Utterly disillusioned with SEO

[BungleBob]

Do you remember those early, halcyon days of search engine optimisation? The promise of a constant flow of new customers from across the world, all for just a few hours research and a tweak to your meta tags. Oh those wonderful summers in cyberspace...

Having been in web marketing for some years now, I’m finding it harder and harder to give any kind of confident answer when someone asks how to get to Number 1 in Google (followed by owning their dream villa on the Riviera). I gave up SEO’ing for third parties some time ago and now work solely on our own sites – one of which is a specialist web directory.

To some extent, this has highlighted how different the search world can look from the other side of the table. Now we get to “review” a large number of sites in a market we know a lot about. Depression sets in when you see great products, and good sites, that your SEO-eye says have no chance of winning search traffic. Conversely there’s a huge number of terrible sites that do well. Something’s gone wrong in the world of search…

A quick search in Google or any other major engine for a competitive travel phrase will leave you deluged with results - some good, some bad but all apparently relevant. To the “expert”, many of the results have absolutely no right to be there – the only thing they have in common is the hard work of an SEO consultant. Terrible designs, poor accessibility, slow loads, pop-ups or scant information count for nothing. If you’ve understood the difference between PR and public relations, arrived armed with a WordTracker account and have a ripping inbound link campaign, you’ve probably hit the top. Well done!

Happy searchers? Maybe not…

In the early days of the web, Open Directory (DMOZ) came along with the promise of sifting the web and giving us the good stuff. The current number of frustrated posts from webmasters trying to get listed shows how times have changed. Visit a DMOZ category you know something about and there may be a few of your favourites listed… most likely surrounded by out-of-date, inaccessible, poor quality garbage. In all likelihood your favourite site is still pending review in some overworked editor’s in tray.

An old client made contact the other day, asking about a search campaign. As a site in a niche market, the SEO work didn’t stack up and it turned out cheaper to run a PPC campaign. The client was happier because PPC is advertising he understands. It produces a quantifiable return and, in their niche, doesn’t cost a whole lot. The reason for this decision? His market is over-SEO’d – maybe this was Google and Yahoo’s masterplan all along.

Where DMOZ failed, enter the new-age web directory – pay for inclusion (PFI) and fast approvals – although still very little quality control. JoeAnt and Abrexa have made moves in the right direction with an element of quality review included in the submission process. Unless the engines really do have a “let SEO kill the market” plan, perhaps the answer will be a search world centred around hubs of “quality” such as these.

For our own directory, we’ll do everything we can to acknowledge sites which raise standards. We’ll be adding a sooper-dooper gold star scheme (that’s a working name!) for sites that do a great job at selling their product – regardless of how well they’ve researched their keywords or tweaked their meta tags.

Maybe we’ll also give them extra inbound links to help their rankings. You gotta play the SEO game, right?

[rescom]

Just look on the bright side...it will only get worse! ;)

It is just like everything else, the more people try to take advantage of something, the more obscured it becomes to reduce those that abuse.

[BungleBob]

I hope we're not quite doomed yet! - there's gotta be better solutions out there. If the engines can plug-in some better sources for moderating their results, maybe we'll make some progress.

[rescom]

But as soon as they do, there will be some one to take advantage of it, and the SEOs will try something different. A BIG snowball...but trying to overcome the SEs and get good rankings is half of the fun and a much better hobby than quilting! :-D

[rlrouse]

...and a much better hobby than quilting!

My mom would scold you for saying that!

[greeneagle]

"Early Halcyon Days" - What's changed BungleBob?
Just the drug, probably!
Ken

[mike]

Nothing worse than halcyon junkies. That's some mean stuff.

On a side note, I think a search engine that needs 'optimisation' is a poor search engine to begin with (yeah I think they all fall well short of 'ideal').


Offtopic: By the way, Greeneagle your new pic weirds me out. It's like you're watching me wherever I scroll. Stop it.

[Deep13]

Originally Posted by BungleBob

Conversely there’s a huge number of terrible sites that do well. Something’s gone wrong in the world of search…

Yup, I totally agree with you here..
In competitive terms like in gifting business I see lot of indian Spam sites like IndianGiftsportal.com on the top..

if you see those sites you will see that being an ecommerce site they dont change products on their home page for 3-4 months and yet they are on top because they SPAM, their main group site IndiaMart.com, they do all SEO work for them and the work they do is total crap, they create their own new sites with lot of links going to their main site..

and these sites are nothing but sites with keywords stuffed everywhere...

check these sites out : www.hand-tools-manufacturers.com www.hydraulic-equipment-manufacturers.com

total spam...
i reported this to google so many times but no use..no one responded....

this is just one example..there are many sites like this..

i think people have lost interest in the top listed sites..(spl in gifiting business) because they know that 90% of the sites which are listed on top are crap sites...so people click on search engine ads....(adwords, overture ads etc..)

search engines should do something to stop spammers...
Deep

[BungleBob]

Totally agree with the last point - it's incredibly frustrating.

I believe SEO has done a marvellous job at pushing people to paid advertising, simply by gradually destroying the value of search results. Although Google doesn't acknowledge SEO publicly, they must love the effect it's having on their revenues.

SEO will surely become increasingly dead.

What client will pay for SEO advertising which "might" produce results over one that guarantees results i.e. PPC?

I look forward to the day when web marketing re-aligns with the offline world - where getting out there and pushing your product is more important than understanding PageRank, keyword density, meta tags and all the other psuedo-techno phrases we talk about.

The "black hat" vs. "white hat" SEO debate is a prime example: "white hat" SEO is based on solid marketing techniques - let's rename this "web marketing".

SEO is therefore, by definition, "black hat".

[pne]

Posted this to another thread but think it's relevant here too,

"My tuppence worth is this. The major search engines are unaccountable in any modern meaning of the word. Sure, if they cease to provide relevant results then they lose market share and, eventually run the risk of going bust. But we live in the age of "Governance", where what we do, and how we do it, is subject to scrutiny. This scrutiny comes out of a contractual relationship, and has sanctions and penalties applied to it that go far beyond a crude market, "I go bust, you survive" kind of process.

The major search engines have the ability to punish wrongdoing, without facing any penalty themselves when they get things wrong. This isn't new or unusual, it is a function of an immature marketplace.

We sometimes forget that not only will "Search" look very different in five years time, so will the market within which it takes place. This is the Gold Rush era, unregulated, dominated by the hotels, gambling houses and brothels that us Prospectors need. Or are told we need. "

pne

[BungleBob]

Yeehah pne!

In that case I reckon my prospecting days are over and I'll be selling my pan and coming down from them there hills... ;-)

I'd like to add one small story (may have mentioned elsewhere too):

Some years ago, in the bad ole days when I worked for somebody else (!), my desk was next to a "proper" marketing guy. He had training, degrees, experience - the whole thing. We used to work together on the company's fledgling website when the Internet was still a new phenomena in business.

In those days, we didn't even know aboout SEO or using search engines to generate traffic. And yet, I remember that this guy could bring more traffic via a couple of hours on the phone cracking partnership deals than any search campaign I've seen since...

Although I love these forums dearly and will continue to participate, I just can't bring myself to treat SEO as some kind of marketing nirvana anymore. It's a chancey technique at best and the danger of giving it too much prominence is that we forget the importance of real online selling.

"A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing!"

[Duncan Pollock]

deep13: You're entitled to your opinion, of course, but I can't readily agree with you about the hand tools and hydraulic sites. Sure they use "tools" and "hydraulic" over and over again, but what synonyms could they use instead? Neither word really has any.
I mean would it make much sense to the viewer if the headings were changed to Hand / Cutting / Carpentry / Plumbing / etc? How, for instance could someone looking for Hand Tools find the site if the search engine had just "hand" as the keyword?
The common definition of spam is "whatever a viewer chooses to decide it is" and, with all due respect, I think you are giving us a good example of this kind of decision being taken.
To my mind, both sites are logically laid out and focused on their viewers. If they both enjoy good SERPs, I see no good reason why they shouldn't. I also reckon your complaints to Google et al have been simply ignored on the grounds that your view is mistaken!

Duncan

[Deep13]

Duncan Pollock, I still think that they are just stuffing the keywords everywhere..but yeah..that's just me :)

check this article http://news.techwhack.com/324/why-is-indiamart-evil/

take care
Deep

[ronniethedodger]

Originally Posted by Mike

Offtopic: By the way, Greeneagle your new pic weirds me out. It's like you're watching me wherever I scroll. Stop it.

That isn't Greeneagle Mike, it is his keeper, Ken. A lot of people make that mistake. Now I am wondering where the real Greeneagle is.

Okay, Ken, fess up ... where is that darn bird at?

[tomhouy]

Previously, the rule of thumb was to avoid spamming the search engines because you risk being dropped. Nowdays however, you can be the most ethical webmaster in the world and still watch your listing plummet and get replaced by junk results every time these search engines do a major update. I hate to say this, but the way they are running things now, it almost makes more sense to resort to cheating sometimes. What do you have to lose? Some exposure, if only for a month or two, is certainly better than watching your well-designed site sit at #50something on Google for two years...

The search engines methods for ranking relevant sites has become completely convoluted. It seems like they are more concerned about duping spammers than providing the end user good results.

What is happening now with education related keywords is that many so called "directories" are popping up and hogging up literally the whole first page of results. These are not created by anyone wishing to offer a valuable service to those seeking higher education. They are either a.) Hastily thrown together as a doorway page to a specific university, and they conveniently place themselves at the top (*cough*universityofphoenix*cough*) or b.) A money making scheme where they charge schools thousands of dollars to be listed on their directory.

You cant buy the top spot in Googles search results, so why are their results filled with directories who charge to be listed? Does that make any sense?

Search engines like Google seem to nowdays just gravitate towards these ad-hoc worthless directories, simply because they are overflowing with a mess of links all over the place.

[ADAM Web Design]

I'm with tomhuoy, and I'd like to make an open note to the search engines on how to resolve this issue (if it isn't being done already, as I suspect it isn't):

1. Proportionately increase the relevancy weight of outbound links to other sites if they are contained within the body of a paragraph.
2. Create an inverse relationship between the percentage of link text vs. other text on the page and the increase in results provided based on that link. (e.g. a hyperlink on a site with 3% link text will be worth more than one with 15% link text.)
3. To avoid the possibility of a Google bomb, limit the number of sites within which the same hyperlink can appear in the same passage to an arbitrary number (e.g. 50). This would help avoid the world-famous "miserable failure" paragraph bomb technique.

In effect, this reduces the impact the individual directories can have since their links in turn usually come from other directories and so on and so on. Unless a directory (such as the ones mentioned above) is a good directory with lots of links of quality, it's not likely to have the same sphere of influence that a text link contained within the body of a paragraph would.

The same logic could easily apply to forums, something which has been debated at length. A hyperlink contained within a body paragraph (such as this coolest guy in the world hyperlink) would have more weight than that of a forum sig.

I figure the implementation of these thoughts will at lesat cripple black hat SEO, if not totally eliminate it.

[incrediblehelp]

I never saw a industry like SEO that has dramatically raised it self worth and awareness as fast as it has diminished its own value with unethical participants.

All in all I still love doing what I am doing. As long search is around and popular in use, I will be there effectively and ethically moving my clients to the top of the results.

[greeneagle]

Mike and Ronnie,

off topic response - Do you like "mountainman" better?:
http://forum.webdevcom.net/index.php?showuser=69
Ken

[ronniethedodger]

Much better. Where is the eagle Ken? What did you do with him? Did MountainMan eat him? ;0)

[greeneagle]

I'll see what I can do. it's not easy when you "SHOOT" yourself!

LOL - Let's get back on topic here...

Ken