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Robots.txt

explicitly.me

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Re: Robots.txt

#101

Post by dohertyjf »

illuminate wrote: post #66
dohertyjf wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And we would just do this if Google actually made good on their promises to do this, but I see an awful lot of crap still ranking in the SERPs especially because of hacked sites and link networks. Full disclosure - I work in SEO.

The solution to no-content black hattery is not to promote your no-content site with black hat techniques. Nobody here is criticizing site tuning and at the same time defending content farms. Why defend misbehavior as a justification for misbehavior? Note that I am not saying that you yourself perform any of this in your role. Our anger is not at site tuning and placement but the techniques used to do so, which you a…

Your comment doesn't make any sense. Of course the solution to something bad isn't promoting it with something bad. That's just ridiculous and I would never argue that.

You're automatically assuming that SEO is bad, or is all blackhat, or is just about promoting crap. I would argue vehemently that good SEOs only want to promote good content. I turn down many freelance gigs because the company is shit.

I think you're confusing legitimate SEO with crap affiliate marketing. Big difference there, buddy.

Re: Robots.txt

#102

Post by a5seo »

rlpb wrote: post #45
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.

There is still a case for consultants who understand how to make websites genuinely more useful and relevant. Then it's win-win. Their motives might be their rankings, traffic and profit, but if it improves the web for Google users, then that isn't necessarily a bad thing. But the tone of this "article" makes this guy sound like he wears a black hat.

Not to mention helping sites avoid crawl suicide like massively duplicating content across sites, implementing faceted nav and pagination wrong, putting core content in AJAX, generating thin pages, making Google guess which page is the canonical one, and product managers who think "hey let's republish this database of millions of items on our site with generate millions of pages."

Re: Robots.txt

#103

Post by lolcraft »

chatmasta wrote: post #97
Bradosaur wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think this is where my views differ from many on HN. As a business owner, I will do whatever is best for my business, without regards to what is best for society. My job is not to worry about what is best for society -- that job belongs to the government. The government sets the rules and we play the game. As long as I am not breaking any laws, I will do whatever it takes to bring my business to the top. I have to…

I sympathize, but take notice that this is part of the classic one-two strategy that capitalists, as a class, have historically used to gain a disproportionate amount of power in certain historical periods. Say, the 19th century, or the 80s/90s. Not with malice, or even consciously, of course, but it's worth to watch for it, lest we fall again, and again...

First, claim the reasonable principle that law should guard morality, and business should attend only to business. It's in principle correct, so it gets accepted by everyone. So, if child labor were allowed, business owners would be in no moral fault for hiring kids to mine ore -- to pick a extreme example.

Second, claim that economic progress is good for everyone. Again, very reasonable. Then, organize as a political class (say, in nowadays Republican party) to get some legal concessions that were morally abhorrent in the past legal framework, in more or less degree, but would bring economic progress (for some definition of it). Say, legalize child labor. Voilá.

Now, it's obvious that capitalists should be, of course, allowed to organize politically. But, I argue that we live in a world disproportionately controlled by capital (specially the US), for various reasons. It's disingenuous, thus, to be a capitalist and have your mindset. You, as member of a class, have certain privileges that other classes in our society would consider unfair. Our current legal framework is loaded in your favor, after all.

Re: Robots.txt

#105

Post by explicitlyme »

CKKim wrote: post #54
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.

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…

It was meant as humour, for other SEOs in reality. Kind of an in joke that took the hard part of our job and made it funny. Frankly, as in any industry, you have to adapt. (I am the Author of that site)

Re: Robots.txt

#106

Post by a5seo »

websitescenes wrote: post #56
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.

Plus one. SEO is absolutely annoying. If a site is built correctly and there is interest in the service or topic the site provides, then the product will be found. Stuffing keywords into title and heading tags along with other grey area SEO techniques really devalues the internet. I see SEO along the same lines as buying domains that you think may have value and sitting on them. Games like this hinder progress and re…

"if a site is built correctly" - right. That's far from a given.

I can show you dozens of examples of well-funded "A list" too-cool-for-SEO developers who have no idea whatsoever what "built correctly" entails from the POV of a search engine.

The role of SEO is a) Product Management to set requirements to optimize crawlability, indexing, and retrieval, or b) QA that arrives after the fact and highlights all the ways the site fails to be usable for bots.

My experience is if you design things right first, it costs much less than if you don't. Plus you see the upside of your efforts quickly.

But maybe some people take the attitude that "giving me traffic is Google's job" and then when they don't get organic traffic, they have to buy it. Hopefully they also enjoy raising money and giving up a big chunk of their company, too.

Re: Robots.txt

#107

Post by explicitlyme »

rlpb wrote: post #45
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.

There is still a case for consultants who understand how to make websites genuinely more useful and relevant. Then it's win-win. Their motives might be their rankings, traffic and profit, but if it improves the web for Google users, then that isn't necessarily a bad thing. But the tone of this "article" makes this guy sound like he wears a black hat.

I don't really. I do believe there is value in learning the dark side of this profession though. There aren't enough genuine SEOs that really understand both sides of the equation.

Re: Robots.txt

#108

Post by explicitlyme »

Caligula wrote: post #18
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.

My opinion of google improved reading this article. I equate the quality of Google's search as the inverse of the happiness of "seo gurus".

Sometimes, that statement is fairly accurate, then in other times when google boosts its own commercial properties to increase their ad revenue, it wouldn't be.

Re: Robots.txt

#109

Post by explicitlyme »

tibbon wrote: post #48

I still strongly feel that the best way to achieve excellent SEO is through building human-accessible pages. How is your site on a screen reader? If its easy to navigate by braille keyboard or voice output, then it probably is well enough that Google should be able to make sense of it. Better yet, make it so that your CODE is readable and understandable easily by someone who doesn't have perfect vision. If you achiev…

10 people targeting the same keyword. Only 10 spots on page one of the SERPS, if the on site content and site is well built, then who gets the top spot?

The machine isn't clever enough yet to get the perfect answer, and till it is, humans and marketers will continue the manipulation of visibility in pursuit of traffic and revenue. It's sad, but it's a fact.

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