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Robots.txt

explicitly.me

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Re: Robots.txt

#131

Post by thenextcorner »

illuminate wrote: post #130
thenextcorner wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What makes you doubt that? If there was no money to be made, these wouldn't be spam, Viagra Wordpress hacks or Phishing attempts.

You have no idea...

Re: Robots.txt

#132

Post by illuminate »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #126
illuminate wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 al…

The discrepancy here is probably that "SEO" is mostly used as a pejorative versus the intentions you describe.

Re: Robots.txt

#133

Post by a5seo »

thenextcorner wrote: post #131
illuminate wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What makes you doubt that? If there was no money to be made, these wouldn't be spam, Viagra Wordpress hacks or Phishing attempts. You have no idea...

I've seen what some of them do, and it's not as impressive as you'd think. Most of it breaks and stops working inside of 24 months. Then it's on to the next scam. Not a lot different from fly-by-night snake oil salesmen.

Just the existence of spam doesnt prove it's a big oppotunity, just that it's better for some people than their opportunity cost.

Re: Robots.txt

#134

Post by explicitlyme »

a5seo wrote: post #133
thenextcorner wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you doubt that? If there was no money to be made, these wouldn't be spam, Viagra Wordpress hacks or Phishing attempts. You have no idea...

I've seen what some of them do, and it's not as impressive as you'd think. Most of it breaks and stops working inside of 24 months. Then it's on to the next scam. Not a lot different from fly-by-night snake oil salesmen. Just the existence of spam doesnt prove it's a big oppotunity, just that it's better for some people than their opportunity cost.

Some make &10,000 a DAY.

Ever looked at the payday SERP in the UK? Google can't control it. I know at least 3-4 people who make £100,000 a year with just basic level spamming.

If I scaled this technique http://explicitly.me/serp-sniffing-a-long-tail-keyword-strat... , I could make the same amount of money without breaking a sweat by dumping Adsense on there, and shopping affiliate links.

The point is I don't choose to.

Re: Robots.txt

#135

Post by dohertyjf »

illuminate wrote: post #127
dohertyjf wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I said that we'd just do that if... The just implies that we do that plus other things.

Re: Robots.txt

#136

Post by a5seo »

explicitlyme wrote: post #134
a5seo wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen what some of them do, and it's not as impressive as you'd think. Most of it breaks and stops working inside of 24 months. Then it's on to the next scam. Not a lot different from fly-by-night snake oil salesmen. Just the existence of spam doesnt prove it's a big oppotunity, just that it's better for some people than their opportunity cost.

Some make &10,000 a DAY. Ever looked at the payday SERP in the UK? Google can't control it. I know at least 3-4 people who make £100,000 a year with just basic level spamming. If I scaled this technique http://explicitly.me/serp-sniffing-a-long-tail-keyword-strat... , I could make the same amount of money without breaking a sweat by dumping Adsense on there, and shopping affiliate links. The point is I don't choose t…

Thanks for posting that. It's funny-- your strategy is exactly the way I do lead gen for my customers. I wrote a bunch of software to sniff serps (great expression, btw) and find long tail keywords that will drive leads for the client.

Then we produce articles (we actually hire real journalists) to address the search intent behind the keywords. Then we post it on the client's site, and charge them for the leads we drive via organic search from that content.

The funny thing is, our customers just view it as "content marketing," not SEO. Search data (search vol, competition, etc.) guides our content strategy, but I don't view this part as either good or bad. Or even really "SEO". Why would anyone invest in content nobody is searching for?!?

If we spun content or used Markov chains to generate gibberish or hired incompetent writers via TextBroker for $10 a story, sure that's spam.

But my calculation is that spending $500+ on an article written by a journalist with domain expertise is going to win long term. And since the lead revenue makes the ROI calculation >1, why not invest in quality?

And we definitely don't make Google guess what keyword we think our article would help.

Re: Robots.txt

#137

Post by websitescenes »

a5seo wrote: post #106
websitescenes wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"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."

That's what I said.

Re: Robots.txt

#138

Post by websitescenes »

dchuk wrote: post #94
websitescenes wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You clearly have no idea what SEO really is.

Of course, optimize your content so that it's easy to find and index. That's building your site correctly. All I am saying is that after market SEO is a little gimmicky because of the patchwork approach taken by many SEO specialists. As a longtime developer that has had lots of interaction with clients, I know they often spend their time worrying about SEO instead of posting good content. If a consumer isn't satisfied with search rankings and they think their site is poorly built, then they are better off contracting someone that will build it correctly the first time. Now obviously a dynamically served website has some SEO issues and needs some special attention, but this shouldn't be an after thought or third party component.

Re: Robots.txt

#139

Post by Igalze »

Very cool stuff but I have to disagree with the general idea.

I've been doing SEO for 8 years and I have to say that I came for the fun and money but I stayed for the challenge and algo changes.

I remember how, 8 years ago, it was all about "5% density" and link stuffing. Today is content quality, social signals, link profile (not just quantity), contextual co-relations and so much much more...

I think that I only truly fallen in love with SEO when Google started using rel=canonical. This is when it really became a game of poker and not a "hungy hungy hippos" with links in it.

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