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Robots.txt

explicitly.me

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Re: Robots.txt

#81

Post by CKKim »

illuminate wrote: post #62
CKKim wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally with you. I was enjoying the amusing tone of the piece but he lost my sympathy at: "Before, SEO was the game of really skilled people, you know like professional poker players. You had to know the game, know when to raise, and when to bluff." Then with the "Maybe I should find another job?" I thought this has got to be satire. Well played, sir. The way the piece is framed, the writing style, surely a work of…

From his twitter postings, I don't believe this is fake.

Ah, thanks for this and your comment elsewhere in the thread. That Twitter link, for those also intrigued: https://twitter.com/rishil.

Re: Robots.txt

#82

Post by waxjar »

RBerenguel wrote: post #68
cs02rm0 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the general contention is that the process you describe is just using someone who's going to write sensible HTML not SEO. The shady side of actually modifying code not for easy-to-read, browser-efficiency, etc. is SEO.

I have to disagree. I consider part of my job to be some SEO (not my primary task and neither the most important, but I take care of it at my company) and its definitely the first part of what you sketch. And trying to clean all the second part stupid stuff someone else may have done before. I don't see it as a game against Google... I try to make our sites as useful for humans as possible, and hope Google agrees wit…

Writing sensible HTML is optimising for machines. The Google algorithm runs on machines, so they'll like it and benefit from it. Browsers, screen-reader, future colleagues will also like it and benefit from it. Calling this search engine optimisation seems a bit weird, though it'll certainly help Google process your website properly.

If you read the OP, his mean concern is the tiny subtle changes in the algorithm that drive him mad. He calls optimising for them SEO. It is considered shady and evil by some, myself included. (Ultimately it's about the content, not about who best reverse-engineered Google's algorithm.)

Re: Robots.txt

#83

Post by Apocryphon »

CKKim wrote: post #65
woohoo wrote: post #31

Nobody else read this as a joke? I read it as a joke (and a slightly racist one at that).

I read it as a joke by the end but, worryingly, didn't automatically recontextualise it as racist in light of that. Which, I think I agree with you, it is, if it's a joke and all the East Africa stuff is made up for "comedy value".

I thought he was genuinely from Kenya or Ethiopia or somewhere.

Re: Robots.txt

#84

Post by robbiemitchell »

homosaur wrote: post #37
buster wrote: post #13

Am i the only one who thinks that SEO is more a plague then it is a real profession? Google making it hard for SEO is exactly the right thing to do. Making it impossible for SEO should be the ultimate _goal_ of a good search engine.

Depends what you mean. If you mean people whose goal it is to help site owners learn how to structure their data intelligently for dissection by machines, people who make companies think very hard about their content, people who encourage high-quality crosslinks and meta tags, and people who generally help sites manage data, then no, SEOs are great. They help users and companies alike. If you mean the dirtball black…

Making your site easy to crawl and find can be spammy when taken too extremes, yes, but it's also about quality basics. Good titles, site structure, URL structure, relevant internal linking, etc.

As an analogy, making your restaurant easy to find (relevant name, standard names for things, signs out front, etc.) is important unless you're so well-branded that can get by on having a secret, unmarked door.

Re: Robots.txt

#85

Post by illuminate »

webwanderings wrote: post #76
illuminate wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I think SEO is practically dead, and for good. The Social Web is supposedly lot more democratic and apparently a better choice." Subverting "The Social Web" occurs to feed users to their advertising or other attempts at monetization, they don't get paid to Tweet.

Well, there's a negative as well, hence I used keywords like supposedly, apparently etc. But wouldn't you rather your insurance-selling uncle visit you for yourself, instead of an intent to sell you the insurance? I think those days will be here eventually.

Say people eventually buy everything or get some form of advertising kickbacks from "the Social", do you think that there won't be ways to game those income streams?

Re: Robots.txt

#86

Post by chatmasta »

dkhenry wrote: post #12

Keep up the good work Google. I hope this serves as encouragement for them to continue to screw over those who want to turn searching for relevant information into a war for who can cheat the system the best.

As long as search results are determined by algorithms, there will be search engine optimization. Why? Because every algorithm can be optimized for something. And as long as search engine optimization exists, engaging in it will be a competitive advantage. Why would you NOT want your site to appear at the top of the search results for as many keywords as possible? Your job as a business owner is to bring as many customers to your business as you can. To suggest anything else is absurd.

I'm happy that so many HN readers are anti-SEO, because that's less competition for me.

Re: Robots.txt

#87

Post by nirvanatikku »

CKKim wrote: post #65
woohoo wrote: post #31

Nobody else read this as a joke? I read it as a joke (and a slightly racist one at that).

I read it as a joke by the end but, worryingly, didn't automatically recontextualise it as racist in light of that. Which, I think I agree with you, it is, if it's a joke and all the East Africa stuff is made up for "comedy value".

....? where did the idea of "The East Africa stuff" being made up come from?

Re: Robots.txt

#89

Post by Bradosaur »

chatmasta wrote: post #86
dkhenry wrote: post #12

Keep up the good work Google. I hope this serves as encouragement for them to continue to screw over those who want to turn searching for relevant information into a war for who can cheat the system the best.

As long as search results are determined by algorithms, there will be search engine optimization. Why? Because every algorithm can be optimized for something. And as long as search engine optimization exists, engaging in it will be a competitive advantage. Why would you NOT want your site to appear at the top of the search results for as many keywords as possible? Your job as a business owner is to bring as many cust…

Just because something is good for my business, doesn't mean it's good for society. SEO (beyond actually making your site more valuable) is a classic prisoner's dilemma.

Re: Robots.txt

#90

Post by schiffern »

chatmasta wrote: post #86
dkhenry wrote: post #12

Keep up the good work Google. I hope this serves as encouragement for them to continue to screw over those who want to turn searching for relevant information into a war for who can cheat the system the best.

As long as search results are determined by algorithms, there will be search engine optimization. Why? Because every algorithm can be optimized for something. And as long as search engine optimization exists, engaging in it will be a competitive advantage. Why would you NOT want your site to appear at the top of the search results for as many keywords as possible? Your job as a business owner is to bring as many cust…

Google's ultimate goal is making "SEO" and "quality content generation" one-and-the-same.

>Your job as a business owner is to bring as many customers to your business as you can. To suggest anything else is absurd.

Technically your job is to generate as much profit as possible. Volume of people in the door is but a single coefficient in that equation. It's a common failure point, yes, but suggesting that it is the only one is disingenuous.

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