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Robots.txt

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Re: Robots.txt

#121

Post by bones6 »

Osmium wrote: post #23
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.

I think this is a common view, and I share it: I really don't like SEO. The thing is, SEO does provide real value, but it provides value because the system is broken: your website should reach the top of search results based on merit, not based on some arcane black magic. I think it's somewhat akin to lobbyists: I don't blame them for making money off and taking advantage off the political system, and they certainly…

I disagree. Let me quote Cutts: "I’ve said it before, but SEO is in many ways about change. The best SEOs recognize, adapt, and even flourish when changes happen."

There's a saying that goes something like "A computer will only do what you tell it to do". That said, merit is important, but you have to show Google merit with code. That's by on page content and structure and appropriate tags, etc or by off-page, with links. That's it. There's no other way. There's no black magic. Cutts speaks to SEOs but he calls he channel GoogleWebmasterHelp . That's the clue to website owners, but many times the owner is not a webmaster. So they can hire an SEO that knows a bit about ranking websites, or they can hire a web programmer. Not all web programmers have ideas on what to do. They likely will want to make a new site for the customer that is not even necessarily any better than the existing, as far as Google cares.

That got a bit preachy but it's not as black and white as you make it out to be. There's a niche for SEOs that involves improving existing websites that a web programmer might not be suited for, might not want to do, or might be too expensive for.

Re: Robots.txt

#122

Post by csense »

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…

The "if you don't, then somebody else will" argument only applies if you're in a commodity market: A market with a lot of players selling the same product, or a market where there are few barriers to entry keeping out people who sell an interchangeable product.

Much of the world inhabited by HN'ers is not like this. If you have a typical software or web product, then a competitor would have to spend substantial resources developing code that duplicates your functionality, and then they have to worry about the head-start the first mover has in branding and network effects.

Re: Robots.txt

#123

Post by thenextcorner »

skulquake wrote: post #118
a5seo wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to agree with this, but lately I feel like any learnings are going to have a short shelf life. With the EMD updates and on-going refinements to Penguin, how long can any truly effective hack really be expected to work? I'm glad Google is cleaning house b/c it became annoying trying to counsel people to not violate the Webmaster Guidelines when they could point to successful competitors or some backwater infome…

I wish some of the "real" black hatters could come on here and speak. These guys are the ones putting together massive strategies/campaigns to rank across a wide variety of thousands of key terms. And there not writing about it. The techniques many people are talking about now were done maybe 2-3 years before this whole mess. They are so far ahead of what the "industry" is focused on it's not even funny.

You know there is a reason they don't participate on these forums... It's a waste of their time! They are so busy working their strategy, making money on the web, that any time spent on a discussion like this, while no money is made, is very low on their priorities.

Re: Robots.txt

#125

Post by a5seo »

skulquake wrote: post #118
a5seo wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to agree with this, but lately I feel like any learnings are going to have a short shelf life. With the EMD updates and on-going refinements to Penguin, how long can any truly effective hack really be expected to work? I'm glad Google is cleaning house b/c it became annoying trying to counsel people to not violate the Webmaster Guidelines when they could point to successful competitors or some backwater infome…

I wish some of the "real" black hatters could come on here and speak. These guys are the ones putting together massive strategies/campaigns to rank across a wide variety of thousands of key terms. And there not writing about it. The techniques many people are talking about now were done maybe 2-3 years before this whole mess. They are so far ahead of what the "industry" is focused on it's not even funny.

Some black hatters make money, but for every 1 who does, 50 don't. Spend some time on WarriorForum or SEOBook and you'll see a very low signal to noise ratio. Lots of people are just preying on people who want to get rich quick with now work by selling them hope in the form of "info products".

And the black hatters who make money could probably make just as much if they did something legit.

The worst part about black hat is eventually the wheels fall off and you have to start over. So you're playing a game that keeps you on a constant treadmill. It's just as bad as consulting as a way to make a living.

If you take the high road, you build real value you can exit on eventually.

Re: Robots.txt

#126

Post by pbhjpbhj »

illuminate wrote: post #60
morganwilde wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly what I thought, SEO should not have ever become a "thing" if Google did its job right.

"SEO should not have ever become a "thing" if Google did its job right." SEO will always be a "thing" as long as people are not always interested in providing relevant information. It will always be an asymmetric battle between people who want to prioritize their noise over useful signal.

>SEO will always be a "thing" as long as people are not always interested in providing relevant information. //

SEO is [also] about bridging the gap between machine-based abstraction of the data in your site and human searchers. Most of the on-page/on-site optimisations are simply ensuring that the SE can abstract the right information so that users searching for the content you're providing can find it.

SEO will always be a thing as long as Googlebot fails to perfectly abstract the data content of a site and perfectly rank sites according to user needs.

Re: Robots.txt

#127

Post by illuminate »

dohertyjf wrote: post #101
illuminate wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You replied a person who said to just create content that was useful to others with suggesting that you would do that, only if there weren't hacked sites jumbling up the rankings. It ~seemed~ to suggest that you were less interested in original, interesting content than you were competing with the top sites regardless of how either of you got to that spot.

Re: Robots.txt

#130

Post by illuminate »

thenextcorner wrote: post #123
skulquake wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish some of the "real" black hatters could come on here and speak. These guys are the ones putting together massive strategies/campaigns to rank across a wide variety of thousands of key terms. And there not writing about it. The techniques many people are talking about now were done maybe 2-3 years before this whole mess. They are so far ahead of what the "industry" is focused on it's not even funny.

You know there is a reason they don't participate on these forums... It's a waste of their time! They are so busy working their strategy, making money on the web, that any time spent on a discussion like this, while no money is made, is very low on their priorities.

I doubt they're making a ton on the hustle, but I agree that they're probably not the type to waste time discussing points with other, likely more hostile crowds.
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