No, no, and more no.

I will never agree to standards for things like these. While there's nothing inherently wrong with the standards proposed in this article, nobody is going to tell me how or what I will teach in MY SEO training classes.

You can't tell me that I need to provide a list of resources, or a text book or anything else.

It's up to every individual who wants to take a course to determine if it might provide them with what they are seeking, and if what they are to get out of it is worth the price of admission.

How dare people attempt to insuate their own standards of what a course should be on other's courses. Honestly. How dare they? It's completely and utterly ridiculous, in my very strong opinion.

This kind of reminds me of No Child Left Behind. Sounds neat in theory. Utterly hopeless in reality. We can't even get people to consistently teach boys how to not pee on the toilet seat. What're the odds we can get folks to consistently teach/evaluate SEO?

It's a laudable effort, and I don't fault it at all - it's great thought leadership. But don't hold your breath waiting for anything like this to happen. We'll have world peace first.

Interesting, Jill.  As I said in my comment, I don't agree with everything suggested in the article.   Like requiring training materials of any specific type.  I would NEVER use slides in my training.  I think Powerpoint is archaic.  Text books or recommended reading are also in that list of "no way".

Yet I do think there needs to be some sort of professional bellweather if we're ever going to get more established credibility from a teaching perspective.   Otherwise the snake oil salepeople of the world will continue to have a field day, and continue in turn, to give our industry that much more of a bad rap.

It's one thing to train clients and new hires - which traditionally is something not ever being reviewed by a peer community.  However just about any truly established and respected learning path in a formalized education arena ultimately has to have that.

Having owned a technical training company for nearly 10 years in the 90's I can say that what Michael is asking for in his post is almost impossible.  Without the complete support of the major search engines or other governing bodies like SEMPO, it will be extremely difficult for an independent (small) organization to create a standardized curriculum for "SEO".  Far too much changes in our industry far too quickly.

IMO companies like HighRankings and even SEOBook are doing a great job in providing any training at all.  I have looked into replicating the Microsoft MCSE type model, and it is a huge undertaking/investment... and to me not worth the risk... and not worth the distraction to our current SEO business.

I sphunn the article because I thought it was at least thought provoking, but again, unrealistic.

Even if I agreed 100% with everything that was suggested for a course to have (and honestly I didn't even read it all because I was so incensed in general), then I would still completely disagree with the notion of standards for anything having to do with SEO.

Who is anyone to dictate what I (or anyone else) teaches? Why are they better prepared to know what MY students need than I am?

If my class sucks, don't take it. If you take my class and then find out it sucked, come to me and tell me and perhaps you could get a refund. If that doesn't work, go through other means of expressing your unhappiness. Ideally, you should have done your due diligence before you pay any money for ANY course or for anything. What ever happened to buyer beware?

The bottom line is that the last thing anyone needs is yet another organization or body that thinks it knows what's best for everyone else.

This really gets my ire up, in case you couldn't tell. I would fight it till the end of time and even leave the industry if something like this ever came to pass. It's just wrong. Period.

(Now I'm going to actually go read all the standards proposed in the article. I have a feeling I'm probably already doing most of them as Michael and I often agree on a lot of SEO things, but again, that's absolutely not the point.)

Nope, I just read it all and now I'm even more mad.

What is written is simply one man's opinion of what an SEO course should teach. And if Michael ever wants to teach one, he is welcome to do exactly as he suggests.

But you won't see me doing them as Michael's way is not my way. Which is the reason why SEO standards have always been and will always be a ridiculous notion.

No more rediculous then the notion that you should be able to teach courses and be held to no standards at all. How do students know that they will be prepared and that you aren't teaching 10 yr. old methods that stopped working 5 yrs. ago? Shouldn't they have some idea of what they will be expected to know when they seek employment? I'm not saying that is the case with your course only that I've seen more than a few that were doing exactly that. They proivided pretty much everything Micheal suggests but they were craptastic courses with BS certification. I knew that but does the guy looking for courses... of course not... and it's rediculous to believe they are equipped to choose a course because if they could it likely meant they didn't need it.Jill I'm sure you would benefit from standards... others just pushing BS certification for useless tools is not good for the industry because in the end to meet the demand for employees the growth of the industry could rest solely on it's ability to train staff to do the work. This has been a problem for quite some time and when things pick up it will be even more noticeable. At the very least having an open mind can't hurt and could lead to something that benefits teachers/trainers and students.

I am incensed. I was expecting, at the very least, a recipe for cooking and eating our babies.

Seriously, how can you have standards for SEO, when the secret sauce is so, well, secret? Some of the ideas are good for any kind of class though: descriptions, biographies, published curriculums.  That's not a bad start.