Many companies hire firms to do their search engine optimization, then ignore the process. I’ve talked to several clients who have someone doing something mysterious that is supposed to be helping them get better rankings on search engines.

Usually, when I take a look at the analytics, the results aren’t there. SEO isn’t magic, and if anyone is selling you magic, they’re just taking your money.

They may also be putting you at risk. Expedia was recently penalized for bad SEO practices by Google. As a result, they lost 25% of their search traffic. This led to a nearly 4% drop in their stock price.