If you are looking to get your website to appear more prominently in the search engines then often people will turn to a search engine optimisation company to get help.  There are some good companies out there. There are also a lot of very poor companies.

My experience with Web on High was very poor indeed. To their advantage their customer service team is  friendly and eager to please. However if you are looking for results then my advice would be to stay well clear of Web on High.

The site that Web On High worked on was in a competitive marketplace. It was agreed that we would pay a substantial monthly charge for their services. I was happy to do so as I was confident in the promises that Web On high had made to me. The site required strong backlinks to be obtained to maintain the prominence in the search engine. Web On High initially tweaked the design of the site over the first month of using them.  They did a good job of this however from this moment on Web On High began to fail.

After a month or so activity and communication from Web On High seemed to cease altogether. I expressed dissatisfaction with the lack of communication regarding the work that was supposedly being carried out. It is clear that results cannot be achieved overnight with SEO however I expressed that I wanted to be kept in the loop to be sure that things were happening in an acceptable manner rather than wait for 12 months to realise the job was not being done or being done to a substandard level. Rather than the results improving, the site started to drop down the rankings for important keywords.

A meeting was arranged to discuss what had been going on.

At the meeting I requested to know what link building had already taken place. Initially I was shocked at Web On High’s policy to not reveal where they obtain their links. This was crazy to me as I wanted to be able to easily monitor the performance I could only assume they did not want to reveal where they obtained their links because they did not want to reveal unethical or black hat practices. Perhaps now I look back it might have been because of how few links they would attempt to achieve It was agreed that an exception would be made and Web On High would indeed divulge a monthly report of what links were obtained.  At the meeting the sales manager from Web On High agreed that the current work was not good enough and things would be stepped up to ensure results did not slip. I agreed to continue with Web On High with the assurances things would improve.

A lot of time was taken to make clear the keywords we wanted to rank for- our primary product range. Initially Web On High had come up with a list of around 20 primary phrases and 20 secondary phrases. It was clear from the work they were doing Web On High would never be able to focus on a list this long so it was refined down to 5 or 6 keyphrases.

After the meeting I received an email from Web on High with a list of links that were currently being sought after. The list contained around 20 sites and the majority looked like they could well provide a high quality link.

Three months later results were still slipping. I received a report showing a bunch of irrelevant phrases that had moved in the search engines. My list of primary phrases seemed to have been disregarded. After several requests for the list of links achieved by Web On High I was presented with  a small handful of links that had been achieved within three months.   One was placed on a site that Web on High owns – so not much work to get this. Another was placed clearly on a page that offered a reciprocal link service – something that Google and other search engines frown upon. Not only would it carry no value but it could also ultimately have a negative affect on our campaign. The other links were made up by them rewriting three old articles.

I one again expressed dissatisfaction as the promises that had been made three months ago clearly had not been forthcoming. I was contacted by the managing director of Web On High, Alan Eager who expressed his concerns and promised to look into things but he could not do so immediately. I accepted this though did ask for someone to get back to me to update me as to what work was going to happen to repair the damage the innactivity had caused.

After hearing nothing from anyone else at Web on High I wrote again to the managing director of Web On High. He had not realised I wanted a response back from someone else, perhaps a misunderstanding, fair enough but this was now two weeks later, two more weeks of inactivity, two more weeks of paying a high premium to not receive any service. He again acknowledged that work had been not up to scratch and referred to it a being a “blip” he offered one months fee refunded. I was not prepared to accept this as the work had clearly been substandard for some months.

Mr Eager then got very defensive. He seemed most upset by the fact that I had started my email to him with just “Good morning”.  His previous acknowledgments that the service provided by Web On High was not good enough seemed to vanish and he seemed very upset that I even wanted to question the work that Web On High was not doing.  Realising now that Web On High were never going to achieve any results using their methods and realising that the fee they were charging was extortionate for the actual working time they were putting in I terminated the contract.

To summarise Web On High have friendly staff and are capable of on site optimistation. Web On high unfortunately however seem to have no care or clue in off site optimisation at all which is really what the majority of ranking in the search engines is all about. Web On High also makes promises that they do not keep and the managing director of Web on High perceives a customer wanting to be updated about work that they are paying for but not receiving as  just an inconvenience.

Since terminating with Web on High the site is recovering nicely. Work has been taken on for a fraction of Web On High’s charges and regular updates are provided to justify the work that is being paid for.

I am now with another supplier who quite refreshingly did as promised, connected me on the day they said, provided the equipment as promised, delivered when they said they would with no fuss.

Unfortunately after my last post on Pipex and how utterly poor they are my Internet saga continued to an almost unbelievable level.

I phoned for another update. Enjoying the 40 minute listen to music with an interruption of a lady saying “how important the call was” every 2 seconds I finally got through to someone.

Same procedure – it would appear that they do not take notes. Didn’t know of the issues I had been having for the previous 3 weeks. After going through it again they finally informed me that Pipex had no update on when the connection was going be back again. This time I kindly got offered a dial up connection to use.

“This will take up to three hours to go live” the guy said.

Well this was better than nothing – knowing I was moving providers in only a few days now. I waited and waited and tried the connection provided. Nothing.

Phoned Pipex again stating that the dial up was not even working. After another 20+ minute wait at my expense I got through to the technical support (if you can call it in any way technical or supportive) This time the guy I spoke with actually seemed to know what he was doing.

“Oh, the previous person did not do it correctly” he said.

“Well I am really not surprised” I responded. “the company you work for is a joke”

” I do not blame you for requesting your MAC code” he said.

Sure enough the dial up connection did work. This is what I used up until yesterday when my other connection went live.

In the mean time, my friend in the same situation stated that Pipex had taken £200 from his account without authorisation for requesting – yes only requesting the MAC code.

As this gentleman writes in a brilliant article regarding Pipex and how totally incompetent they are,

Well worth a read:

http://www.deanmarshall.co.uk/content/view/93/103/

I would like to officially say how sorry I am to all those many people I have recommended Pipex Internet to use as their service provider. Get away if you can – is my personal recommendation

Rumour has it that they are moving people over to Tiscali lines since the takeover. This is going to spell a similar disaster for all those concerned.

I am so glad I have left them now. Still no call from the managers, still no email response and people still have no connection with Pipex.

I look forward to Pipex trying to take the cancellation charge from me.

Each time I phone Pipex (after holding at my cost for 25+ minutes) I am basically fobbed off.

Last time I called I was promised that the situation would be resolved within 2 days. I was also promised a call back from a manager to discuss compensation. As you can imagine, I was totally shocked to not receive any call from Pipex yesterday either for an update or from a manager to discuss compensation. Even more surprisingly my internet is still not back on.

I called Pipex and they stated that firstly my line had been cancelled. After a few minutes the guy realised that it had not been cancelled and tried going through all the fault finding with my router. Getting quite frustrated I asked him to read the notes on the screen. After several minutes he advised that an engineer had visited the exchange but could not resolve the fault. There was no further update as to when this would be solved. He offered me a dial up connection service – great after 2 weeks and 3 days.

He took my mobile number once again so that I could “be updated” which is a joke in itself. I asked why a manager had not called back.

“I can only apologise” he said.

Same old story. No one at Pipex gives a damn about their customers. He said he would request a technician give me a call back to let me know what is going on.

“to your ADSL number?” he asked.

“no, my mobile number” I added.

“Well can I take the number?”He said

Bemused I informed him that he has my mobile number from, not only taking it a few moments before, but from all the previous times I called.

“I’m sorry but you will need to give this to me again” he said.

So it would now appear that Pipex do not even listen to their customers when they call or make the relevant notes.

So now once again I am left with no internet, no word of when it will be sorted and certainly no chance of any customer care.

Bring on next week when I change to another supplier. Whatever you do – do not go with Pipex. They are the the most useless, unhelpful company I have ever had the misfortune to deal with.

Pipex are a UK ISP (internet service provider) I have been with them many years as I felt that their service was very good. Unfortunately of recent years this is not the case as you will hear.

I have now been without my Pipex internet for 2 weeks and 10 hours. I rely heavily on the internet for many of my websites. I really cannot be without it for more than a few hours without it affecting my day to day activities.

Just to give a little on my Pipex experience before I begin, I first started to doubt Pipex and their customer care/admin abilities when I first moved to them. They lost my order and subsequently it took the 10 days or so for them to reactivate the account once my previous ISP had switched off my broadband – frustrating but these things happen.

The service was good – I think I had only a day in total with the internet being down in the four years or so I used them. I recommended others to use them above the many other ISP’s that were emerging.

2 years ago I moved properties. Being cautious I had a 2 week period of being in my new property without having to leave the old. I explained to Pipex the situation and I looked for a nice clean change with then Pipex connection from the old to the new property. 2 weeks was plenty of time for this to be actioned. After hanging on, on hold, on an 0871 number (they earn money from this) for 45 minutes it looked like I had the move all sorted. Now all I had to do was wait for the connection to go live.

Guess what…………? It did not go live. once again Pipex had messed up. After a 45 minute wait on hold listening to a lovely lady tell me every 2 seconds how important the call was (not important enough to get enough staff!) They blamed the fact that the new phone line was not set up correctly when they tried to set it up their end so they just cancelled the order. The guy seemed quite surprised at my question “did no one think to possibly phone on all the numbers provided or email to check if the order was mean to be cancelled? ” So another 10 day wait here.

Meanwhile another friend had moved house. They experienced exactly the same issue apart from Pipex managed to lose his order twice. Great stuff so far – at least the connection seemed reliable.

On Wednesday 2 weeks ago my internet stopped working. I confirmed in my own mind that my equipment was not to blame. I received a call from a friend who was in the same situation. It had to be a fault with Pipex as we were both with them. I then phoned Pipex.

25 minutes later my call was answered. I cannot fault the guy on the phone. He went through all the checks he had to make. He said there were no know faults although I knew full well that my friend had previously phoned. He asked me to do some checks that involved unplugging the line and disconnecting the call. I told him I would happily face the charge if BT found a fault my end as I was certain that it was them.

He accepted this and said that he would log a call with BT. This would take between 1 and 6 days. I asked if there was anything that he could do to speed it up but he said not. He took my numbers and said that as soon as they had an update they would call to let me know.

Days passed and still nothing. I phoned Pipex a couple of times. After laboriously working through the automated message, I just got a message to say they were experiencing high volumes of calls and to phone back.

After 5 days with no word, Furious, I called Pipex. I could not get through to the technical department as they were too busy to even allow me to hold on the 45 minutes. I opted to speak to customer service.

They guy at customer service said there was nothing he could do – it was a technical support issue. I explained I firstly could not get through to them, but also I wanted to speak to a manager regarding compensation and cancelling my contract. “There is no manager available” he said. I explained I was happy for a manager to call me back the following day. “not possible” he said, “this is the wrong department. ” . Getting quite annoyed now I explained that I was speaking to the right department as I was looking for compensation and to cancel my contract as well as getting some answers. If this wasn’t customer service, I didn’t know what what. He explained that he was customer care and I needed customer service. Of course, he could not get anyone to call from customer service as it was a separate department. I asked for my migration code – no another department. What a total joke.

Meanwhile I had written to Pipex demanding answers as well as emails. No response whatsoever from these.

Day 10 and still no word from Pipex. I called again. Another 40 minutes holding at my expense. It was the same person I had originally spoke with. He sad there was nothing he could do, no one he could get to call me back. He said he would put a note on the system saying I was furious about not being updated and that a call back was necessary. I asked why I had not been updated after the 1 – 6 days he had previously promised. He said he did not know and apologised. I said that I would doubt anyone would call back from teh note he had put on the system and it was just a way to get me off the phone. He said he could not categorically promise that I would receive a call but he did say that people did get calls back from the company.

Surprisingly I did not hear back from Pipex and this brings me to yesterday.

I got a message in the morning from my friend saying we were back online. At last I thought. Got home and checked the connection. Nothing.

Another call to Pipex. At first I could not get through. They were surprising experiencing high call volumes again. I persisted. Eventually I was allowed to join the holding queue.

25 minutes later someone answered. They said that there had been a note put on the system that BT were going to visit the exchange to carry out repairs in 2 days time. he said that my friend must be on a different line that had been fixed – how many lines could possibly have gone down? I queried why I had not been contacted when there was an update to be given. he could not provide an answer. I asked for a call back from a manager but surprisingly (since my last promise of a call) they had turned into an inbound call centre only.

Not believing a word of it I said “I am certain your managers have the ability to make outbound calls”. “Yes” he said. “Well get one to call me back then”. “Ok no problem” he said “although, you will still need to speak to technical”. “You get technical to call me, I’m sure you are able to communicate between departments”. “yes” he said.

I got the distinct impression that once again I was being fobbed off. As yest I have received no calls and I have put into place a new service provider. I will never use Pipex again. It looks like I will have been without internet access for over 2.5 weeks before they finally put me back on.

Rumors have it, on the internet, that Pipex are sneakily moving their customers onto Tiscali lines which is probably where the problem generated from. Of course, they will not admit anything to anyone.

Check out on the internet. I have now read loads of reports that Pipex have been deteriorating for some time – Poor customer care as well as poor internet service, unreliable connections, slow speeds are all noted all across the board.

In the mean time I have had to make do with expensive and painfully slow dial up connection where every page takes a minute to load. I have had to site on hold for hours to finally not even get an answer or any help.

So bottom line, Do not use Pipex, do not touch them with a barge pole, If you want reliable internet go elsewhere, if you want decent customer care run away as fast as you can as Pipex will provide quite the opposite.

If you have had a similar experience then please post a comment.