The search engine guru schools Calacanis

Thanks Robert for this link.

Nice, long and informative post.

kamla bhatt

I think Calacanis is mostly full of crap, but I tend to agree with him. Generate good content, you'll get good search engine placement. It's not more complicated than that. SEO "consultants" take your money and have zero ability to attribute their work to any results. People will freak out at click-through percentages when they buy advertising but throw money at these idiots with zero accountability.

I agree with Calacanis entirely.

Just a few months ago Jason told us he could game Alexa, whatever became of that project?

Danny is the expert on search and SEO... we all know that.

My point is that there are a ton of snakeoil salesman (salespeople) in the space and *most* of the people in SEO are working for bad sites and using gaming strategies.

Google will tell you straight up to just make a clean site with great content and let them take care of the rest.

Now, Danny is right that there are whitehat SEOs (i.e. good people), and I said in my blog post that 10% of the industry was made up of those folks. The issue is that some folks disagree on the %, but the point remains the same: most of the SEO industry is shady... we all know that.

There are certainly a number of shady SEO companies/individuals that try to game the system - but I couldn't give an exact percentage. Those in the seo industry are getting way too worked up about this I think -- perhaps because they are worried that their clients will realize they don't provide that much value & could easily bring SEO in-house.

In the end -- some companies will always have a need for SEO consultants. They are ones who don't have an employee that understands SEO and don't want to take the time to train someone one. Not everyone has time to figure SEO out - many want to pay someone to fix their site structure (SEO) right now and be done with it.

Let's face it, I could probably become an basic SEO expert with a month or two of research. But do I want to? Probably not.

Jeff complete and utter Bollocks

"Generate good content, you’ll get good search engine placement."

If you in a niche area maybe and thats assuming you designer and or developer are actualy competent and not some inexperianced linux/flash zelot - an dont cripple you before you start.

Anything remotly competeitive and you are F***ckd (to use an enginering term) if you just think if you build it they will come - I have some shares in ondon bridge to sell you

Put it this way, how many of us know people who claimn to understand SEO yet when it comes to it would never dare put their neck on the line and be able to prove it.

Paul

P1/1 on Day One for a Training Company ranked above the acrediting agency

"biiab training"

Oh and 2 days after I stated work on a magazine site it crashed under the strain (we handn't had time to move it to our servers yet)

+44 1234 219119 :-)

This is completely untrue - and shows little understanding about the dire needs of those who must resort to Search Engine Positioning to survive. :-(


--> Search Engine Positioning - or e-Promotion (which are REALLY the accurate terms) - must be done to focus and fine tuned the presence of your product or service over the Webm when you are competing with thousands of other hungry businesses offering similar services or products

--> If you are a smallish business, you must do this to even get a fraction of the eyeballs that are mostly going to larger companies

--> A decade ago, there was only the Yahoo directory to worry about - it brought in huge amounts of traffic - The Looksmart directory was second place because of its priority postioning BEFORE MSN's SERPs

--> Overture was taken off also

When Google partnered with AOL and then Yahoo and then Netscape and then Go - it completely altered the landsape.

Webmasters were no longer concerned about the Titles given to them by Yahoo and Looksmart editors - tHEY NOW HAD TO OPTIMIZE THEIR WEBPAGES - OR COMPLETELY DIE

--> As Google became more popular and Yahoo and MSN started using Organic SERPs first - SEO became a matter of life or death for many websites

--> Large companies get links without any problems, they get written up constantly and any press release will now be picked up by wired news services and blogs within hours or days at the most/

This will give them tons of backlinks. And, if that is not enough, they can outbid ANYONE of PPCs if they wanted to.

--> Social Media promotion is one more channel that is takinng the place of the press release. Press releases are fine for large firms, but Social media is the only form of Viral Networking many startups have. IF WHAT THEY ARE OFFERING IS NO GOOD IT WILL DIE. Social Darwinsm at its most obvious

The lack of perspective & insight & empathy shown on this blog post and comments is truly bizarre.
:-?

@ Paul - Actually, Neil Patel from Pronet Advertising issued an open challenge to Jason so he could prove him wrong.

@10: searchengines - I can't see what you have added to the conversation.

You have said nothing here that most of us didn't already know (and probably practice anyway!) yet you criticise us for making an opinion.

Jason was simply saying that there are too many people passing themselves off as SEO specialists when in fact they are simply half-guessing most of it.

sparking info, like to know who is behind the gizmodo ?

any guess

Among those of us who have done SEO right, and white, for the past ten years, or more, and the newer SEO's who have paid their dues and commit to excellence in learning and the execution of SEO, we admit that true blue SEO work is getting more and more difficult. We are simultaneously attacked; from the front by the search engines themselves, who it looks like, harbors vehemency towards us organic position influencers and privately wish for the demise of the industry; and from behind, by ever increasing droves of wysiwyg operators who wannabe overnight search marketing celebs (even if only in their own minds)and who, of course, also want to be good 'ol American capitalists.

These droves of independant, so-called "SEO's," are trampling the industry's credibility with frivolous, kindergarten claims of collegiate SEO knowledge, which are not in accord with their real abilities, and who are thereby devaluing and commodifying the real, dignified and important craft/service of SEO in the public eye. Every week new prospects tell me nightmare stories involving their previous "SEO firm/company/consultant etc.!" How many of these stories would it take to make a decent sellable e-book?

So what can we take home from this matter? Easy, If you are actually a good SEO and you see things like search dynasties and wannabe optimizers eroding at your SEO livelihood, then find another Web industry niche to perfect and sell, then package it up and bundle your SEO acumen as a value add to hiring you. If you haven't made it rich with SEO by now, then by SEO alone, you probably never will. SEO related searches will continue to increase while SEO profits will continue to disperse. The real future of Internet marketing riches lies in other SEM niches, not in search engine optimization practices.

You probably don't not know me, but I do know that today, SEO isn't what it was yesterday. In fact the reality of SEO marketing is so fast changing, that it's history has become a moving target.

Robert Wright