« Not So Fast: Efficient Frontier's Search Ad Data Paints a Different Picture than SearchIgnite's | Main | Social Media Counter: Not Actual But Gives You Thought »
October 13, 2009
Are Search Engine Optimizers Spammers, Evildoers, and Opportunists?
First of all, a shout out to Joanna Hogan (surfwrite), who asked for my thoughts on the post by Derek Powazek entitled, entitled, "Spammers, Evildoers, and Opportunists."
It must have been a no good, very bad Columbus Day for Powazek. He decided to call search engine optimizers, "goat sacrificers and snake oil salesmen."
Strong stuff.
Now, Powazek was called one of the top 40 "Industry Influencers" in 2007 by Folio Magazine. He once worked at pioneering sites like HotWired, Blogger, and Technorati. He now splits his time between working as "Chief of Awesome" for HP's MagCloud and Creative Director of Collecta, advising a handful of startup companies on community design. And you've got to admire a guy who "lives in San Francisco with his wife, two nutty Chihuahuas, a grumpy cat, and a house full of plants named Fred."
So, I read his rant -- twice. And I think it requires a response.
(By the way, I'd provide the same kind of response if he'd called public relations people flacks and spin doctors. There are some groups that need defending.)
So, what proof does Powazek offer that search engine optimizers can't "dance the magic dance that will please the Google Gods and make eyeballs rain down upon you" the way they claim they can?
He claims, "the good advice is obvious, the rest doesn't work."
Well, if the good advice were obvious, then "SEO training" wouldn't be such a popular search term. Go to Google Insights for Search and compare search volume patterns for the terms "SEO training" and "SEM training." As you will see, SEO training is hot, but SEM training is not.
And the people conducting these searches aren't looking for a new breed of con man. They are are looking for good advice about search engine optimization that isn't obvious.
And reputable organizations like Search Engine Strategies, Market Motive, and the SEMPO Institute all offer SEO courses for SEO specialists.
And there are books on the topic from reputable authors like Rebecca Lieb's The Truth About Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day by Jennifer Grappone and Gradiva Couzin, and The Art of SEO by Eric Enge, Stephan Spencer, Rand Fishkin, and Jessie Stricchiola.
None of these SEO courses or SEO books would be necessary if the good advice was obvious.
Powazek also claims, "SEO is poisoning the web."
Well, it did once, when AltaVista was king of the hill back in 2000. And SEO could poison the web again -- if Google wasn't doing a better job than AltaVista did in fighting the darkside SEO masters that Powazek remembers from the old days.
Apparently, Powazek missed the 2005 post by Gord Hotchkiss, who retold the story of my dinner with a black hat SEO. In between the courses, a confession came out that stopped me in my tracks: "Black hat stuff is getting too hard. I'm actually thinking about turning legit."
And, apparently Powazek didn't read the 2007 post on the Official Google Webmaster Central Blog that Google has begun minimizing the impact of many Googlebombs. He thinks "Google bombing" still works.
Now, it turns out that I do agree with Powazek on "the One True Way to get a lot of traffic on the web." He says, "Make something great. Tell people about it. Do it again."
Or, as Google says about link schemes, "The best way to get other sites to create relevant links to yours is to create unique, relevant content that can quickly gain popularity in the Internet community. The more useful content you have, the greater the chances someone else will find that content valuable to their readers and link to it."
Now, apparently Powazek has decided that calling search engine optimizers "spammers, evildoers, and opportunists" can quickly gain popularity in the Internet community. Saying something controversial to generate discussion is a classic linkbaiting technique.
As Matt Cutts said in a 2006 post entitled, "SEO Advice: linkbait and linkbaiting," on his Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO blog, "On a meta-level, I think of 'linkbait' as something interesting enough to catch people's attention, and that doesn't have to be a bad thing. There are a lot of ways to do that, including putting in sweat-of-the-brow work to generate data or insights, or it can be as simple as being creative. You can also say something controversial to generate discussion (this last one gets tired if you overuse it, though)."
The only thing easier than picking on search engine optimizers is to call public relations people flacks and spin doctors. That's like shooting fish in a barrel.
But that's another topic for another day.
Posted by Greg Jarboe on October 13, 2009 6:52 PM
Comments
Greg,
I left a comment on Derek's site too and mostly agree with him. After reading your response, I feel that I can agree with your take too.
On Derek's page, I mentioned that most of my time is spent working with clients that don't understand structuring content and using H1 tags. They are artists or writers or people that have a passion for something that isn't W3C compliance and the best practices of web design.
The rest of my clients have had their heads pumped up about the silver bullet that heard about, SEO. They think it's pull a few cords, type in a few words in the right place (maybe in invisible text on the bottom of the page...) and the next thing you know, BOOM #1 in Google SERPs for all my keywords.
Most of the time, my clients are 80% of the way there. They have the passion, most of the content, and, did I mention, the passion? They just don't know how to tie it all together. I'm not working with linkfarms here, just simple content structure, sitemaps, etc. Toss in a few links and point them towards the right communities of like minded folks, and things are looking up.
I don't think Derek wrote this as linkbait, but, just as the search trends show that "SEO training" is very popular and not too obvious, the popularity of Derek's post also shows that there are significant numbers of folks that don't buy all the claims of SEO.
Eric
Eric H. Doss October 13, 2009 10:15 PM
Eric, I understand that folks don't buy all the claims of SEO. They shouldn't. What still surprises me is that they think they can learn it the way we learned our multiplication tables. Well, it changes -- which is why it is hard. You need to keep up with the changes. For example, SEO was once focused on optimizing your website. Then, universal search arrived in May 2007 and now you also want to optimize your videos on YouTube, press releases on Google News, images on Flickr, and local listings on Google Maps. That's a big shift -- and some people still haven't made it. But the other market shift that I think Derek missed is this: Five years ago, most people looked for an SEO firm to help them. Today, many people are looking to get training for themselves or in-house staff. So, is the rant against "search engine optimizers" a rant at the people inside Derek's companies? I don't think so. But that signals to me that he's missed a significant shift in the marketplace.
Greg Jarboe October 14, 2009 7:35 PM
When you cut through all the fluff in Powazek's article, I think it becomes clear that he has more of a problem with the practitioners of SEO than the practice of SEO. He's obviously frustrated that SEO is an essential and distinct part of the web development cycle because he thinks it's something that designers can do.
Don't get me wrong, I have a lot of respect for designers & developers who build solid, useable sites with SEO in mind. But on-page optimization is a tiny piece of the equation (that is, nonetheless, more often than not overlooked by developers.)
The simple truth is that search is so complex and so dynamic that it does require its own set of resources. I don't often venture onto the design or development side, because I know it's too much for me to stay current on and wrap my head around - it's best left to the experts.
I think Powazek should be turning his frustration toward his own industry, who regularly saddle unsuspecting clients with sites that are completely unindexable or a general SEO mess on a regular basis.
Since that isn't likely to happen, I'll just write this off as yet another poorly optimized piece of anti-SEO linkbait.
Jeff October 16, 2009 1:36 AM
most people think that SEOs are spammers and its really hard to convince them. They think that if a SEO fails to rank their site he a spammer, there are many reasons involved in ranking a website for a specific keyword, you cannot rank a website for a keyword that has huge competition. SEO is really a technical field, it needs time and hard work.
SEO Pakistan October 19, 2009 2:48 PM
There are really a lot of Search Engine Optimizers that don't know what they are doing and they so SEO in a spam way which will be harmful to their client's website. People should be more careful in choosing and should monitor what their hired SEO person is doing.
Lea October 27, 2009 6:56 PM
