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Avatar Went Hot: April 8, 2008 - 11:58 am
Posted By: WebGeek 91 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://www.wolf-howl.com)
Category: SEM Industry
The biggest problem with SEO standards is we’ll get some half baked, half assed, implementation that’s just as bad as the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). As a concept it’s seems like a wonderful idea, everyone agrees to a set of established teachings and has to meet a minimum set of standards. Should enable customers to do apples to apples comparisons and eliminate con artists and shiesters, right? Wrong my naive and misguided friends, what we end up with is a big fat goopy mess.
10 Comments     

Comments

from sza 91 days ago # - show/hide this comment
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Good argument convincibly presented, although I don't fully agree with this:

"I also think everyone should prove they can get a website banned every few years."

I don't think there's a problem with playing it safe per se. In some industries, it will be enough. For some clients, it will probably be reassuring to know the guy handling their site is not the kind who likes testing the limits.

Obviously, in certain markets an optimizer needs to be a race car driver and take risks, but often it is enough to simply drive better than most of the others and understand your car better.

from graywolf 91 days ago #
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the point of getting something banned is separating cold hard facts from fiction. For example google and every whitehat SEO on the planet will tell you not to put up a page with the same keyword phrase repeated 10 times in a row. They may even tell you it will get you banned, or that some DR so and so has a paper showing it doesnt work.

However the truth is if you pass the minimum trust requirments your page will rank, in fact it will rank quite nicely, until you show the example and google engineer comes along and manually bans one of your pages. You can play the cat and mouse game with them quite a few times. For kicks you can even predict when it will get the manual ban by posting examples in places where you know SE Reps read, while the exact same thing on another unmentioned page remains unscathed.

Car companies smash cars into brick walls all the time so they know what happens, I'm advocating SEO's do the same thing, so they are better equipped to not take unneceray risks with their own sites they care about or client websites.

from sza 91 days ago #
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I do understand that from a personal professional development aspect it is useful to test the limits.

But how can you apply the insight gained this way on a client's site responsibly?

from graywolf 91 days ago #
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knowing that repeating the same phrase ten times in row will help you if you if you can find a way to do it that doesn't look spammy and adds value, then you will rank better than the person who wont do it for fear that the algo will catch it and ban their site. Also knowing how to "fix" or "unban" a page that has been manually banned puts you at a distinct advantage, over the person who has never done it. The more you understand how things work, what get done automatically as opposed to programitically the more you understand how the algo works.

It's pretty hard to be good mechanic until you've taken apart a few cars and put them back together.

from obannonsleap 91 days ago #
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Got to agree, it's good to test the fences on a constant basis, otherwise we're just grazing away with the herd.

As for standards, we don't need no stinking standards... [couldn't resist that opening]

from streko 91 days ago #
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"Car companies smash cars into brick walls all the time so they know what happens, I'm advocating SEO's do the same thing, so they are better equipped to not take unneceray risks with their own sites they care about or client websites."

that is one of the best things I have heard in this place in atleast a month.


 

from TinPig 91 days ago # - show/hide this comment
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i've been following this discussion for the past week or so, reading the various blog posts and comments, etc. I think where the argument get's confused is the semantic difference between standards and regulation. Lisa Barone put it best when she said:
"...search engine optimization is a form of advertising. It’s not a matter of should it be regulated, advertising MUST be regulated."
In my mind, the issue isn't around a set of standard dictating how an SEO does her job, but rather are the results ethical. Naturally, "ethical" is a tricky word and that debate could rage for years - but in it's simplest form it can be expressed by the following question: Is the searcher being decieved in any way?

Listing the same keyword 10 times in a row doesn't really make a web page more relevant, and so if this influences the search results it would be fair to say that this would be an unethical practice. These are the types of "standards" the industry needs.

from amabaie 91 days ago #
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SEO is, operationally, a sport.  We are competing for a limited number of spots, and may the best ciombination of various facotrs win.  There are not apples or oranges to compare.  We bring value when we cross-pollintae our knowledge (each person's knowledge is different) with our strategic thinking (we make that up to a large extent on the spot).  Standards that constrain a good SEO consultant from finding a new way to score more goals will only screw our clients.  Bad idea.

from crazycat 91 days ago # - show/hide this comment
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Now I understaned it. It's just but fair not to have search marketing standards.

from incrediblehelp 90 days ago #
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"Car companies smash cars into brick walls all the time so they know what happens, I'm advocating SEO's do the same thing, so they are better equipped to not take unneceray risks with their own sites they care about or client websites."

Sure but in our case the walls are constantly being moved around by the SE's


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