstreethost, followed [...]
Jeff K said,
January 20, 2009 @ 8:48 pm
MSH actually did help me with my search engine placement with my baby gift site back in 2003 and I paid them here and there for small services over the next few years and was overall pretty happy with them. That was until I decided to build a pet supply site and that’s where the problems began. They went way over in months where the site should have been up and once it was there were problems almost daily. Some days the site would be down (I’d have to call them!) many times the orders from customers wouldn’t go through and until someone emailed I’d have no idea. Since the site was so new and I wasn’t getting many orders I thought it was just normal. Of course 90% of the time the troubles were on Friday night after 5 so I’d be dead in the water all weekend. I called and complained a lot and for the most part they did get me going pretty fast but it was wearing me out. I finally opened a Yahoo store, like my baby site, and hired Solid Cactus to clone my MSH site over to Yahoo. Since I made the switch 4/2008 I’ve never been down, customer can always place orders and I’ve never, ever, had to call Yahoo or Solid Cactus. Life is good! I would never recommend using Main Street Host as there are too many honest companies out there and besides, regarding seo, meta this and meta that can be good, but good links seem to be doing the best at this time with Google.
Debra said,
January 23, 2009 @ 9:36 pm
They are the most agressive and rude people I have even encountered. They say my website will fail without them. That they are the gas in my engine.Actually Laugh and giggle when i mention If i can keep the page I paid 500.00 for or if they will remove it. Also they do not care about anything you say, but keep on drilling you to stay with them. They ridicule and cut you down and make you feel like a worm that they gave you a 500.00 deal that usually costs 2000.00 and how lucky you were to get the deal and now you back out on them. Nasty tactics, do not take no for an answer and leave you with the impression they will do whatever they can in their power to ruin your ranking if you dare leave them. I am so upset.
daisey said,
January 28, 2009 @ 11:39 am
optimization companies
# 2 Google
optimization company
# 1 Google
search engine marketing company
# 1 Google
search engine optimization company
# 3 Google
James said,
February 2, 2009 @ 12:32 pm
After seeing these rankings Daisey claimed to be true, I checked to see if her claims were true. Mainstreethost.com does, in fact, hold these positions in Google. Insaying this, I would have to say that Mainstreet Host must know what they are talking about when it comes to SEO. The number of competing websites under these terms are through the roof. They must have the knowledge to achieve top search engine results.
fara underwood said,
February 6, 2009 @ 2:52 pm
I am currently buying a business that uses them, and I only wish they were charging $9.95 a month…… they are charging me in the thousands for my website. I wanted to do some price changing and they were going to charge me $1700 for something that would not take much time….
I think they are rude and will do anything to robb you blind. I am not impressed.
Grant said,
February 13, 2009 @ 2:22 pm
I was also telemarketed by “main street host” today. They are having a special for $9.95 per website up to 5 websites but the 5th one is free, so a total of $49.95. They said that they take 5 man hours to go through your website and send you a report and will go over the website as long as it takes to answer all your questions.
The issue I had is it sounds too good to be true. I don’t know how they would make money. They said that after they make their reports 60% of the time people will contract with them.
All the terms they used to get top rankings uses the word company. I don’t know about you but I have never typed COMPANY after what I was looking for on the internet. For what they offer I would be typing “website optimization” “SEO” “link building” or “search engine optimization”. They don’t come up for those because they are using long tail phrases that no one would search with to find them.
Buyer beware…
Tyson1919 said,
March 4, 2009 @ 6:44 am
“but I have never typed COMPANY after what I was looking for on the internet. For what they offer I would be typing “website optimization” “SEO” “link building” or “search engine optimization”. They don’t come up for those because they are using long tail phrases that no one would search with to find them.”…….
Funny stuff….you and the rest of the informational based searchers keep kicking tires……when you search words like firm, service, company than means you want someone to complete or do work for you….think outside the box you moron…..call Mainstreethost they could give you some great suggestions on new key words. Spend some more time on your business instead of trying to rain on someone’s parade that is doing 10 times the business you are……nork
Wes_M said,
March 12, 2009 @ 12:43 pm
I decided to give them a shot with a site support… in short – they are crooks. When I got the report back it was rated low on all counts of their analysis. I was curious about this since the site does fairly well. Its not ranked exceptionally high – but it has some visibility. I was looking forward to their phone call to discuss the results. When the call came today the first question I had was ‘What keywords did you use?” The answer was THEY ONLY USE THE KEYWORD METATAG! Anyone with even a minimal amount of SEO knowledge is aware that the keyword metatag is only a small portion of any search engine’s weighting of a page. I asked if they did any content word counts or any other keyword gathering and the reply was ‘no’. When I stated I wanted to work with a company that could do a more extensive analysis I got no reply – they hung up on me.
STAY AWAY FROM MSH!!! They don’t know what they are doing.
daisey said,
March 18, 2009 @ 12:42 pm
Wes
Does your site have any other tags besides the keyword tag? Do you have a title tag? Do you have useful keyword enriched content? Maybe you should ask yourself these questions before you go pointing the finger
Mahalie said,
March 18, 2009 @ 2:36 pm
BTW, should have mentioned earlier, Daisey is with MSH:
daisey (IP: 64.78.220.179 , jwoerner-xp.mainstreethost.net)
Sarah said,
March 18, 2009 @ 7:57 pm
I was tricked in to getting a ” package” with Main Street Host. They cold called me one day for the $20 analysis thing, and I said sure. They emailed me this report that basically said our site got no traffic (which was true, I had only bought it 6 months before and had just published the home page about 2 months prior to their call). Anyway, after a month of them calling daily and me saying “no”, they finally talked me down to $300 (from $3000) for a 4 -month trial of their service.
So far, all they have done is give me links to their other customer sites to put on my site, and the only reciprocal ones are completely unrelated to my business. They messed up all the title tags and keywords on my site and I had to spend hours re-doing it… I’m not sure if they are doing anything at all. If it wasn’t for me putting in a ton of extra work, I’d have no higher ranking now than 4 months ago.
If the “consultants” did as much work as the salesmen, they could have a good business, but as it is, I can’t get anyone to return my calls, they aren’t doing anything for me, and the whole thing sucks (especially when I am in a business where the extra $300 would have paid a lot of vet bils).
Also, go to my website (www.yorkiesllc.com) and at the very bottom of the page there is a little black box with a thing that looks like a planet in it. It’s a link to “extreme tracking” that MSH put on my site (it looked ugly and I had to re-set it, but that’s only one of a thousand complaints I have). If a site has that, it’s most likely a MSH site.
I’m really kind of upset. I mean, every cent extra I have I put back in to our business. I feel like I was completely suckered out of my money.
Denise said,
March 25, 2009 @ 6:31 pm
I don’t know why mainstreethost.com is getting such bad reviews. I just checked the BBB site and Mainstreethost has an A- rating and they are a BBB accredited business. I see these type of nasty comments and blogs about other SEO companies too.
mahalie said,
March 26, 2009 @ 9:58 am
“I see these type of nasty comments and blogs about other SEO companies too.” Well that’s a whole other topic that deserves its own article.
This post was only meant to share my experience receiving an unsolicited phone call – I had no idea there were so many frustrated mainstreethost.com customers out there. I just created a customer profile at GetSatisfaction.com so anyone can voice their opinion good or bad. That’s fair, that the beauty of the internet.
http://getsatisfaction.com/mainstreethost
Based on my experience here on this very post, I’m sure hope they make IP addresses available, even then it’s easy enough to spoof so we’ll have no idea how many of the good reviews are impartial.
DreamMakerFarm said,
April 2, 2009 @ 6:06 am
They are nothing but scammers be WARNED DO NOT USE
I just got a email from yet another person that they took their money and did nothing for,
can you say Class Action??
starview1 said,
April 6, 2009 @ 8:53 am
Totally scammed! Where was my research before starting to do business with them. well, hindsight is 20/20….
They took our money, did the kind of work that my 7 year old child can do and then would not refund our money.
Luckily, we caught on after the 2nd month and realized that we were being scammed.
When we confronted them and asked for our money back and to remove the “Links” page we were told, “I hope your business fails!”
Denise said,
April 6, 2009 @ 1:30 pm
Starview
Lets say I bought wine from you. I drank the whole bottle then decided that I didnt like it. I thought the wine was watered down and tasted like crap. If I called you after I drank the whole bottle and asked for a refund , would you give me one?
Sarah said,
April 10, 2009 @ 9:56 pm
Yes, but, Denise, if you bought a bottle of wine from me and opened it up and it was empty, you’d be pretty mad. That’s how we feel.
Bill said,
May 14, 2009 @ 1:38 am
Well Denise, I have no reason to lie about mainstreet, they did about two hours of work on my site in two years total. I could now do what they did in less than an hour I bet. I don’t know if you work for them or not, but just in case you don’t, I’ll share a bit. I was being hosted by them too and admittedly I knew nothing about the Net at the time. I didn’t even realize how often my site was down with them, I never checked it! When I finally started figuring some of this out, I would call and they would thank me because they said they had no idea it was down! I never got any credit for that either.
At the time, the Net was totally new to me and 99% of my advertising was still YPs, I made nothing off the Net and didn’t expect to for a while. If I had stayed with them that’s exactly what I’d be making on the Net now! Their staff did absolutely nothing for me, except ask ME what keywords I wanted! I could barely turn my cpu on, I didn’t even know what a Keyword was, HTML….. I thought it meant HATEMAIL!
After two unproductive years with them I had a total of 5 links and three were recipricol (I was supposed to have around 30 or so I believe!), one of the links was THEM and the other two had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with my business! When I tried to get anything done they wanted to charge me every time, for stuff that was already supposed to be done. I knew nothing about the Net and they knew that, I was their best type of customer. They specialize in hit and run, play the numbers, enough cold calls and they’ll find a sucker. They even threatened me when I wanted to switch, they weren’t gonna give me my site! I had to steal my own site back! How does that speak for their integrity Denise?
I guess you know all this if you do work for them Denise but if you don’t, do yourself a favor and either learn how to do it or research for a reputable co, not an infamous one. If you do work for them, and your young, you might even think it’s funny, that goes away though once you get older. There’s no pride in ripping people off. The SEO works not even difficult really, just time consuming and you’ll do a MUCH better job than they, or even than they could do if they ever stopped dialing for dummies long enough to do what they had promised, jmho, but I bet your mileage wouldnt vary if you ended up using them! If you do, I guess we’ll see you back here soon! Good luck anyways. ;)
kara said,
May 28, 2009 @ 12:08 pm
I just was cold-called yesterday from manistreethost.com and found they were extremely pushy in wanting my credit card number to pay for an analysis for my site. The funny part is when I started asking questions, she didn’t even have my correct web-site. It’s an old one that isn’t active. Of course, it’s not getting any traffic.
I’m glad I read all of these comments as I had my doubts when they called but now I won’t sign up with them.
I found the sales rep on the phone to be so pushy. They have been stalking me yesterday and called three times before I actually picked up. I told them I was busy and they already called twice today. I finally picked up and the rep actually said “she spoke with me a few weeks back (uh, yesterday) and that I showed interest in having my site looked at. She kept on talking and going on and on in her pitch but when I would have to interrupt her with questions, she just glossed over them. It was actually getting pretty comical towards the end of my phone call. I’m sure they’ll call back…. and I’ll keep everyone posted…
mahalie said,
June 3, 2009 @ 2:48 pm
Just noticed this post is #3 in Google for “main street host sucks” and when you start typing in “main street host” the Google Suggests feature offers “main street host scams” – that means it is commonly searched for. Turns out there’s a whole blog dedicated to SEO scammers generally, Main Street Host in particular:
http://stopmainstreethost.blogspot.com/
Despite this article on my site, I don’t really have a special thing for MSH, I just have a special thing for cold-callers. The searches I just mentioned are worth doing on whatever service/company you are considering paying – that is, I always google “acme company” or “acme product” and “sucks” when considering a big purchase or comparing services. Although people online to do like to kvetch and even great companies will get a bad review now and then, it’s a great way to gauge general level of dissatisfaction and can lead you to common pitfalls in advance.
My advice as professional web developer to you all is that if you’re not a web nerd yourself, get recommendations from other website developers and website owners for web hosts, SEO services or whatever. And always get a quite a few opinions. Real human referrals are best for these areas because there are a lot of ways to jimmy search results (that’s what slimy SEOs do after all) and most web host review sites are filled with ads or companies recommending themselves either openly or as “anonymous” or faked customers.
Sam Garber said,
June 18, 2009 @ 8:09 pm
The Main Street Host rep was very rude, belittled me for not wanting to do business with them, and hung up on me when I insisted that, indeed, I wanted to discontinue their service. It cost us 210 bucks, but the main thing is, I don’t like to be treated like a fool by my vedors. I don’t want to treat my clients that way.
allen daggett said,
June 21, 2009 @ 7:50 am
I’ve been with Main Street Host for 2 years.. I’ve also have had my site for 12 years, and have upgraded it many times. It’s taken a couple of years to get my site on the first page of Google with the help of Main Street Host. Remember they have more than one customer, sometimes it does take time for them to get back to you and you can and do get frustrated at times. Overall I believe that they have helped me alot in promoting my site. I am seeing a steady increase of traffic along with orders and since there are 1000’s of companies selling lobsters and seafood on the web I fell fortunate that I get the orders I do get. With this being said it could always be better. hope this helps……Allen
Victor Geberin said,
June 27, 2009 @ 11:34 am
I have a good tape of the man who calls himself a sales manager. He is derisive, insulting, yells on the phone, and I finally discovdered that I’m breeding kittens instead of doing my work. Obviously They have to hustle for work, I have had a full practice for the last 38 years and use my site as an information source for my clients. HSam (and Jim) could only wish…..
the kitten breeder from June 26th
victor
joe said,
July 1, 2009 @ 1:07 pm
anyone reading these should have better things to do with there time I have been a client for 10 years now have have nothing but respect for the company and there work to my site with a increase of 40% not bad. People who write bad about companies should look in there own closets first. just look at there client testimonials I would recommend this comany and have to all of my friends
kike morales said,
July 1, 2009 @ 2:19 pm
they took my money away. They promised that my website will be on the first pages of google within 6 months. after paying this money for that period of thime my website did not even show up on the first 20 pages.
Alan Katz said,
July 1, 2009 @ 4:33 pm
This Blog almost cost me my buisness! I signed up with Main street host for optimization and then read this blog so I was going to cancel but the customer service rep said “at least try it” so I did…
And thank God for Main Street Host!!! My website did nothing for 2 years before them and now after 1 full year I am making good money.
I can’t believe what some people are saying on this site!!! My rep told me it would take time and I needed to be patient, he was very open and honest and not pushy at all.
You all who spent $20 on a consultation and expected to make money need to get a life!!! Any fool knows that organic placement takes time and money!
Do not listen to this Blog! It almost cost me over $80,000 in profits that Main street host sent me!!!
Tyson1919 said,
July 2, 2009 @ 5:15 am
Right on Alan I feel the same way
Tyson1919’s IP: 64-78-220-1.corporate.mainstreethost.net
Janet said,
July 25, 2009 @ 8:32 pm
DON’T GIVE THEM A DIME! We need to shut these thieves down! They took thousands of dollars from me by promising me that I would be ranking high on Google and the sales would be coming in so fast that I better be ready. When I questioned them about my meta descriptions being too long, they acted like they had no idea what I was talking about. I made less sales in that year with MSH than I had the year before. They just kept telling me to be patient and it could come “any day”. They were rude to work with and argued with each other while on the phone with me. They lied over and over to me that it was just becoming comical if it weren’t so MADDENING! Stay far away from these thieves!!!
I like the idea of a class action. Anyone with me?
Brian Murphy said,
August 4, 2009 @ 6:27 pm
My girlfriend used to work for this outfit. Not only is thier service “questionable”, her words, but they treat thier employees like crap. Low wages, low commisions, no benefits(health insurance).
They have two offices. One in New York and one in Las Vegas.
Don’t blame the salespeople, blame the owner. His name is Mike Marranca. He’s a big New York Italian that insinuates that he’s “Mobbed Up”.
Andrew said,
August 12, 2009 @ 1:09 pm
They just called us for SEO services. I told the woman calling we didn’t need their help. When I told her to put in the search words on Google that we use the most, she did and said she didn’t find us (Google problem I think which has been fixed hopefully). She said “Your not there so I just proved you wrong and you need our service.” I blasted her to the inth degree and hung up. She called back and threaten me saying they had recorded the conversation and she was going to report me for foul language. I don’t care if they were recording the conversation she called me and now was harassing me and threatening me!
STAY FAR AWAY FROM THESE PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Anyone that calls a business and acts the was this person did doesn’t deserve any business from anyone and she deserves to be fired.
Jon Ballard said,
August 31, 2009 @ 8:37 pm
Mainstreet Host would say anything to try and separate you from your money. Watch out for these guys! I’ve spent a lot of time “cleaning up” the damage they have done to a clients website that had signed up for their search optimization plan.
mSDOGBREEDER said,
September 2, 2009 @ 6:18 pm
I spent 3000.00 dollars and was scammed by a smooth talking male.
I never got what i paid for and have started submitting my site free to web site submissions myself. My rankings have gone up since i started doing my own submitting.
This place is a scam and a rip off.
I will never fall for mainstreet again they are evil.
They contacted me again and said they needed to do more work on my site and needed 600.00 more dollars.
Needless to say I hung up and changed my password so they could not enter my site ever again.
Mainstreet is horrid
mSDOGBREEDER said,
September 2, 2009 @ 6:27 pm
Dear Alan
Your story is a success I guess
Mine was not. If I had wasted 200.00 or just 20
I guess I wouldn’t feel as bad as some but 3000.00 is a lot to pay for no results
I was promised 1st page? Now how is it they promise everyone something they cannot deliver? Who has 2 years to waste waiting on your site to be on the first page in the search engine results.
And if they are so sure of what they do why not put a hold on the funds and they get them when they do what they promise.
I think you may work for mainstreet yourself?
So now mainstreet has to write their own positive feedback.
Real customers have nothing but horrid things to say about this company that promised also and delivers nothing!
Coopsmom said,
September 13, 2009 @ 2:49 pm
I actually just started working for them a couple days ago. They are a good business they do call you to help you after you purchase the optimization. But I do agree that they push people to much. I’m actually quitting because I dont feel comfortable “pushing” people to make them buy our services. I don’t find any of it right. They are not a scam but, They do have some crazy requirments.
Coopsmom said,
September 13, 2009 @ 2:53 pm
And…. Listen to Brian Murphy, Don’t blame the sales people!! Blame the owner. They (we) are just goin by the rules, gettin paid, doin our jobs.
Joe D. said,
October 1, 2009 @ 7:12 am
I am a customer of MainStreetHost and have been for 3 – 4 yrs. They host our website and have done SEO work for us. I switched to them because the last webhosting company we used (BizAtomic) was terrible for us. We have had a few problems with MSH but they are way better than what we had with BizAtomic. Our business has grown and we actually are ranked very high on Google in certain specific search phrases (if not #1 or #2, we are easily on the 1st page).
The ecommerce package they provide is not without it’s problems, but every ecommerce package I have seen has some things that don’t work the way they should. When we first started with them, we were pretty small and their cost seemed pretty high. Now the cost seems quite small compared to the volume of business that we are generating. We get pretty good service and have a great relationship with the technical service person who takes care of our account.
matthew said,
October 1, 2009 @ 8:00 am
you are all ill informed for 20 dollars you don’t get seo you get an analysis and a consultation to show you were the problems are and were your not meeting with the criteria. theirs no optimization when we give you the info the ball is in your court you can do it your self or we will provide an accurate quote to perform the work its only a analysis
[Editor's note: matthew, aka, ntvfdt119@yahoo.com, posting from 64-78-220-1.corporate.mainstreethost.net is an MSH employee.]
Justin said,
October 10, 2009 @ 2:14 am
Plain and simple, no one can get you to first page for a few hundred dollars. You can get up in the rankings yourself, but it is hard work and takes a lot of time and patience.
elk#14 said,
October 12, 2009 @ 7:55 am
I was contacted by Main Street Hosts and got a funny feeling right off the bat. The callers spoke/represented that they were a large global company yet it felt like a operation in someone’s basement with well trained cold callers. (They were respectable and nice people with me at all tImes.)
I would not have a problem with any of that if there was a good product being given but right from the start the $9.00 website analysis I received was of no value to me whatsoever and I could be wrong but just seemed to just be a device for the second call where the person asked for me to use the service in different packages for alot more $ than $9.00.
I ultimately could not get comfortable with the sound of the service or the company profile. The Main Street Hosts website has no profile of the principals of the company or any description of who they are and who the people behind the company are – and the customers in the references are all very small businesses who I would not have trusted to ask about their use of The Main Street Hosts services.
And while I do not trust the BS bitter complainers and squeaky wheels who most usually post slander against othes on the internet, finding the complaints on the net about mainstreet added mass to concerns I had for myself – as everyone who posted had a similiar point of view.
I am out $9.00. I will never really know if The Main Street Hosts was a legitimate service or not. They very well may be.
Sam Garber said,
October 12, 2009 @ 6:11 pm
At any rate – this webpage ranks pretty high on Google.
Dean Rantala said,
October 15, 2009 @ 10:51 am
I was just cold called by these jokers myself. Figured I would research first…
Of coarse, researching did not even require me to finish what I was typing – Google auto-completed the “scam” part of my phrase. Talked to the dude for 15 minutes, asked him exactly how they market a site. He would not give me any details and kept stressing how urgent it was I “just buy the package” and everyhting will be explained later.
Anyway, I have been doing a good deal of research myself on SEO and it honestly does not seem that hard. I am now offering it to my own clients (http://www.cookevilleinteractive.com) although I do not client to be an expert.
Do the research, learn the basics for yourself. It is not that hard!
- Dean
Joe Vroman said,
October 20, 2009 @ 1:13 pm
Wow…..all I can say is that this company is ou for the quick buck. They have no clue about SEO, customer service or follow ups to what they say they will do. They just take your money and leave you to think they are working “behind the scenes” for you. Unfortunately, I am knowledgeable about SEO and have done my own for quite some time, therefore, having the knowledge and knowing how to check their work is what absolutely baffled me. These guys are extremely basic and I actually had to tell them what to do on my site and how to correct their mistakes. They actually messed my site up to a point, where I had to take control and re-word all my meta tags, keywords and page headers. I basically undid what they did……what a waste of money. SCAM company.
matthew said,
October 26, 2009 @ 11:57 am
if you knew how to do the changes why did you pay someone to do them for you your an idiot joe vroman truly a idiot
mahalie said,
October 26, 2009 @ 12:09 pm
I was going to delete ‘matthew’s’ comment because name-calling doesn’t add anything useful. However, I thought it might be more interesting to note that even though the commenter used a yahoo email address the traffic comes from 64-78-220-1.corporate.mainstreethost.net – wow. Slick.
Lori said,
November 6, 2009 @ 10:21 am
I went for their 9.95 offer – stupid me. They never got back to me – so I guess I am doing alright on my own. Lucky it only cost me 10.00 to find that out. I even went to their website to contact them and no response. The salesperson was Rhonda and the person who confirmed everything was Cheryl Simoney (sp?). And no-one answered the call when I tried to reach customer service -it just rang and rang and rang.
Nina said,
November 7, 2009 @ 12:14 pm
Sadly I am victim of these people as well. They do not do what the promise. There is little if any communication and little documentation of what has been done. Tired of calling and emailing with no answers I filed a dispute with my credit card company. The accounting department called me and was mad that I filed the dispute, said I guess you don’t want to do business with us and was going to hang up. I asked don’t you even want to try to fix my problem? He passed me over to Stan who I had been trying to get to respond for weeks. He gave me a line about I was looking at the wrong reports, my reports must be broken and other excuses and wanted to pass me back to the accounting department. I said no, not until you adequately answer my questions. He promised to call back specifically after 12:30 that afternoon, that was Thurs, guess what no call yet and it’s Saturday at 2:00. I guess he really really wanted to fix my problem. I checked my credit card and they had billed me again for the disputed amount! After I hung up with him on Thurs when the final thing he said to me was that he didn’t know his exact phone number because they never told him what it was, I finally did a search on them on Google.
Wish I had done this $2500 dollars earlier, a costly and painful lesson learned.
Do not do business with this company, the do not perform and they do not communicate and they lie about calling you and sending reports.
Stanley said,
November 9, 2009 @ 1:14 pm
In response to Nina her website is ranking if very good positions. I did try to reach her back and her website has been getting unique visitors. Nina is confused by graphs that are meaningless in her tracking software that have nothing to do with search engine traffic which is up dramatically to her site.
Schaumburg IL Property 1 1
Schaumburg Illinois Realtors 11 11
Bloomingdale IL Condos 13 13
Schaumburg IL Condos 14 14
Schaumburg Homes For Sale 14 16
Realtors Schaumburg IL 16 16
Itasca IL Real Estate Agents 16 16
Schaumburg Condos For Sale 19 19
Thats not bad for anyone that understands our industry in a short period of time. No one got scammed here.
Frank Davenport said,
November 18, 2009 @ 7:43 pm
I have been using main street host for 6 years now. It all started with a cold call saying my website was low in the search engines. I did some research and they were right.
At that time the promotion wa $49.95. They did a good job getting me better rankings ut it took a while. Once I gave them my trust and worked with them and did what the optimization department suggested I started seeing results.
I know we live in a free country and have free speech but to slander someone because you thought $10 would get you on the top page of Google is ridiculous.
Give the company a break and listen to whatthey have to say. If they were a fraud they would have been shut down. The rankings with the BBB is very good. They have thousands of customers. It seems like there area few disgruntled people that probily did not want to invest in their optimzation packages and are crying about 10 dollars.
mahalie said,
November 19, 2009 @ 10:53 am
The fact that so many folks stumbled upon this page and used it to voice their bad experiences (many of which included losses of well of $1k, not $10) is what free speech is all about and why I value the internet, personally. Freedom of expression, democratization of publication ability. Any person considering doing business with a company is wise to both do a bit of Googling and to consider that any company will have one or two disgruntled customers (no matter how great they are) and will have one or two satisfied customers (no matter how bad they are). What I look for is trends and warning signs of a lot of similar unhappy feedback.
Bottom line: if you are considering hiring a company for SEO, try to find a positive referral from someone you know in real life who has had a good experience. Reach out to your network – also, if you are considering spending what is a lot of money (to you), consider reading a book on SEO first, there are many. It will at least help you to evaluate potential consultants. Once you get the fundamentals I think you will find in most cases that no one can do SEO better for you than YOU without potentially spending a lot of $$ on how your site is built, marketed and strategic content creation.
Arthur said,
November 24, 2009 @ 3:57 am
It is my opinion Main Street Host is a scam. They charged me $1300.00 to optimize my web site, half down and half in 6 months. Only thing is they optimized 3 out of 15 pages and they charged my credit card for the remaining $650 even though they didn’t do the work. They then have the audacity to tell their employees I have poor credit. Oddly enough, even though they have employees who sign a non-compete agreement with them, the same employees still try and do the work under the table. Go figure. First you get screwed by Main Street Host and then you get screwed by their staff.
I filed a complaint with the BBB and after doing research, I find they are nothing but smoke and mirrors. They assure you they will optimize your web site but they simply take advantage optimizing one or two pages. They should be honest and up front with you from the onset, not screwing you.
Ray said,
December 2, 2009 @ 9:52 am
After a cold call from them I am looking at a proposal for SEO from them right now. $700 + $100/m for at least 6 months for 5 pages of my 15 of so. They want to have a “verbal” agreement. And the $100 would be an automatic charge to my CC. I don’t think so. Sounds like it might be hard to stop the charges once they have the CC number. And no contract?
Larkin said,
December 15, 2009 @ 2:14 pm
Thank you all, i almost bit and when i googled them, you came up….
Former Client said,
January 22, 2010 @ 2:35 am
I was a client of Mainstreet Host for 4 years. Last year, when they approached me to re-sign for another year at the same $3000 per year, I decided to do some checking. I read up on SEO and found that my website was actually not optimized well at all. There was no title or description on most of the pages, no H1 tags at all and the body was not optimized for my keywords.
Also, they put several dozen outbound links on my site, but my site had inbound links primarily from my clients and organizations. Mainstreet had gotten me an inbound link from Dmoz (which was good) and a couple others, one of which was from Mainstreethost.com and one from a no longer existent website – both marked, “links by mainstreet host”. That was all they had accomplished after 5 years with them, despite their yearly assurances that they would add one or two per month.
Once I learned what SEO was really all about, I told Sam Vangelista that I was not going to continue. At that point, his hard sell tactics turned to semi-threats. He called, saying that my ranking was about to fall off a cliff and that the damage would be unrecoverable. Every time he called, he tried to make it sound as if the sky was going to fall the next day unless I signed up again.
I did not sign up. Instead, I learned what I could about SEO, then optimized the website myself. During the months since I left Mainstreet, my traffic has grown exponentially. I rank well in the search for my target search phrases and the company call volume has greatly increased. Internet clients were never much of a factor while I was with Mainstreet. Now, clients who find us on the internet are a major portion of our business.
I also found hidden links to the Mainstreet site on many of my pages. I had two website designers try to help me remove the links, but they both said the links were protected somehow and could not be removed. Mainstreet failed to respond to my requests for assistance in removing the links. The un-movable links to Mainstreet were a big part of my decision to re-design my website, which was just completed.
In summary, I feel like a dupe for wasting my time with Mainstreet for so long.
Joy Cenicola said,
April 6, 2010 @ 6:22 am
I have been with Main Street Host for a number of years. In the beginning, my site was right on top. After a shoert while, it was on page 2 then on pge 3 while the cost kept rising. I was recently phoned and pressured into getting their twitter and face book services. I realized I did not need and could not afford this service and phoned to have it cancelled. They had not as yet set it up so there was no service from them. They said they would credit back my credit card payment. It has been 3 months and they are still lying and jerking me around. I put in a dispute with my credit card company. They did a temporary refund. Then I got the letter stating the charge was put back on my card as Main Street Host claimed it a valid charge and said I was not getting a refund. I called Main Street Host again and was told that the money was refunded back into my credit company account.As per my creditcard company I requested a copy of a statement of refund but Main Street Host said they never heard of such a thing and would instead send a copy of the statemant from the credit card company that the money was refunded. but I have still not received it. They have lied to me and put me through a lot of grief and I still have a $2,500. credit card bill. I have no need for the services and have not received any of those services. I do all my own web design and updates. They are supposed to be sure the metatags are in place after my updates but have not kept up with even that small job and are charging me $1,000. a year for literallyalmost no service. I do not know where to turn for help. I am looking to find another hosting company when my contract runs out and have no idea where to turn.
Brian said,
April 16, 2010 @ 8:53 am
I cant believe I fell for thier 20$ service! DO NOT waste any money with this fraudulent company. It was the biggest waste of money I have ever spent. Note to self: read reviews BEFORE buying.
Bryan said,
June 24, 2010 @ 10:57 am
I fell for the $20 spill. I knew didn’t sound right and I don’t know why I did it. Long story short they sent a reports showing not much of nothing. Then a call and pressure sell. You can tell they are hard pressed and Trevor had no customer service skill what so ever. He was very arrogant and truly a “know it all”. I would not recommend them to my worst enemy. If you have so many customer globally why are you pressin me so hard to use your service. Go service speaks for itself. I should have read all these comments first.