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Sick of SEO Scumbags

thehodge.co.uk

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Re: Sick of SEO Scumbags

#31

Post by DanBC »

CurtMonash wrote: post #4

For good reason, Google (ditto other search engines) makes SEO as impenetrable as possible. Unfortunately, that makes it difficult to disprove anything a self-appointed SEO says. Honest error and charlatanry both follow apace. I'm seeing the same thing in the world specifically of Amazon search rankings, as self-published authors strive -- perhaps not wrongly -- for high Amazon rankings without knowing either how to…

Google do a pretty good job of saying what is acceptable and what isn't acceptable.

And some SEO types are clearly scumbags. Some stuff is clearly, unambiguously, bad.

So, how are naive users supposed to tell the difference between honest decent SEO types, and sub-optimal but not clearly evil SEO types?

Re: Sick of SEO Scumbags

#32

Post by EwanToo »

tlrobinson wrote: post #17

What exactly is "link building"? That itself sounds pretty scumbaggy to me... In an ideal world (white hat) SEO should include things that make the site better for their users and search engines, and hopefully improve search rankings organically. "Building" links in order to increase PageRank sounds like it's manipulating the system.

From what I understand, link building, in the semi-legitimate form at least, is contacting bloggers and journalists and saying "Hey, you might really like product X, here's a 30 day trial", sending out press releases, making sure you're in the legitimate directories like yell.com in the UK, etc.

The illegitimate end of is is using hacked forums, wordpress blogs, etc, to post links with exactly the keywords you want to rank for.

Re: Sick of SEO Scumbags

#33

Post by jiggy2011 »

camus wrote: post #9

Why are we using the expression SEO since there is only one search engine people are targetting/using ? do businesses really care if they are numero uno on Bing or duckduckgo ? I never understood that. Let's cut the crap , SEO is Google rank optimization. It means there is no SEO since the only player that decides how SEO works is google. If tomorrow Google decides using the word "FLOWER" in your header improves your…

Calling yourself a "Google optimization consultant" or whatever might run the risk of trademark issues.

You also might care if you get to #1 in bing. Sure it's nowhere near as well used as google in terms of % but it still adds up to several million eyeballs.

Being #1 on bing for some search term that is super competitive on google is likely to bring a huge amount of traffic.

Re: Sick of SEO Scumbags

#34

Post by Nursie »

monk_e_boy wrote: post #28
Nursie wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not anti SEO because it's unregulated or unstable. I'm anti-SEO because it seeks to subvert the search engine's mission (return the most useful results for the searcher* ) to something more akin to advertising (return the results that the person paying for SEO wants). It pollutes and subverts the web experience for everyone. It's not the practices that are the problem, it's the whole idea. [*]OK so I acknowledge…

But once that happens and someone searches 'flower shop leeds' and all that comes up is a bunch of SEO crap. The only way to combat that is for all the flower shops in Leeds to do a little SEO. And we're only talking about some pretty URLs, better content and some light backlinks from interesting sites. I used to work in SEO and a lot of what we did was just common sense stuff that non-programmers/designers/html monk…

"But once that happens and someone searches 'flower shop leeds' and all that comes up is a bunch of SEO crap. The only way to combat that is for all the flower shops in Leeds to do a little SEO."

The best way would be to let the likes of google update their algorithm to avoid the crappy SEO sites. I appreciate that the best way for the flower shop to maintain its business is to go SEO, however they are then becoming part of the problem.

"And we're only talking about some pretty URLs, better content and some light backlinks from interesting sites."

I'm not sure what you mean about 'light backlinks', but for the rest, changing your own website to be more easily parseable by Google? Cool. That's your domain, knock yourself out. Filling the web with crap and linkspam? Not so much.

Re: Sick of SEO Scumbags

#35

Post by Nursie »

netrus wrote: post #30
Nursie wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not anti SEO because it's unregulated or unstable. I'm anti-SEO because it seeks to subvert the search engine's mission (return the most useful results for the searcher* ) to something more akin to advertising (return the results that the person paying for SEO wants). It pollutes and subverts the web experience for everyone. It's not the practices that are the problem, it's the whole idea. [*]OK so I acknowledge…

Many SEO techniques are in line with the user's best interest. Sitemaps, Keywords, accessibility (clean source code) etc. help Google to understand the content of your page better. That's the reason why people like Matt Cutts exist. Of course, much of SEO IS dirty, and I am not sure if there is serious movement of "ethical SEO".

That's great, but isn't what I think of when I think SEO. It sounds a lot like getting good search results by making a good site, which I'm all for!

Re: Sick of SEO Scumbags

#36

Post by abeatnik »

cbeach wrote: post #23

There's only one search engine that anyone cares about. Companies live or die by their inclusion in that index. SEO is a nasty little cottage industry that benefits from the algorithmic monoculture in search. On a somewhat related note, there is only one display advertising program that anyone cares about. If you get banned from Adsense because a competitor hammered an ad on your site, say - you're out. Forever. With…

"It seems a lot of Android fanboys and "Google Openness believers" are sleepwalking us all into the next dark "Microsoft" chapter."

If anyone is "sleepwalking" anyone anywhere then I think it's the people making big money from companies like Google, not consumers or openness advocates. That is, people like you before you found yourself unceremoniously kicked out of the club.

Re: Sick of SEO Scumbags

#37

Post by Jacqued »

tlrobinson wrote: post #17

What exactly is "link building"? That itself sounds pretty scumbaggy to me... In an ideal world (white hat) SEO should include things that make the site better for their users and search engines, and hopefully improve search rankings organically. "Building" links in order to increase PageRank sounds like it's manipulating the system.

Legitimate link building is basically press and blogs relations (to maybe get links from journalists and bloggers, give them free stuff) and content marketing (invite a blogger to write for your blog, or write content on other blogs, and make links in both directions). It's not really manipulating the system, more like playing with a full understanding of the rules.

Spamming every website out there with useless comments containing your URL is more shady business and can result in a ban.

Re: Sick of SEO Scumbags

#38

Post by cbeach »

abeatnik wrote: post #36
cbeach wrote: post #23

There's only one search engine that anyone cares about. Companies live or die by their inclusion in that index. SEO is a nasty little cottage industry that benefits from the algorithmic monoculture in search. On a somewhat related note, there is only one display advertising program that anyone cares about. If you get banned from Adsense because a competitor hammered an ad on your site, say - you're out. Forever. With…

"It seems a lot of Android fanboys and "Google Openness believers" are sleepwalking us all into the next dark "Microsoft" chapter." If anyone is "sleepwalking" anyone anywhere then I think it's the people making big money from companies like Google, not consumers or openness advocates. That is, people like you before you found yourself unceremoniously kicked out of the club.

My point is that Openness advocates seem to place Google on a pedestal. Whenever I see any criticism of Android, or Google, it's always immediately flamed down. Maybe because Google is the most "open" of the major vendors today. But don't ever imagine that Google is immune from the Microsoft scenario.

Microsoft competed with "closed" platforms of the day by releasing a platform that was (arguably) more open to developers, and could be installed on any hardware. Developers actually quite liked Windows back in those days. The PC clone wars ensured that Windows became ubiquitous, and it took years for people to realise just how sinister that was.

I'm not going to pretend that Windows was in any way open-source, but why aren't we drawing some parallels with Google's Android platform, and the any-hardware clone war it's waging with iOS and true open source mobile platforms.

Re: Sick of SEO Scumbags

#39

Post by bobsy »

> I’ve seen companies who have built a site for a client, no index it then charge for an SEO package to ‘sort out the rankings’, Domain change audits with no 301′s, I’ve seen agencies charge £10k for ‘keyword research’ which is copied and pasted straight from Google Adwords and more than a few times I’ve seen companies charge a thousands per month for an IBP report.

I think I am in the wrong industry...

Re: Sick of SEO Scumbags

#40

Post by cbeach »

oinksoft wrote: post #18
camus wrote: post #9

Why are we using the expression SEO since there is only one search engine people are targetting/using ? do businesses really care if they are numero uno on Bing or duckduckgo ? I never understood that. Let's cut the crap , SEO is Google rank optimization. It means there is no SEO since the only player that decides how SEO works is google. If tomorrow Google decides using the word "FLOWER" in your header improves your…

IF Google were to bias in favor of "FLOWER" while disregarding content relevance, it would be an abuse of their dominant market position. But from the outside looking in, it seems like Google strives for nothing but providing the most relevant search results for their users. Controversies tend to arise when Google tries too hard, it seems, localizing based on fragile heuristics and such. If this is the scam, what's t…

A search engine that ranks mainly on social-graph recommendation might be one solution, because the social graph is a simple data structure that transcends "ownership" by Facebook or Google+. The engine itself is a non-trivial system to implement, mind you.
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