» Is SEO Bullshit? :: Positive Space Blog

Contrast the Blog is currently running an article titled SEO is Bullshit that has had me thinking. While a little bit more blunt than I would be, I can’t help but find myself agreeing with some of the witty rant:

SEO is using deodorant instead of washing. SEO is masking bad coffee with sugar. SEO is cramming instead of studying. SEO is using pain killers instead of going to the dentist. SEO is taking weight loss pills instead of exercising. SEO is a comb-over. SEO is Scientology. SEO is Paris Hilton. SEO is the Zune. SEO is the morning-after pill. SEO is astroturf. SEO is not the real thing. SEO is cutting corners. SEO is not the solution. SEO is bullshit.

I personally have seen the power of building sites that are search engine friendly. The organic traffic that comes from a properly built a search engine friendly site is worth its weight in gold. The only problem I have with SEO comes from the so called SEO Firms that employ black hat methods, and give false promises to their potential clients. The majority of which, have no clue that they are either being taken advantage of, or could potentially be removed from search engines all together as a result of the “work” that these firms have done for them.

In the past six months I have consulted five clients that had talked to a SEO firm while using my services. Luckily for them I was able to look at their proposals and save these clients from wasting upwards of thousands of dollars on very loose promises and what most likely would have been very limited or negative results.

What did I learn by looking at these proposals?
Overall I learned that the most of these companies were charging an insane amount of money to take the clients website and add titles and meta descriptions. They also would add headings, and try to optimize keyword density. This was acceptable to me, except for the fact that I had already done this for the clients as an included cost of development and copywriting and it was not really necessary. The only argument that I could see in favor of the SEO firms in this situation would be that they had a far superior copywriter, however I find that hard to believe as I worked with a very prominent industry professional on this particular project. Essentially in these situations the SEO firm was proposing that it was going to change a couple of words around and then resell the client my work.

Secondly and more importantly, each of the firms (except one which I will explain later) offered some sort of black hat method (i.e. against search engines terms of service) of tricking search engines into giving the website a better search engine placement. Some of these potential methods ranged from unethical to just plain ineffective, or combinations of both such as spamming blogs with comments and trackbacks. These services were of course offered with some unique descriptions to make them appear to be legit to the client. Or these services were described as proprietary technologies that only their firm had available and therefore they were the only logical choice for SEO Services, laughable at best.

The third service that these firms offered was the research an implementation of a google PPC campaign. In each case they required a substantial setup fee that I feel was justified due to the amount of time that starting a campaign takes. Following the setup each firm required that the client maintain at least 250 dollars worth of service per month. However, only 100 dollars of this would actually be applied to the campaign, and the other 150 going to the firm to maintain the account. While this potentially could be a justified cost, their unethical behavior used to obtain organic traffic really had me questioning the time they would be devoting to maintaining the client’s campaign.

What about the other firm I mentioned earlier?
After doing some research, it appeared that the firm not practicing black hat tactics was legit and offered services that appeared to have been successful in the past. So what was the problem? This particular firm had an 18 month wait and was far outside the reach of my client in terms of price. Leaving me to believe that real SEO firms are far outside the reach of most small businesses, which in my experience are the businesses most likely to need and benefit from the services.

So do I think that SEO is bullshit?
No, however I think that a large percentage of the companies, potentially the majority of the companies selling SEO services are not ethical and are taking advantage of their clients. I believe in the strength of applying search engine optimization to sites during the development phase, however I am really skeptical when I hear that my clients will be using a firm specializing in SEO to optimize the sites that I will be designing for them. Luckily these same clients have trusted my judgement and I have saved them a lot of money in the process. However, until there is some sort of public awareness among clients about the unethical SEO firms, I will be actively cautioning my clients about the placebo they are about to buy.

If there are any SEO specialists reading this article, I would really like to hear your take on the situation. I believe that this is only going to be a worse problem in the future for SEO professionals offering a legitimate service.

02/24

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16 Responses to “Is SEO Bullshit?”

David Sparks
February 24th, 2008 at 8:56 pm

I’ve been working along side a google adwords professional for the last year and a half and about 8 months ago i started asking my self if all this seo freak out stuff is complete crap.

i started watching the google videos learning it and i soon after stopped. mostly because they were so boring and i frankly just didn’t care.

ive watched my partner tell clients one thing only that “works” only to see the craziest things happen to our search results and rankings.

what i do know for a fact is with seo there is no real fix and its primarily an illusion sold to people who aren’t relevant. you don’t see Best Buy having any problems in the search engines. if you’re not relevant its bc you’re not relevant if i may be so bold.
the only true thing that works is content and its the one thing he’s said thats never changed. the coding helps make the content accessible. but fact is you need a lot of content.

aside from that. i don’t even have to read the article bc ive been saying this for months. my partner and i got into a big argument bc he took it personal but frankly.. it is bullshit. its a fad that will soon fade and we’ll be on to the next new thing. i give it 3 to 5 years tops. with as fast as the net changes though. likely a year tops.

I have a problem with anybody that gives any kind of promise on the rankings their services will yield.

another thing i have a problem with is what SEO now implies. you mentioned you had already done alot of the work these companies were offering. key word density, headings, tags etc.
this is now called SEO. when i started it was called web design. Again, SEO is just a list of tricks for sites that arent relevant. Because if you are, you get found. Certainly there are techniques that help. like the services you and I provide that you listed. but again.. isnt this just web design.

I do feel SEO is for the most part bullshit but there are things that we can learn from it. Content is King, proper structuring, and the basic tune up for keywords and tags.

Ive been saying its bullshit for months after working so closely with a professional for over a year and a half as part of a 2 man web team. now articles like this are popping up more and more and it doesnt surprise me in the least.

sorry for the rant but I’ve been thinking this for a while and wanted to chime in.
Zinni
February 24th, 2008 at 9:05 pm

David,

I appreciate your comment, I agree that most of SEO is just that web development or copywriting. I was trying to get at that in my article but might have worded it wrong.

I also believe that this is a huge fad that will burst at some time, that is why I was hoping to hear what some SEO professionals think about the situation.

Anyways thanks for the comment, and I hope you can resolve your conflict with your partner.
Jam
February 25th, 2008 at 8:15 pm

We have just finished completing a site for a client who insists on bringing in his “goto” SEO company to sabotage our hard work. They turn around and insist that we cut and paste 450 word essays on every page and stick random keyword phrases all over the place that look like links but are alas unclickable.

As we are in the midst of battling said SEO company (whom I might add the client trusts alot more than he trusts us), it suddenly occurs to me — the goal of any business site is to turn visitors into customers. But there comes a point where, no matter how much you try and trick search engines, no matter how high you appear in a given search, no matter how many visitors you dupe into clicking on your site in the search results, if you don’t deliver a page that gives users what they are looking for, that they can use and understand, that conveys honesty and professionalism, you will never convert any of these visitors to customers, and you are right back where you have started. I think alot of these SEO companies don’t understand this.

And yet when the site fails to generate revenue, blame falls on the designer. Why? The SEO company can turn around and say, “Hey, we were paid to get you high rankings, and that’s what we did, so it’s not our fault.”
Jam
February 25th, 2008 at 8:16 pm

P.S. So fuck them, I’d like to add.
Zinni
February 25th, 2008 at 8:50 pm

“if you don’t deliver a page that gives users what they are looking for, that they can use and understand, that conveys honesty and professionalism, you will never convert any of these visitors to customers, and you are right back where you have started. I think alot of these SEO companies don’t understand this.”

Spot on, I agree with one hundred percent of that statement. There is a lot to be said for professionalism, something that SEO tricks deter from most of the time.
Chris G.
February 26th, 2008 at 6:15 pm

I currently help run a small web marketing and communications company. We have an entire section of our site dedicated to our seo/sem services and our blog pretty much revolves around that subject. Sure, we have clients that come to us for just that set of services, but overall we sell a holistic solution of design, development, usability and marketing. Those are the clients we seek and those are the ones that ultimately get more from their web sites than any others. It’s the way I was educated to design and build websites and that is the way we will always design and build websites.

I think the reason for this boom in SEO is because there are so many “designers” and “coders” that don’t know how to put together a good website that gets visitors and converts them to customers. As more designers become savvy in this area and pick up web standards and usability knowledge you will see less and less of just SEO firms.

As a side note, if the firm you are working with as a designer are talking meta tags and guaranteed rankings, shut them down through educating your client. Even Google states in their webmaster guidelines that guaranteed rankings are impossible. Not all of SEO is bullshit, but there are a lot of bullshit “SEO companies”.
David Sparks
March 7th, 2008 at 11:31 am

@ Zinni,

I did pick up on that a bit but this has been on my mind for a while now and definitely struck a nerve with me .

It’s most definitely a fad. i dont think it will fade 100% ever. I think probably from here on out web designers will have to refer to what i consider SEO and clarify that they do offer that simply by building the site correctly. but as far as clients freaking out about it, and companies only doing that. its only a matter of time.

Like i mentioned i work as a 2 man team with a Google Adwords professional and while im not that guy you were looking to hear from. i can tell you as his friend he will never admit to this. the very nature of SEO is to predict and control something you can not foresee or control. its not blind luck but it is somewhere in the middle of proper site structure, timing and a hint of luck. bc these people make a living at it they will all defend it. i just dont buy it anymore.

@ Jam.
youre 100% right the goal of a business website is to turn visitors into customers. then you spoke about tricking the search engines. in one part you’re referring to people, the next your referring to a script that reads, judges, and values content and information. maybe you should have your client read this post and explain to him you need to specialize in targeting the audience that wants to find you. not force people to find you that dont need or want you. and imo thats what seo is to people like this. tricks to make you relevant when you’re not. as far as the companies. i think they actually might and they dont care bc the public doesnt understand it, it sounds marvelous upon a pitch and its easy.

really enjoyed the post and all the comments!
Zinni
March 8th, 2008 at 7:59 am

David,

Thanks for checking back, your incites have definitely added to this article!
Brian Morris
March 21st, 2008 at 6:02 am

I’ve had this conversation with colleagues of mine many times. A lot of SEO outfits do indeed employ black hat techniques, similar in principle to web design studios and their Flash splash screen of yesterday. Which is to say, there will always be a crowd of people scurrying around, trying to lure clients to make a quick buck, then getting the project out the door and onto the next. This divide and conquer way of business is what it is and it’s up to others to distinguish themselves from this buzz word-laden crowd.

In terms of SEO being a fad, I don’t believe this at all. Perhaps the trickery is a fad. However, building sites with SEO principles is part of a bigger sense of making quality sites in general. Google, with it’s optimization rules, is basically trying to get people to build usable, accessible, sites that have good, relevant content. If there were no search engines, this principle of building “good” sites would still be important to me.

Finally, I wanted to add that all of these SEO principles from all the big search engines are guidelines, not law. They should be viewed on a continuum of branding vs. search engine ranking. For example, if a site’s copy is weighed down with a few choice keywords, the text suffers and the opportunity to engage a user is lost.

At any rate, I enjoyed this article as well as many of the comments. It’s always nice to read something I’ve often thought about myself.
Jason
March 28th, 2008 at 6:10 pm

We just lost a prospect because she said the other firm had proven proprietary SEO techniques. It reminds me of the old snake oil salesman who would showcase the one person he cured while the rest of his customers walked away a few dollars poorer (and often sicker). The fact is, people love to gamble, especially cheap people. So rather than write good content or pay per click, they’ll sit on their ass and throw their money at the snake oil doctors. It seems crazy to me that people would rather give their money to these grifters than to give it to Google. If I had proven proprietary SEO knowledge, I wouldn’t sell it to anyone. I would create a new diet pill website and spend all day counting money. These people are like stock brokers from the 80’s calling you at dinner with the latest stock tip.
HipHopMakers
April 14th, 2008 at 4:17 pm

Great post. You hit some good points, and hopefully me sending this post to my boss just saved some money in the future.
Zinni
April 14th, 2008 at 5:06 pm

HipHopMAkers,

I am glad that I have helped you in some way. Just make sure that you really read over any proposal you may get and that you aska lot of questions. If the firm you are working with cannot give you a firm answer, then you should really look into their credibility. Unfortunately there are a number of bad individuals out there ruining the name of SEO professionals, and this has become a necessary process.