Sphinn - Aaron Wall Blogoscoped: The US Search Engine Optimization Market

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Aaron Wall Blogoscoped: The US Search Engine Optimization Market

Went Hot: November 13, 2007 - 7:51 am
Posted By: Halfdeck 601 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://blogoscoped.com)
Category: Google SEO

"Aaron Wall is an SEO (search engine optimization) consultant at Clientside SEM and the author of SEO Book, a blog with attached ebook. Aaron is 28 years old, living in Oakland, California. In this overview, he takes a look at the SEO market in the US."

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from webuildpages 600 days ago #

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Beautiful...actually it's more like 14 seperate posts all covering "what's going on" in the SEM industry. Gret reading!

from massa 599 days ago #

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aaron wall is the voice of the working SEO. intelligent, articulate and honest. a rare combination in this industry that makes it well worth the time to listen to every word.

from Jill 599 days ago #

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This is an amazing article by Aaron. I need to read it again as I was scanning it quickly, but I think I may agree with it whole heartedly.

Very nicely done, Aaron.

from Halfdeck 599 days ago #

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"After building up the site's profile I decided it made sense to rebrand the site using a stronger domain name. I 301 redirected the site to a new domain (same design, same content, same topic) and then blogged about how to rebrand a site. Shortly after writing that blog post a Google engineer read my blog and killed ALL of my link equity. Next thing I know an AdSense spam site that stole all my content was ranking where my site should have been."

I am an SEO so I am scum, and that site should die because it is mine.

Logical fallacy that many newbies make: Cum hoc ergo propter hoc (a before b, therefore a caused b)

Examples:

- I submitted a sitemap XML and two days later, Googlebot stopped crawling my site.
- I added unique META descriptions and a month later all my pages got out of G-supplemental
- I bought AdWords and the next day I gained 10 spots in ranking.
- I ordered Chicken Temptations and Fish at Wendy's and next day I won the lottery.

A. Aaron Wall writes a blog post.
B. His site tanks

A before B, therefore A causes B: His blog post must have caused his site to tank.

Yeah, right.

I have a feeling Matt Cutts will shed a completely different light on why Aaron Wall's site tanked. I'm curious to hear what really happened.

from JohnWeb 599 days ago #

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I prefer: Post hoc, ergo propter hoc "after this, therefore because of this" which inlcudes the chronological order as part of the fallacy.

from Halfdeck 599 days ago #

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"I prefer: Post hoc, ergo propter hoc "after this, therefore because of this" which inlcudes the chronological order as part of the fallacy."

You say tomahto I say tomeyto. Same difference.

from JohnWeb 599 days ago #

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@halfdeck Agreed.

from WebmasterT 596 days ago #

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The usual Google bashing malarky you see from Aaron lately. Why does he think Google's hand editing is such a big deal, and more importantly why does he see it as negative? or seemingly, not an appropriate action? It just shows he's green as grass and been drinking the purple koolaid! Like some of the other 3Gers that are "pi$$in' in the fountain" when they get called on the BS they publish or they get caught doing something they shouldn't, they jump in the waaaahmobile rather than being men and taking responsibility for their mistake.

How is 12,000 links in that space of time "organic" or natural? For CNN, yes, for nearly all else... only a 3G link ho' would believe so! Not saying it's wrong to do it, but... I wouldn't call it organic/natural. Of course to the delusional 3Ger their site should be held to the same standard as the CNN's of the world. NOT! Once again, only the delusional and blackhatters believe that for more than a second.

These myopic link crazed 3 Gers have not figured out that when you edit domain records that immediately brings on the Google pimphand, with a resulting bitchslap if you're up to any funny stuff. "the ho's shouldn't hold out on the pimphand", once again, only the delusional and woefully uninformed don't know that or see it in the new Google Universal Monetization SERPs. Woops, I meant Universal Search SERPs.

Aaron shouldn't have been surprised by the results of that redirect to a new domain. IMO, When you take a risk by buying a domain for links, then add further risk on top of that with a redirect to a new domain, then tell the world about it, you don't get to ride the waaahmobile, you got caught and you should take responsibility for it, learn from it and tell others about it so they learn it's a bad idea, not, act like you've been targetted by Google because you're an SEO. That is just laughable. Aaron got busted for unwanted manipulation, not for being an SEO! To see it otherwise is again delusional. That he ratted on himself is unfortunate, but... he'll get 0 sympathy from me!

Why do the grey and blackhat crew constantly harp on this when nothing could be further from the truth. SE's do not dislike all SEO's, just the link ho's and text hiders! Simply put there is acceptable manipulation and there is unacceptable manipulation. When you optimize titles, meta descriptions, document structure/content and a sites ability to be indexed, that's wanted manipulation, when you hide text, use tricky redirects and linking schemes, then, obviously that is unwanted manipulation and they warned you about that in the guidelines.

Aaron, is not the victim! If you taunt the bull don't be surprised when you get the horns. I feel for Aaron taking a financial bath on that but better him than some client who then shouts from the rooftops how SEO's are scammers. Aaron was mistaken to talk publicly about a risky strategy! For as long as I've been around that always results in an earned bitchslap from the pimphand. When you're a high profile guy you might want to be a little more mindful of what you're puttin' out there because if Google can make an example of you... the unwanted manipulation you write about becomes less of a problem. Just because it's not in the guidelines doesn't make it ok! It means they thought it was better not to mention it lest the dudes with the low foreheads turn around and use it!

I hope Aaron doesn't take this post personally, as 3 Gers go he's likely the best of a very mixed up/delusional generation of SEOs! IMO, many 3 Gers mistakenly drank the purple koolaid that spewed from some forums, they have delusional ideas about how SE should react to techniques they see used elsewhere and definitely don't get this is a rigged game and that the SE's make the rules up as they go to suit them and nobody else! SE are always right even if we know they are wrong!

The recent paid link debate is an example of that. If you can't live with the idea that the game is rigged then... you have choices to make!