Here’s the two points that a lot of SEO companies try to make: 1. We have a proven, methodical, scientific system. 2. Search results continually change in an unpredictable way. These two statements contradict each other. People crave certainty, especially in inherently chaotic areas, and some are quite happy to promise it.
Entries Tagged as 'SEO'
How to spot an internet scam
August 13th, 2008 · No Comments · internet, SEO
I feel like the guys in Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink that could just look at a supposedly 3,000 year-old statue and say “fake”. But I’m beginning to see that there are a lot of people still falling for fake promises made by websites. Here’s a quick test that helps me when I have any doubt: go [...]
Tags:Blink·fakes·google·howto·internet·Malcolm Gladwell·scams·SEO
Black Swans in SEO
July 30th, 2008 · No Comments · SEO
SEO is full of Black Swans. If you’ve read Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s incredible book you’ll know just what that means, but if you haven’t just think of them as massive, unpredictable events that have profound effects. Traffic spikes are Black Swans. So are #1 rankings in Google. SEOs are always chasing them, and like the [...]
Tags:black swan·nassim nicholas taleb·number one ranking·search engine algorithms·search engine optimisation·search marketing·SEO·traffic
SEO scams
July 25th, 2008 · No Comments · SEO
In two days, I’ve been exposed to two SEO scams. One company offers first place ranking in Google for £650. Their small print says that if this doesn’t happen they’ll refund you but keep an admin fee of £75. What’s more, their “first place” seems to be in sponsored ads not organic results. You can [...]
Tags:first page·google·high ranking·scams·SEO
Charlie Brooker on SEO
July 22nd, 2008 · No Comments · SEO
My favourite TV critic Charlie Brooker has a piece in the Guardian about SEO. It’s interesting to see how someone outside of the business sees it and in this case he sees the particularly unlikeable aspects of it. Stuffing topical keywords into online articles is all it is apparently. Doing SEO for small or new [...]
Tags:charlie brooker·Guardian·keyword stuffing·search engine optimisation·search engine optimization·SEO·spam·traffic
10 choices
June 27th, 2008 · No Comments · SEO
When you look for something on Google, it returns ten results on the first page. For the majority of people, this is all they ever see. They pick one and they move on. For most search terms, there are millions of results, but most of them are never seen. This is a good thing. We [...]
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Why fake linkbait is a waste of time
June 17th, 2008 · No Comments · SEO
A lot of SEO is about putting the cart before the horse. Traffic before content. Recently, some SEOs have been creating fake stories and articles as a way of increasing eyeballs on their product or service. I think this has got a bit backwards. SEO used to be about stuffing keywords and amassing links by [...]
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