SEO Tycoon

**Kirtan** · 02-16-2007, 01:55 AM

I gave up my SEO readings after i realized that i am not a good writer in English. Now I am concentrating on PHP simply because my basic skill is programming. Aaron Wall also stated that SEO as stand alone product won't work.

In high competitive niches, you have to make "link worthy" site to manipulate SERP and stay there for long term.Good ideas always spread. Is there any roles for SEO for a good, link worthy site?

Of course you can manipulate SERPs by doing some seo "techniques" but those can be easily duplicated by others. I thought SEO bubble will burst soon and moved to PHP.

Today i found this Why people hate SEO... (and why SMO is bulls$%t) article through Brendon Sinclair's Newsletter.

Although, Brendon Sinclair thought that making controversies (ofcourse it is, and getting sued too) is one of the best method for link bait, still i feel there are some truth in that article.

What do you think? Share your thoughts...

**travelagent** · 02-16-2007, 01:49 PM

The author stated something about them being "snake oil salesman" -- IMO, well over 90% of SEO companies are nothing more than $hit salesmen with a mouthful of samples, just looking for the next sucker to come along who will give them money for what the experienced Webmaster can do for free.

**ADAM Web Design** · 02-16-2007, 01:55 PM

I also read that article, and the writer of the article is absolutely bang-on. Most people are completely full of crap in the SEO industry, preferring to take band-aid approaches rather than honest, long-term solutions designed to grow and be sustainable.

Quite frankly, I don't think the industry will last as a standalone industry for another 10 years. People will eventually start to realize that SEO is not a replacement for web design...it's a complement to it.

So I'd maintain focus on what you know, grow it, build it, make sure you can add something unique, and you're set. That's really all the industry boils down to, no matter how complicated others try to make it.

**Learning Newbie** · 02-16-2007, 03:44 PM

Comment for ADAM: SEO companies offer band-aid approaches because people don't want honest, long term solutions. You can see that in all the "submit to these directories" threads, and the lack of "how can I improve this paragraph" threads. Folks are lazy. Honest, long term solutions are work.

Comment on the article itself: "white-hat" SEO isn't just good web design. Sure using the proper html tags the way they were intended is important, but any "off the page optimization" has nothing to do with web design. Sounds like a trife point, but when someone is that opinionated, and wrong on factual stuff I understand, that's my queue to leave.

**memberpro** · 02-16-2007, 03:50 PM

I would think that since the rate of new people creating websites on the net is exploding that SEO "snake-oil salesmen" have found a rare renewing resource of supply.

Do I think that SEO "companies" promise things that they can't deliver on...yup. But it took me a long time (and quite a bit of money) to figure that out.

Heck, on this forum there is a post of an "SEO company" charging people $4000 per year to host a blog and ping the search engines for them... what?

SEO will continue to be a "big deal" for many years to come and... as long as I am predicting things... The Bears will Win the Super Bowl in 2008!

Go Bears!

**Learning Newbie** · 02-16-2007, 03:59 PM

Wow, memberpro brings up a really valid thing, and something no one touched on. I don't know much about economics ( or really care ) but the idea of an exploding demand ( everyone and his uncle creating web sites with software because they don't know how ) means a supply is sure to stick around.

Talkupation for you!

**ADAM Web Design** · 02-16-2007, 04:41 PM

...and then the bubble will go POP! Eventually.

You're right...new websites are popping up everywhere these days. But there's only so much growth in terms of new sites that can go on. Not only that, the search engines themselves want to shut down as many of the goofy things as possible in order to keep the lazy people down as much as possible.

It's coming. It's just not here yet.

**memberpro** · 05:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ADAM Web Design

You're right...new websites are popping up everywhere these days. But there's only so much growth in terms of new sites that can go on..

I am not sure that I agree with you on this one. Cyberspace is just like well... outer space. To our knowledge there is no limit to how many website can be put up and by whom.

You are right when you consider "how many adsense sites can there really be?" I think there may be a limit as to how many websites of one topic there can be (as still be useful). But I think you can agree that there will always be new inventions, world events, new drugs, ect that someone will decide to create a website for.

And when someone does put up a website for "vacations on Mars", there will be the SEO companies selling their services to be #1 of Google for the keyword "Mars Fantasy Getaways"

**Learning Newbie** · 02-16-2007, 08:37 PM

Isn't quality the first rule of SEO?

**David Eaves** · 02-16-2007, 08:37 PM

SEO will never die!

**chrishirst** · 02-16-2007, 08:48 PM

Is that in the same manner as Rock and Roll ?

**ADAM Web Design** · 02-16-2007, 08:53 PM

Lord no. SEO IS noise pollution.

(Let's see who gets what I'm referring to.)

**chrishirst** · 02-16-2007, 09:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Learning Newbie

SEO companies offer band-aid approaches because people don't want honest, long term solutions. You can see that in all the "submit to these directories" threads, and the lack of "how can I improve this paragraph" threads. Folks are lazy. Honest, long term solutions are work.

Too true.

they do say a fool and his money are soon parted, and this is very true of the online fools, maybe even more so.
There simply are so many self proclaimed "experts" who are nothing more than charlatans or "chancers" riding on the back of what little knowledge they think they have learned from reading forums, blogs or the latest "secrets of SEO" e-book (usual price $129.95, available To YOU at the special, never to be repeated price of only $49.95 ).

In reality these "experts" are doing more damage to the SEO/SEM industry by their futile attempts at "optimising" than any number of "black hat" operators do.
At least the operators using dubious methods do get results for their clients in some highly competitive arenas, albeit short to medium term. The numpties would not be able to get any results for even the lower competition areas.
This then damages the confidence of the client (the fool with the money) who believed the rhetoric spouted to them and now they think that all SEOs are full of BS and just out to make a quick earner.

**vangogh** · 04:50 PM

Adam would that be an AC/DC reference offered as a counterpoint to rock 'n' roll and seo never dying?

I'm going to take the other side of the argument here. I do agree there are a lot of garbage SEOs out there. But I think to say 90% are snake oil salesmen is just a bit of an exaggeration. In all industries there are dishonest people only concerned with making a buck. Unfortunately they tend to stand out.

I think there are also a lot of decent honest people working as SEOs. You simply don't hear about them as much because they're working to help promote the sites of their clients and not out pedaling the latest scam.

As far as the future of seo it depends on what your definition of seo is. To me seo has a rather loose definition and many who practice it also include many other forms of internet marketing. Outside of black hats and newbies seo stopped being about algorithm chasing awhile ago.

So if the question means will manipulating algorithms have a future. Probably not with the exception of the aforementioned black hats who will continue to look for holes in the algorithm.

If the question is about the wider interpretation of seo as marketing then why would anyone think it's going away. Marketing is here to stay.

If the question is about seo 101 and basic on page optimization then it isn't going away either. It will probably not exist as a standalone service, because it's so basic in nature, but it will exist as an add on to other services like web design and development or copywriting.

Since no one has posted it here's Danny Sullivan's counterpoint to the original article. I want to give you fair warning that it's a pretty long read.

**ADAM Web Design** · 02-16-2007, 11:39 PM

Ohhhh yes it would be! Rock on, mah brutha! Back in Black is the greatest short album (under 45 minutes) EVER!

**vangogh** · 02-16-2007, 11:46 PM

I still prefer Bon Scott to Brian Johnson though. But yeah, Back in Black was on my turntable for a long time back in the day of the vinyl album.

**Kirtan** · 02-17-2007, 12:42 AM

If i know something about SEs, then it all comes from these sources. Aaron Wall, Danny Sullivan, Grey Wolf, Rand Fishkin, Dan Thies and Jill Whalen.I didn't mention about WMT members, since they are my brothers.

After reading Danny Sullivan's long post, I remember that, once Shakespeare (I think) said that 50% of you are fools. When people opposed, he said 50% of you are not fools.

I agree that all industry has dishonored people. But most other industries have to give something for the bucks they receive from clients. It is not the same for SEO industry. When some one say 90% of web masters are bulls#@ts, i can simply laugh at him and never react (or over react) to that statement. Because i know what i am doing and its worth.

As per Danny Sullivan's post, Search Marketing is both Search advertising and search engine optimization. So 90% (may be less) have nothing to do with search advertising because measure for ROI is almost instant.Search engine optimization is things to do to improve rankings. Here those % of SEOs comes.

He also stated that Google only worries about few SEO firms not many. That is not true. Google worries about few unethical SEOs who do aggressive things to manipulate results, thus Google will loose its relavancy and search distribution plus ad revenue. Google worry about it NOT about web site owners.

And Danny said 90% of general public are not aware of SEO, so web site owners. So, so called snake oil salesmen get those site owners sign in long term contracts. I don't know where Jason Calacanis stated that SEOs are bulls@#t and the guys in that room. Take WMT, for example, Vangogh, chrishirst, Adam who answers all kind of SEO questions here are not simply SEOs (I think). But people here who talks only about SEO (with red points) are simply bulls$#t.

Some good SEOs too take band-aid approach, cause web site owners don't know much about SEO and they refused to do necessary changes. I heard that, one SEO company wanted to add resource to their clients site. But the owner of the site said "i want to sell products to site visitors and i don't want to educate them". So i think, when 90% of general public / site owners aware of SEO, then the basic SEO will be a part of web design and development and search marketing will become an in house service rather than stand alone service.

**ADAM Web Design** · 03:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vangogh

I still prefer Bon Scott to Brian Johnson though. But yeah, Back in Black was on my turntable for a long time back in the day of the vinyl album.

I dunno. I'm a fan of each. I can't really pick between the two. I even like Scott's original version of Back in Black (they recorded it just before he died...little-known fact.)

Really, how can any fan of real music be expected to choose between TNT and Thunderstruck? They BOTH kick ***.

Kirtan: I happened to read Danny's response as well, and quite frankly, I don't think he's ever written more and said less. If you look, he doesn't actually really MAKE a counterargument, other than to automatically gainsay anything Jason says. It's just "you're wrong, you're wrong, here's where IIIIIII wrote that you're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong, you need to be smacked." (How many times does someone need to write "I wrote" anyway?)

Some of it is just idiotic too. "Google says only worry about a few search engine firms"? Does anyone not think that Google will tread lightly in shark-infested waters and will say just enough to warn site owners without setting off an SEO riot by burying most of the people Jason was referring to? Come on, everyone that thinks Google isn't trying to walk on eggshells here, raise your hands.

Then again, Danny's the same guy who departed from running the SES conferences, then suddenly sprouted up and announced his intention to run a competing conference (I believe with more to come), so while he does know about the SEO industry, he's not a doctor I'd take my medicine from.

I'm not sure if that's what you were driving at with the Shakespeare thing, Kirtan. But if it is, I agree.

The beauty of Jason's post is that it represents NO professional bias whatsoever. The guy isn't an SEO. He's not a web designer. He doesn't have any vested interest in protecting the industry. He's just a guy on the outside looking in. I'd give anyone 1000-to-1 odds on $1 that he'd find at least one person who would agree with him both within the SEO industry (well...hybrid SEO/design) and outside of it. The only mistake he has made so far is to back down when Danny "counterpointed" (and I use that term loosely).

(Hint: don't take that bet. I actually DO know people who have read the article from both ends of that spectrum and agreed. I originally found it on another board where people did agree.)

Thanks for the compliment, by the way. And no, Hirst, vangogh and I aren't strictly SEO-types. We builds 'em from the ground up, so we probably represent where SEO will be going...least I hope we do. Be kind of cool to be a trendsetter. But if any of you guys start growing goatees like mine, I'm gonna have to start whoopin' some ***.

**ADAM Web Design** · 02-17-2007, 03:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Learning Newbie

Comment for ADAM: SEO companies offer band-aid approaches because people don't want honest, long term solutions. You can see that in all the "submit to these directories" threads, and the lack of "how can I improve this paragraph" threads. Folks are lazy. Honest, long term solutions are work.

Comment on the article itself: "white-hat" SEO isn't just good web design. Sure using the proper html tags the way they were intended is important, but any "off the page optimization" has nothing to do with web design. Sounds like a trife point, but when someone is that opinionated, and wrong on factual stuff I understand, that's my queue to leave.

Sorry, dude, I just saw this. And yeah, you're absolutely right about people wanting to be lazy. That will continue to exist. Heck, we see it every day with get-rich-quick create-a-single-page-site-with-lots-of-yellow-highlighting-and-red-text drop-the-link-in-as-many-forums-as-possible ignoranuses (BOOYAKASHA!) on the board. But how many of those are out there now vs. the types who are really trying to build sites, and legitimately trying to make a go out of it? I'd say the ratio is a lot more in favour of the latter now than it was 5-10 years ago.

As far as the comments Jason made, you need to read between the lines a little bit. What he's really saying is that the prevailing attitude of SEO and the interpreted definition of such tends to lean more toward gaming the search engines than it does to legitimate SEO issues.

Look at the posts on this board, for example. Do you see people talking about site navigation as it relates to SEO? Do you see them talking about how to structure a paragraph, as you said? Do you see anyone talking about copy at all, for that matter? No.

What do you see?

"Why is my PR at 0?"
"Link exchange with me, plz."
"Are reciprocal links worth it?"
"No, really, are reciprocal links worth it?"
"How do I rank higher on Alexa?"

etc. and so on.

In other words, he was using controversy to deliver a subtle message of "90% of SEO-types are tainting the SEO image". The problem may have been that it was a tad too subtle compared to the noise he made.

**Kirtan** · 02-17-2007, 08:24 AM

Yes Adam. Danny's reaction to Jason is the same as peoples' reaction to shakespeare. I don't know Jason and what he is doing before and after reading his article. But I wonder why these SEO folks are over reacting to Jason. Gray Wolf is trying to google bomb for "Jason Calacanis". I believe these guys are in that 10% but it seems they think they are in 90%.

I don't try to say there is no such thing as SEO. Honestly, i too tried to become a SEO but took diversion after realizing by own skills.
Though, Danny's post is too long, i didn't find any strong point against Jason's statement.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Danny

We fixed Titles and Metas, URLs, ALTs, internal linking and did some external linking work. We also rewrote thousands of pages of content. Go ask the CMO what we did and you may hear terms like rocket science and magic and to that CMO it is rocket science with a huge payoff in revenue.

This is what jason wrote in his article

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jason

Now, if you make great content, keep your page design clean, and stick with it you're gonna do just fine in the rankings. Don't smoke the SEO-crack...

And also danny said

Quote:

If it's so easy, if it's just simply web design, why do I have all this from the search engines themselves:

* Google's Webmaster Help Center
* Yahoo Webmaster Help
* Microsoft Live.com Webmaster Help

REMEMBER those are webmaster help center. NOT SEOs help center.

Finally i respect these SEO Industry well known experts, but there is no need for a microscope to see SUN. If danny needs proof for jason statement, as Adam said, just look yellow-highlighting-and-red-text web sites and email server's bulk folder. Its full of emails about traffic, free traffic, submit to thousands(?) of SEs,etc.