We all need a refreshing jolt once in a while.
3. Because lately the SEO industry is LAME and BORING - Want a proof of that?
- The SEO industry is just a bunch of self-proclaimed gurus making more money from their “guru” status than from SEO.
- The blogsphere (God I hate that word) is filled with countless “SEO blogs” syndicating what other “SEO blog” syndicated from another “SEO blog” that syndicated some bullshit guru.
- The most insightful and fun thing that has happened recently in the SEO industry (and anyways It was a looong time ago!) was the freaking search engine spammer who indexed billions of pages in Google thanks to a bug in Blogger, some DNS wildcards and a PHP content generator. Oh boy, people over webmasterwold and digitalpoint where going crazy about it!. So I’m about to bring back some fun to your lives…
While this dude has some personal issues I think he should deal with first, I agree with his no bullshit assessment above (highlights are mine). OT: why has it become so fashionable to pair “SEO” and “bullshit” together? :)
January 16th, 2007 at 9:36 AM
“SEO blogs” syndicating what other “SEO blog” syndicated from another “SEO blog” that syndicated some bullshit guru.
So True! What better way to have content than getting from other people’s (Im talking about Free Articles) work. It’s all in the name of ‘Content is King’
January 16th, 2007 at 10:21 AM
The better way would be to write your own :)
January 16th, 2007 at 3:19 PM
Some other guy said the same thing somewhere. I can’t remember who it was though (Jason Calacanis, maybe? lol).
While I acknowledge that he does have a point, the way he chose to go about doing so is, for lack of a better term, a bit childish in my opinion.
January 16th, 2007 at 5:06 PM
Eivissu, yup it was Jason C in front of the SES crowd in Chicago :) master linkbaiter that Jason is…
January 16th, 2007 at 9:07 PM
“The SEO industry is just a bunch of self-proclaimed gurus making more money from their “guru” status than from SEO.”
Ain’t it a fact that SEO is primarily a marketing tool and SEO gurus earn from business that want their goods and services marketed on the web…
Truth is, while these businesses may have worthy goods in the physical world, they do not have the content that search engines love. Hence, the SEO marketing strategies. Because if the have the content, strategizing is unnecessary.
I started blogging before the term SEO was coined and I don’t think I did so badly.
January 18th, 2007 at 7:38 AM
Exactly my sentiments too. Although I will have to draw a distinction between a “rockstar” and a “guru”.
Its really sad to see the fact that much much more money can be made by evangelizing about SEO and feeding the curiousity of the clueless masses by delivering insightful (obsolete, inaccurate, lame, it doesn’t matter because their audience will never know the difference) guidance than from the actually practicing SEO on the website development and marketing level.
What pisses this guy off, I think, are these “guru” types and their preachings that leads common folks to believe that since content is king, syndication is a boon and scraping is fine.
From where I came from, its all too common to see webmasters churning out thousands of thousands of pages using auto content generators and datafeeds, hoping to build the next “authority site” and cash in confident that SEO will be on his side.
I wouldn’t care less if the technique doesn’t work at all. But, alas, sometimes it does work! And whenever I see it does, I just couldn’t help but shake my head in frustration. How wondeful SEO is …
If I don’t have better things to do, I will probably end up like this hacker contemplating on ways to share my misery with others like me.
… just kidding … ;)
January 19th, 2007 at 9:42 AM
> > > Ain’t it a fact that SEO is primarily a marketing tool and SEO gurus earn from business that want their goods and services marketed on the web…
Connie, there are others who say SEO agency life is the mediocre way. The purists argue that if you believe you’re as good a SEO as you proclaim to be, you should be using those talents to help your own sites, not others.
I’m sitting on the fence on that issue. Both sides have merit :)
On the issue of not needing strategy, I think that would apply to your case, because the bulk of the strategizing that you do is at the content level. Now a good content strategy has always been part of a good SEO’s arsenal but by focusing solely only on content, you might lose out on non-content traffic building opportunities.
Kinakabahan ako pagnacocomment ka dito eh hehe :)
January 19th, 2007 at 9:46 AM
So Chimeron, what makes a rockstar and a guru? Can one be both at the same time?
January 19th, 2007 at 3:51 PM
This is just a personal opinion, so take it for what it’s worth.
A “rockstar” (in the SEO world) is a famous technology purist, oblivious to the implied benefits of his work on his projects’ marketing bottomlines. He works to make his sites rank for the sheer thrill of seeing how his techniques comform to (or beat) the SEs algos. His world is rather small, normally confined within the bounds of his specialty. He is either unaware of or not interested in issues outside his immediate area of specialty. He can’t help but talk in cryptic g(r)eek :P and walks around the office in torn jeans and sneakers.
A “guru” (in the SEO world) is a famous technology-savvy businessman, whose mindset is centered around his projects’ marketing bottomlines. He works to make his sites rank to achieve set marketing goals and business objectives. His world is larger, revolves around many different aspects of the business and can easily relate to concerns outside his immediate area of specialty. He normally talks in plain English but could also communicate in cryptic g(r)eek, if needed. He wears a suit, and a tie as well, if needed.
Its hard to imagine one person filling both descriptions. Maybe that is not possible.
With regards to the above quoted hacker’s rants, I could see him directing his frustration more towards the guru-type. The rockstar-type is less likely to try to MAKE MONEY out of his status - he is less likely to publish an SEO book, less likely to aggressively monetize his web properties, and less inclined to intentionally try to build a following in order to advertise himself. He is also less likely to syndicate other people’s work aside from the occasional referencing because his work revolves around “his techniques” and “his experiments”. The guru-type, on the other hand, has the depth of perspective necessary to do all that. He is more likely to write an SEO book (and more likely to give the book-paying community what they want to hear). He is more likely to aggressively monetize his web properties. He is more likely to syndicate/scrape other people’s work (in case what he knows isn’t exactly what sells). And he is more likely to build a following around himself to commercially benefit from his status.
Money corrupts the best of us. The more one knows how to make money, the more one is likely to make money. And the more money one makes, the more vulnerable one is to its corrupting power.
January 20th, 2007 at 8:59 AM
Chimeron, whew. man that last comment should be on a blog somewhere :)
It’s so easy to put these rockstars and gurus on a pedestal. But meeting them during conferences has really changed my perception of them. Some for the worse, most of them for the better. Because one gets to see and meet them on a more personal level, I realize that that before their rockstar-ness and before their guru-ness, these guys are generally honest people faced exposed to the same daily grind. I have yet to meet someone on my feed reader who gave me the rockstar/guru attitude.
Maybe it’s part of the rockstar/guru dance — talking to fans in conferences, smiling for photographs, giving your fans props online, etc. We may never know. But I prefer to look at it in a positive light.
I’ll also add that none of the personas described above should be automatically treated as evil or corrupt. It’s not the mantle you put on that determines your morality. In fact, I would argue both personas are needed in any ‘professional ecosystem’. They push the boundaries forward and carry the breakthroughs of the SEO world to the mainstream. For me, they’re beacons. The world can never have too many beacons.