Do you really want to participate in search engine manipulation? The sacred art of search engine optimization is to manipulate the search engines into thinking your site is more relevant than the others. Do you honestly think your site is better than the rest of the sites which are also competing for that specific phrase? Think again…
If you’re even considering hiring a search engine optimization company it’s because you want to be found for a specific keyword or key-phrase, right? Well, don’t you think if your web site was relevant enough, the search engines would realize that and put your site where it belongs?
I am sick and tired of search engine optimization consultants manipulating the results for personal gain. I hate using search engines knowing somebody has paid to be placed there at the top for a keyword I am searching for. It’s the lowest form of Internet marketing there possibly is and the search engine optimization consultants should be ashamed of themselves for decreasing search engine appeal.
If your content is good enough you shouldn’t even need to consider hiring a seo company, focus on making your content not just good, but great. If your content is good enough, the search engines will find it and place it in the search engines where is really belongs.
Quit looking for search engine optimization companies to do your sleazy-ass work for you, it’s immoral, it’s unethical and it’s really getting on my nerves more than you could possibly imagine.
For the seo company’s/seo consultants reading this, I have a few things to say to you. If you don’t stop solely doing seo for clients instead of a full range of Internet marketing services, I will personally hunt you down and tare your mother fuk’in head off for ruining the search engine results pages for everybody else on the Internet.
July 9th, 2008 at 10:15 pm
Hi
Thanks for such a informative n helpful blog…..keep it up.
July 10th, 2008 at 4:55 am
Wow, out of the things that pis me off about this business, I just keep on trucking, because
theres so much more good that out weights the bad.
Sometimes, it’s neccesary to join then if you can’t beat them (if you can’t beat’em, join’em)
matbe in this cirumstance, you can consider the option.
Anytime you get mad about something, take a break to, your only hurting yourself,
go read a book or take a walk and plan your attack, lol!
July 10th, 2008 at 10:42 am
It would be very helpful!
July 10th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
‘If your content is good enough, the search engines will find it and place it in the search engines where is really belongs.’
Nope… Search Engines are robots. They have to follow a formula to determine what your site is about.
SEO is not about manipulation… although some SEO’s manipulate. It is about understanding what questions the search engines have for your site and answering them. It is about providing them information in order to understand what your site is about.
This whole rant just sounds ignorant and angry.
‘I hate using search engines knowing somebody has paid to be placed there at the top for a keyword I am searching for.’
Ahhhh… so your really ranting about PPC (Paid Search Advertising)? Of course that is not SEO at all…
If you mean you hate that people are paid to teach people to understand how search engines work… then you also hate lawyers, accountants, personal trainers, and teachers… to name a few. I mean if a kid was smart we shouldn’t have to teach them right?
‘For the seo company’s/seo consultants reading this, I have a few things to say to you. If you don’t stop solely doing seo for clients instead of a full range of Internet marketing services, I will personally hunt you down and tare your mother fuk’in head off for ruining the search engine results pages for everybody else on the Internet.’
Anytime… any place.. it is real easy to be tough online
Powered by Crack Cocaine - I think that in your footer about says it all.. nice rant!
July 10th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
This is some pretty ignorant bullshit you’re spewing forth.
July 10th, 2008 at 5:54 pm
I was gonna respond intelligently, explaining why some SEOs are doing a good service for search engine users, while others are spamming and being idiots… But then I thought, you just said you would hunt me down…
So, my name is Chris Hooley. I live in Phoenix. Come on, “tare” my head off… I “dear” you.
July 10th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
Michael,
I run an SEO business, and to be honest I don’t think you have thought this whole article through. SEO is about enhancing a website to its best potential.
It may have been released by the web designers in a very poor form, sure it looks good and has all the bells and whistles to make it sing but the site may be so badly coded from head to toe that even if it had the best content in the world it would never reach its full potential.
Optimisers do so much more than tweak title tags and headers, some of the best content written today for the web is the work of SEO’s. What about accessibility? Do you even think how your site would perform to someone with a disability? A good optimiser would take this into consideration. What about advice? Perhaps your site is screaming out for a blog, a media centre including podcasts or videos heck even pdf files avaialble for download. An optimiser views the potential, the whole, the investment you have made and the possible reurn you should receive.
As for the comments at the end, you have my email, if you want to carry out your threat then get in touch and we can arrange, as we say in Glasgow, ‘a square go’.
July 10th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
youre an idiot. just because you suck at seo doesnt mean others shouldnt do it.
July 10th, 2008 at 7:46 pm
SEO is just marketing. You don’t own Google or Yahoo, so there are really no “ethics” to speak of. You don’t own these web properties, so stop griping about companies marketing their products. I thought this post was something good, but all I got was just a rant.
July 10th, 2008 at 7:51 pm
I agree with Paul.
I often work with clients to improve their content. Part of that involves having interesting content. Part of it involves structuring it in a way that makes sense for the Web (e.g. making in scannable). And part of it involves using the words that your target customers use. If your target customers say “holiday”, you shouldn’t say “vacation”. If your customers want a “couch”, you shouldn’t be trying to sell them a “sofa”.
July 10th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
The number one rule is, if you dont think you should do it, then dont. Tricks may well get your site penalized.
JT
http://www.Fireme.To/udi
July 10th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
Is this some sort of viral marketing to get people to look at you?
If so, great job, we all bought it - for a second…
If not, then its obvious you sorely misunderstand search engines or SEO. Just because you read one article or heard one story doesn’t make you an expert. You are just as bad as those “Instant SEO’s” who read a handful of blogs and think that they know everything there is to know about SEO.
You are what I like to call an “Instant Expert.” Of course, the only thing you are truly an expert at is looking like a rear end in a top hat.
July 10th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
dude.. “place it in the search engines where is really belongs.” dumbass. You can’t even proofread your own post, and we’re supposed to think you are credible? You are a dipshit with a blog. You can have great content, and others can help make it better, and more visible. It’s pretty clear you think you know what you are talking about, yet haven’t a clue.
July 10th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
There’s a pithy core to your post that makes some sense: content is king.
If your site is there just to take orders and is lacking the relevant content to explain to potential customers why they ought to place their order with you — well, then your site needs a lot of help.
What’s happening now is that a lot of businesses are developing massive content bases, throwing tons of articles onto their sites as a way of trying to monopolize the organic search results.
Not a bad idea — but here’s where skimping on copywriting will bite some businesses in the ass: When the articles are written like crap, when they’re peppered with errors in grammar and spelling, when it’s obvious that the person writing the article is the written equivalent of a drunk trying to cross an icy street … well, let’s put it this way: It’s not just about getting content out there, it’s about getting GOOD content out there.
July 10th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
it’s really ironic that you’re railing against SEO, however the infinitely more annoying in-text ads are enabled on your posting, which, when clicked take me to ads FOR annoying SEO companies.
Oh Irony.
July 10th, 2008 at 8:00 pm
what a fucking load of shit.
google even encourages seo. it makes stuff more relevant.
stop spreading shit that has no basis.
July 10th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
Actually, I don’t really feel this is a very good article.
There have actually been many cases where SEO has actually caused massive losses of profits (in one case, their pagerank drop caused $30000 profit loss). The problem is that pagerank is a very complex algorithm, and many times, a small change in the way the site is optimised, is detected by the algorithm, which bumps the pagerank down.
NEVER use SEO, you may inadvertantly shoot yourself in the leg. Its happened many times. The best thing for you to do is simply:
- Ensure you don’t use flash
- Have lots of content
- Ensure the linking is properly done
- Ensure your CMS (if you are using one) is set up properly
- You don’t try to hard.
Because you don’t know what SEO’s will do. Many may put up lots of fake websites with your link to boost ratings, and that will kill your business.
July 10th, 2008 at 8:04 pm
I’ll also add, that you should have added those examples. Otherwise this is a baseless opinionative article that doesn’t offer much.
July 10th, 2008 at 8:05 pm
This is a website that is supposed to be funny. Most of their tabs have the word humor in them. Learn not to take a joke personally.
July 10th, 2008 at 8:05 pm
You mean to tell me you have never met a person who couldn’t tell you how a search engine works? or even what one is? It’s time for you to step back from the keyboard and get out and talk to a human for once.
July 10th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
Lol - look at the link from the first comment -It’s an SEO company spamming with generic comments for back links!
July 10th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
Michael,
I don’t want this post to come across in a negative context, but it is difficult to avoid pointing out that you have a very poor understanding of what SEO is about from a conceptual level.
Let me clarify what SEO is:
SEO is simply improving the readability of your website’s code to make it more accessible to search engines, to determine the nature of your website’s content. Once you have given a search engine enough information about what your website’s focus is, the search engine will determine it’s relevance to a user’s search term.
When we optimise a website for search engines, we are not manipulating them in to thinking our site is more relevant to a particular search term (or “keyword”). Let’s face it, the engineers over at Google and co. are far smarter than you, myself or Mr. Web_Developer_01 and for a long time have been getting extremely good at detecting attempts to artificially enhance a website’s “relevance” (it’s called Webspam, and Google for one has an insanely capable team to monitor and control it. Head over to http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/ if you’re ever interested in learning more about webspam at Google).
Yes, some people out there will constantly try to manipulate search engines and artificially make their websites appear more relevant. But it is impossible for such people to keep up with the ever-evolving algorithms behind search engines that detect this kind of thing, and will never succeed at such, long term.
Good SEO will never let you down. Step back from the whole SEO good/evil debate for a second and think about it… Search engines WANT you to have good SEO; it makes their job a hell of a lot easier. If the code behind your website is well formatted and laid out properly, it makes it easy for bots to determine the nature of the content and rank it’s relevance.
The only issue I come across is that the term SEO has negative connotations due to some black hatters out there pushing webspam. Think of SEO a different way: “improving your website’s readability to make it more accessible to search engines”.
At any rate, hope that helps clear up part of the issue for anyone who is looking in to the whole SEO thing for the first time.
July 10th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
this is a pretty bad post. why is this on the front page of my digg account?
you really do not put forth any valid points throughout your rant and resort to making empty, unwarranted, and physically impossible threats on no one in particular. i’m trying to understand why you could actually be so angry about all of this — and the only thing i keep coming back to is maybe by continuously writing “search engine optimization” and “seo” throughout your post — plus in these comments — you’re almost aiming to manipulate the engines yourself to show this site any time these terms are searched for. and really…do you honestly consider this content “good enough” that you would want that?
take this post down and stop threatening people on the internet.
p.s. - don’t be stupid, don’t actually go to phoenix. don’t actually try and hurt anyone. have a stiff drink and calm down, sit down and read a book, and learn about seo/sem.
July 10th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
I do find this article properly dumb.
SEO is mainly techical now, but (most) SEO companies do not rely on just fixing the technical stuff to make their clients site visible within search engines.
A lot of them do offer full service digital services as part of an SEO package, doing proper research and finding out what content is relevent and useful to the clients user base.
There are certain companies that do try to manipulate rankings by buying links, signing up to link networks etc (Not going to name any names), but as Google’s algorithm improves, and they start to use more user data within the ranking process, I think that these companies will not able to continue their blackhat practices, and will have to adapt and become more whitehat
July 10th, 2008 at 8:30 pm
Yeah. Fuck those SEO guys.
July 10th, 2008 at 8:30 pm
This article is retarded. That is all.
July 10th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
did you get paid to write this? Because, damn. Ignorance is lucrative these days.
July 10th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
As somebody who used to share this author’s opinion, I understand, but I no longer agree with it. Here’s why. In my town, there are hundreds or thousand’s of professionals who do home carpentry, maintenance. All of them believe they do a great job, and all of them probably want to continue to be found by new customers. Many of them do similar things, there are only so many ways to say you are a “roofer” or you do “plumbing.” Very few of these if any are bloggers, writers, or internet people to begin with. Very few of them can or want to hire a webmaster full time, or know anything about configuring or creating a website themselves. what they know is, They want to be found on ‘the google’ as easy as possible.
another thing is, they shouldn’t have to create the biggest, baddest most relevant content, because it’s not what they are about. They should be working in their niche at what they do. And there should be ways they can still get exposure and if they choose, to pay for advertising slots (if search engines choose to sell them (which they do)).
So an SEO expert will use what they know to make the most relevant information, most easily discovered using what they know of the search engines. This is not a system of corruption, lies, BS, or the big man, hurting the little man. This is people doing what they want in a market they created, or want to take part in. If you feel like you have talked to too many SEO experts who were liars, or who appear to be ripping others off. Or who are keeping you lower in results than you deserve, then work in that system and beat them however that system works.
Clearly you are seeing it through a very narrow angle, as a web and content developer. I’m not an SEO expert, but I think I know a few things about it. What I know, I use, and I consult with that information. How is your advice going to help the people who need to be found, but aren’t being found? Your advice doesn’t help them, if they are the type of people who don’t have the resources to create content and share it on digg and other social media sites, and those who don’t want to create top-ten lists. People just want to do what they do, and to work for people.
I don’t know if my views affect yours in any way, but I figured I’d share.
July 10th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
These comments are making me sleepy. Oh yeah rebecca, what do you and seomoz actually know about seo? what is seomoz anyway? is that a browser of some sort?
July 10th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
I like how, out of all the comments posted, you choose to center on mine. If you’re not as dumb as I suspect you are, you should be able to go to my company’s website and get an idea of what we do…or can I expect your next post to be titled “Why Doing a Basic Level of Research on a Subject Before Forming an Opinion Is Too Hard and Makes My Head Hurt”?
July 10th, 2008 at 9:29 pm
HAHAHA I got the joke. Thanks for the laugh!
July 10th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
You are 100% Right. thanks for providing such a valuable information. Keep on posting good and excellent content. Google will index your page and this will increase your PR.
July 10th, 2008 at 9:54 pm
Angry much? From your posting (which has 250 diggs?? why?) I find absolutely no intelligent nor rational points to back up your claims that SEO experts are ruining the internet. From where I’m standing, it seems that you were not getting enough HITS to your site powered by CRACK that you had to be controversial?? Okay, now you have gotten people’s attention… now what are you going to do for a second act? Your 15 minutes of fame are about up. You can extend it by being seen on COPS when you come and hunt us down and tare off our heads… My advise is CHILL OUT and SAY NO TO DRUGS!
July 10th, 2008 at 11:33 pm
LOL hhahahahahahaahahahhaahahahhahahahhahahahahahahaahahahha!
I said stupid shit like that first time i got drunk too! cheers and all that!
July 11th, 2008 at 12:01 am
@Michael Johnson.. What is worse than some shady SEO’s is when some no name internet marketer can spend 8 years online and not have a clue.
I think what readers and potential clients need to know is to avoid people like you…
But of course this is all just a hoax to get attention and to get on Digg. In that regard you did decent. Had you not commented on your own submission you might have stayed on front page longer.
If you ever need some help to figure out why your hatebait didnt work and get you enough links or publicity, let me know. I am sure we can work out something for me teaching you about social media.
Nice effort though
July 11th, 2008 at 12:52 am
publish my comment numptyboy.
poor poor linkbait.
July 11th, 2008 at 5:52 am
Rebecca, I searched for seopms but I couldn’t find it, could you give me the direct link please?
July 11th, 2008 at 10:48 am
Pretty weak comeback, but I wasn’t expecting anything remotely witty, anyway. Enjoy your 15 minutes of fame, you bitter old codger.
July 11th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
You don’t want people doing the best they can for their website and yet you have no problem using Digg for bad linkbait. You either have no clue what seo really is or you are just trolling for links.
July 11th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
I respectively disagree. And now I’ve fallen victim to your link bait. Nothing like a good controversy article to drive traffic and inbound links to your site.
July 11th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
I always wanted to get Rebecca Kelly’s attention and was happy she noticed the SEO Song before. But I think i am not going to do something like this to get her attention this way.
July 11th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
Michael you don’t seem to have a very good understanding of what legitimate SEO is. There are a number of companies that designed Web sites that were not designed with search engines in mind. As a result, these sites do not send the signals that they otherwise would in order to give Google an opportunity to rank them accordingly. Issues like session IDs, URLs with a huge list of parameters, duplicate content issues like multiple URL paths pointing to the same content, robots.txt issues, and other technical design issues can cause problems for search engines in correctly indexing a Web site. This also includes the basics like making keyword focused Page Titles and Meta descriptions. For some of these brands, the payoff to optimize their site is huge because once they can be properly seen by the search engines, their content and link connectivity is strong enough to produce rankings that generate a lot of traffic.
Additionally, if SEO was bad from Google’s perspective, I doubt very seriously that they would spend the money they do supporting events like SES and SMS. Your comment that “If your content is good enough, the search engines will find it and place it in the search engines where is really belongs.” is very short sighted and obviously lacks experience. Google has known limitations to their indexing ability. Some of them I just listed. As someone who obviously has no experience with SEO for legitimate companies and the challenges they face to optimize their sites, you should really take a second look at your comments. They take a lot of credibility away from your blog.
July 12th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
Thanks for that…wow…the insight here is amazing…oh, yeah…don’t forget…while I am railing SEO and the whole internet marketing thing…DONT FORGET TO SHARE MY STORY AND PLEASE SOCIAL BOOKMARK ME…
Asshole.
July 13th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
Let’s all take this as a lesson people, this is what happens when you have too many Friday arvo beers and tackle a topic you clearly know nothing about.
You become a fool.
July 14th, 2008 at 8:25 am
You just fell into a trap. This is most likely a pathetic attempt at getting Dugg, and getting a lot of comments.
July 16th, 2008 at 10:49 am
Your argument is stupid and you obviously did zero research to prove your point. But the dumbest part is assuming that the search engines will automatically ranking the most relevant sites first. The engines are far from perfect in what they decide what’s relevant and what’s not. In fact I think people click the ads, essentially because the natural results are not relevant to what they are looking for.
Content is important, but even great content isn’t enough sometimes to get the ranking you deserve on a relevancy basis.
July 18th, 2008 at 8:50 am
The post sure provides an interesting point of view in relation to the services provided by SEO consultant. But honestly tho, people who are trying to manipulate SE results will always be there, so rather then having a few trying to manipulate the results and having all the gains to themselves, by providing these services, and making them more available to all, isn’t it actually making the system more fair?
July 24th, 2008 at 4:27 am
Hi
Your blog is very informative n helpful .. thanks…..keep it up.