Okay so I keep on seeing stuff like this, I know it's been going on for ages but it seems to be increasing in intensity. Anyway, thanks to Facebook knowing I click on their ads to do with SEO it shows me pretty much just those ad types now. I'll get to the point. I saw an ad for the "Search Marketing Business Academy", or "SMBA" so I was curious and clicked. There's a chap who professes 12 years experience in internet marketing and has a bunch of companies and blah, blah, blah. Anyway, he's offering himself up as basically an expert of experts, one that can show other search marketers how to make it. www.searchmarketingbusinessacademy.com/ There's a few things that look fishy though. The testimonials have common names and no business names There's no mention of what these companies he runs are There's no work to see in the form of case studies or a portfolio Under "Meet Lee Gilbert" it states that they've been supporting other SEM companies since 2004, yet a quick Google of the company and the name shows little to support this. Googling the chaps name just gets you his own website www.leegilbert.co.uk which professes more of the same and just a bunch of products Of just a few pieces of advice given for how to rank on Google it includes keyword density The chap seems to still place a lot of importance on Page Rank (As in the old PR that we all know means nothing now, and his blog about this is only a month old) From searching, it doesn't seem that there is any history at all, let alone this history of mass success There doesn't appear to be any social presence for the company or the man, except that ad. It seems just like an average SEO (albeit one that's a bit behind on the times) who knows an average amount, trying to say he can tell other SEO's how to master the arts. He's not even a member on SEOmoz, that's the biggest give away haha. So, could I be wrong? Am I being too harsh?

All in the title really. One of our clients came up with errors with a server header check, so I pinged them and it times out. The hosting company have told them that it's because they're blocking ICMP requests and this doesn't affect SEO at all... but I know that sometimes pinging posts, etc... can be beneficial so is this correct? Thanks, Steve.