Outsourcing Web Designers

Are people tired of outsourcing? While checking the logs for one of my new sites, a directory of web designers - I was amused see this entry:

In general, you can certainly get a website done cheap by getting it from India or what have you, but there is a definite disadvantage when you divorce the optimization from the planning of a website.

From what I've seen the bulk of the outsourcing companies are designing visually - and then optimizers are left to pick through the mess and try to make it rank.

I don't doubt there are some top notch India SEO/Design firms - but on the other hand they're not charging $100 for a website either.

One of my acquaintances bought a website design from one company for $300 or $400 dollars, only to later discover it was a $15 "monster template" that they plugged his info into. Another business owner told me that they paid a much higher price to design a custom template only to discover that the company was peddling it to other clients afterwards.

As with anything, bad news travels faster than good - but if you use an outsourcing company, be sure to carefully check their references, and make sure that you are not getting taken advantage of. Otherwise, you'll need to restrict your searches like this guy did "web designer -india anywhere".