Since I do a lot of work with small businesses, the most frustrating thing for me is seeing all the junk  being sold to them in the name of SEO and online visibility. Yes, small business owners need to at least try to be informed and not look for shortcuts. But their lack of knowledge shouldn't also become an open invitation for scammers. I'm most frustrated by the amount of crap that the lowlifes in this industry sell to uninformed business owners, and by the fact that too many business owners buy into the crap.

I could probably go on forever but... fly by night spam sites that list with forum profile links and comment spam. Google needs to step it up when it comes to checking out sites links.

DMOZ frustrates me. Do people even work there anymore? Yet Google copies their entire directory as their own.

I'm sure I'll be back with more.

hmmm...I'd say that it's the mainstream (e.g. offline) advertising and marketing community's unwillingness to give online channels their due.

But really, very little frustrates me about this field. Online marketing is a great field to be in; one of the few that's proven to be worldwide recession proof.

Sites unfairly hit by Panda frustrate me, especially when I think they're actually not doing anything to cause the drop that happened. That's a Google frustration though...what really frustrates me is when I am working against the client, who is conducting his or her own link building campaign that kind of counteracts what I'm doing. I get very tired of making good faith recommendations, having no one implement them, then getting fussed at. I hate it when clients rank where they want to be after we've worked with them then decide to leave. I hate having people ask me why I charge what I charge when this basement-dwelling nobody is offering to give them 50 authority links for a labor charge of $100. I'll shut up now.

Thanks for making me feel like a cranky old lady Hugo!

Being expected to perform work that justfies my cost without actionable metrics to shoot for.(http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/metricless-ppc-management.html)

Customer expectations frustrate me.  It seems that even when you spend a significant time in the front end of a consultation some simply don't get it.  Simply said - not everyone can / should rank for certain keywords.

I also get frustrated when the value of long tail keywords is shot down.

Many things!

• Unqualified people selling services
• People offering SEO/Internet marketing advice when they have no clue
• Disrespectful clients who don't care about your time
• Rude clients that don't appreciate our work because they went to dumb a seminar and they now know more than us
• Horrible websites that have no shot
• Having to tell people with terrible websites that they need new sites, especially after they just paid for it
• Telling people that they have wasted money on stupid and unqualified people
• Dumb people who think they know social media just because they have a lot of followers on Facebook
• People that come up to me and brag about their 20,000 Twitter followers while they follow 21,000 people
• Every moron that starts a social media company because they like Facebook
• Newspapers and magazine that interview people that have NO clue about anything related to SEO, Internet Marketing, websites, Wordpress, Social Media etc,
• I could do this all day!

I get frustrated when SEO specialists optimize a site around the product and/or service offerings of a client rather than the helpful information offered on the site, especially when the client doesn't sell services and products via search, but rather through off line referrals and networking. For example, most people seeking large format printers to print large national jobs, don't use search to find their printers.  They use other referal and business resources.

"Having to tell people with terrible websites that they need new sites, especially after they just paid for it"

Good one Melissa. It's very frustrating.  The client wants to do the right thing.  They just had their website redeveloped and now want to work on marketing it.  Those are both positive steps for a business and now we have to come in with the motivation killing "Redesign it again or I can't produce great results" speech.

I agree, Realicity. I feel really bad, but we are stuck without it being changed.

I applaud people who seek out a few opinions and compare them and then make a decision.

I admit to feeling some frustration with people who seek out opinion after opinion and do nothing.  If you gather 20 SEOs in a room and ask them all the same question you'll get some agreement and some disagreement.  Ultimately, you have to decide what you're going to do.

Some people just cannot make that decision.  The fear of "SEO DOOMSAY" is stronger than common sense.  So what if you screw up?  You can fix the problem.  Do something that goes wrong, you've learned not to do that again.  Too many people act like if they make a mistake now their lives are over.

I can't live on the edge of madness like that.

Developers, designers, wannabewaytoosmart decision makers ... IOW folks who don't listen and/or aren't willing to learn.

I'd have to agree with Todd Mintz. One of the things I love about online marketing is the abilty to measure results and optimize. When clients do not have a goal or conversion tracking implemented you are missing valuable data and not leveraging the advantages of online marketing.

I get bothered by people who want extreamly detailed written proposals that contain details of exactly how many links will be built and from where.  I think they have picked this up from the overseas seo companies that offer set packages.  People need to realize that you can't do the same thing every month.

So many people think there is a shortcut, or way to beat the system.  I've been doing this a long time... and the best online marketing plans are those that will server you in the long term.

Clients that don't listen to you is a major source of frustration. "Yes, we understand that we came to you for your expertise, and because we know nothing, but we still want to do it our way, just because that's how we like it." ... and then of course it's your fault when they don't get the results. Sigh.

i think that is the way it is in all businesses. I get the same sort of BS when dealing with real estate clients too, especially when they are follwoing their parents bad advice.

Katie Saxon.. you are right about that. At a point they should treat you as they would any other professional and let you do your job. It's impossible to treat a bleeding wound if someone won't sit still and it's impossible to optimize a website if people keep changing it. My number one pet peeve though is the thought that you can change the keywords you are targeting every 2 weeks. It's hard to explain that to a client if you get them immediate results that you can't just do that with every keyword every week.