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Sick of SEO Scumbags

thehodge.co.uk

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Re: Sick of SEO Scumbags

#21

Post by TomGullen »

People who describe themselves as SEO's usually give me the shivers at first, but it's definitely worth mentioning that there are good top quality SEO people out there. They do exist and they approach the problem in an analytical, evidence based and sustainable way. Bad people exist in all industries, but bad SEOers are particularly nauseating in my opinion because of the types of people they target and hurt, and damage they do at often extraordinary cost to these people.

Good SEO's are few and far between though, and generally wont reach 'mom and pops flower shop'. The SEO's these small businesses will probably be most exposed to are the cold calling scammers. The problem with a lot of these scammers is some of them don't realise they are scammers, they are just awful at their job and disguise it by charging a lot of money.

Bad SEO like the OP mentions can seriously damage your business (look up negative SEO for good example of how bad SEO's can shoot themselves in the foot). Before you buy anything expensive in life, it's worth doing your own research otherwise when you pick an SEO you're gambling.

A good resource to start is SEO Moz's beginners guide to SEO: http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo

If you get to grips with the basics you'll find that you're likely able to do most of it yourself if it's something that starts to interest you. And it doesn't need to be a big time soak either.

Re: Sick of SEO Scumbags

#22

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Sick of SEO Scumbags

#23

Post by cbeach »

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 no explanation from Google. Just an unhelpful "you've violated one of our policies but we can't tell you which one" stock email.

I've been there. I tried the (token) appeal system, and failed. It's hard to appeal when you don't know what you've done wrong. Google won't tell you what you've done wrong because it might reveal part of their algo and thus help the bad guys.

So I forlornly moved on. Amazon ads are perhaps the next most profitable display ads for me - they generate less than 10% of the revenue that Adsense did.

I love Google for their excellent free services. However, I've come to depend on them, and that's dangerous because they're so ubiquitous, yet owned by a single entity with a single culture.

As geeks I feel we need to re-examine our relationship with Google.

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

Re: Sick of SEO Scumbags

#24

Post by nunoar »

thehodge wrote: post #16
davidroberts wrote: post #6

Maybe the OP should write an 'SEO for Dummies' book that helps people avoid becoming victim to SEO scumbags.

As others have suggested, there is a vast amount of resources for basic search optimisation, I'm on my mobile at that are online, but I will write a pos linking to them at some point

please do :)

Re: Sick of SEO Scumbags

#25

Post by camus »

the1 wrote: post #19
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…

eh? what about baidu?

you have a point , sorry i'm a bit western-centric. There is also yandex , yet it doesnt really make sense for non chinese or non russian centered businesses to invest in Yandex or Baidu ranking. I live in europe , few have heard of Bing for instance, so Yandex , or Baidu ... it is like Alpha Centauri to them ...

Re: Sick of SEO Scumbags

#26

Post by carbocation »

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…

> Let's cut the crap , SEO is Google rank optimization.

That's not true in Russia, China, etc. And even in the West, dominating the rankings for your segment in the competing search engines could be extremely lucrative.

Re: Sick of SEO Scumbags

#27

Post by marban »

The sad truth is that while SEO might just be the most uncreative and sleaziest web industry for the authentic creator, it'd be pretty naive to think that just putting a great product out there that people rave about will take care of ranking your app #1 for photo filters.

Re: Sick of SEO Scumbags

#28

Post by monk_e_boy »

Nursie wrote: post #13
thehodge wrote: post #2

I know HN is typically anti-seo and I understand the reasons why, it's an unregulated industry that gives an impression of witchcraft rather than stable practices.. But worst than that, there are many people in it just in it to make as much money out of people in the shortest amount of time without thinking of the long term relationship or the consequences for that business. I wrote this so that the next time someone…

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 monkies don't know. Just like I don't know how to make a pretty bunch of flowers, they don't know how to make a more simantic website for google to parse

Re: Sick of SEO Scumbags

#29

Post by wiradikusuma »

If I read it correctly, the mom and pop shop used "SEO service" to boost up their traffic, but the service used "black hat" ways which result in Google "ban". How do I prevent e.g. my competitor for doing the same to my website?

Re: Sick of SEO Scumbags

#30

Post by netrus »

Nursie wrote: post #13
thehodge wrote: post #2

I know HN is typically anti-seo and I understand the reasons why, it's an unregulated industry that gives an impression of witchcraft rather than stable practices.. But worst than that, there are many people in it just in it to make as much money out of people in the shortest amount of time without thinking of the long term relationship or the consequences for that business. I wrote this so that the next time someone…

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".

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