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Sick of SEO Scumbags

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Re: Sick of SEO Scumbags

#51

Post by davidw »

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".

If there is some group of N companies competing for some keyword, starting from the same 'lower quality' web sites, and they all do the same 'good' SEO stuff, then they'll all be right where they started again in terms of rankings, very likely. It's an arms race.

Competing for a ranking is pretty much a zero-sum game because no matter how much money you sink into it, only one can come out on top.

Compare and contrast with actually building stuff that makes people's lives better: there's still some competition, and winners and losers, but it's usually not a zero-sum game at all.

Re: Sick of SEO Scumbags

#52

Post by OGinparadise »

znowi wrote: post #20

Whenever I hear "SEO", I instantly feel a presence of something shady and unpleasant with a desire to wash my hands afterwards :) For me, it became synonymous to con artists and fortune tellers.

It's as honorable as "pulling strings" to get your start-up reviewed by shady sites like Techcrunch. Both serve the same purpose

Re: Sick of SEO Scumbags

#53

Post by e40 »

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.

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

Did you change what the OP wrote or did they after you copy/pasted it? They statements are pretty different (now). Here's what the OP says:

Android fanboys and "Google Openness believers" could sleepwalk us all into the next dark "Microsoft" chapter.

Could/are... very different.

That is, people like you before you found yourself unceremoniously kicked out of the club.

I think that's who he is talking about, btw.

Re: Sick of SEO Scumbags

#54

Post by James_Duval »

Nursie wrote: post #35
netrus wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

This is what a lot of modern SEO is, actually. I think we'll see increasing amounts of information made available by private companies over this next year in an effort to rank higher for their key phrases. Also genuinely useful tools/web apps/calculators.

The rest is site structure.

I know people can and do still game the system, but that's not a good long-term plan and it's a flat return. Creating a good site with good information and a good product will keep giving you links and shares for a fair few years.

EDIT: In other words, I predict that the people who are practising bad SEO (and they do exist) will fall away like rotted wood over the next year, and the people who are genuinely trying to make interesting things which people like will come out on top.

Re: Sick of SEO Scumbags

#55

Post by monkeyfacebag »

csomar wrote: post #47

Since people started criticizing Google :) I'd like to point out something really quite annoying (and also a little Evil) that Google is doing: They are hiding the search terms in your Google Analytics report . Google pretended that it's going to affect a single digit of your search terms (check the blog post), but for me, it's from 70% to 90% on my sites (around 8 sites, same issue). This is really the worst move th…

This isn't "Evil". Google is doing what they can to provide "a more secure and private search experience" [1]. Sure, it may be unfortunate for web sites relying on organic keywords, but this is hardly a malicious act.

[1] http://support.google.com/websearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&...

Re: Sick of SEO Scumbags

#56

Post by greyman »

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…

No, people also do optimization for Bing (you can Google about it ;-)), and also in certain countries, local search engine can be a good source of traffic, so there is a SEO for that as well. But Google is usually most important, that's right.

Re: Sick of SEO Scumbags

#57

Post by Nursie »

James_Duval wrote: post #54
Nursie wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

This is what a lot of modern SEO is, actually. I think we'll see increasing amounts of information made available by private companies over this next year in an effort to rank higher for their key phrases. Also genuinely useful tools/web apps/calculators. The rest is site structure. I know people can and do still game the system, but that's not a good long-term plan and it's a flat return. Creating a good site with g…

It sounds like a strange motivator to make good content for the wrong reasons...

Re: Sick of SEO Scumbags

#58

Post by walshemj »

csomar wrote: post #43
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…

There's only one search engine that anyone cares about. That's not my new experience. I have found that Bing (and Yahoo, partially) ranks sites differently than Google. Google is quite competitive and thus it's hard to rank. I tried ranking in Google, but even the second page doesn't help. I optimized for Bing and now it brings much more than Google. Certainly, my SE traffic is quite low (few hundreds a month) but I…

G is 90%

Re: Sick of SEO Scumbags

#59

Post by walshemj »

csomar wrote: post #47

Since people started criticizing Google :) I'd like to point out something really quite annoying (and also a little Evil) that Google is doing: They are hiding the search terms in your Google Analytics report . Google pretended that it's going to affect a single digit of your search terms (check the blog post), but for me, it's from 70% to 90% on my sites (around 8 sites, same issue). This is really the worst move th…

But adwords users get that data - this is hipocrasy on teh part of Google.

Re: Sick of SEO Scumbags

#60

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

walshemj wrote: post #58
csomar wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's only one search engine that anyone cares about. That's not my new experience. I have found that Bing (and Yahoo, partially) ranks sites differently than Google. Google is quite competitive and thus it's hard to rank. I tried ranking in Google, but even the second page doesn't help. I optimized for Bing and now it brings much more than Google. Certainly, my SE traffic is quite low (few hundreds a month) but I…

G is 90%

Only in Europe. The US has around 30% between Bing and Yahoo.
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