SEO A Scam? I Certainly Won’t Be Defending It!

This week, the diarrhetic discourse of Derek Powazek unleashed an unfortunate cacophony of criticisms into the world of SEO that left a rather bitter aftertaste. I for one shall certainly not be defending Search Engine Optimisation. Why? SEO no more needs my defence, than one plus one needs me to convince people it is – in fact – two!

It was doubly distasteful therefore, that he chose to use personal attacks upon the character of the people involved in SEO, instead of focusing his hatred on the industry where his grudge and (more accurately) his lack of understanding originated.

Rather than stoop to his level and render my personal criticisms of his character, I would rather play his words as knives upon which he will fall, allowing the reader to carefully dissect his arguments and arrive at an informed decision. Lets start with the obvious:

SEO is Not a Legitimate Form of Marketing

This is a very arbitrary statement. Surely if I were to walk down my street, talking loudly on my mobile about McDonalds for everyone to hear, this might be considered a form of advertising, even if I didn’t necessarily intend it to be so. If I spray painted the Nike logo on my neighbours house, Nike would certainly consider this publicity, even if my neighbour didn’t like it. Heck, the Britons are so frightened of accidental marketing they will even blur brand names in movies and documentaries! If any of the above tactics are done with a definite goal and plan, we have met the definition of marketing! Anyway, who put Derek in charge of deciding what marketing is? I could say the sky was green, but that wouldn’t make it so either. He offers no justification upon which this statement is based, other than his own say-so.

These scammers claim that they can dance the magic dance that will please the Google Gods and make eyeballs rain down upon you.

I think Derek may need to lay of the drugs a little, what we actually claim runs a bit more like : “if you write a document entitled : ‘SEO is a scam’, where you make wild and unfounded accusations about SEO being a scam, then you are more likely to start getting found for phrases around ‘SEO’ being a ‘scam’ in Google”. I’m having trouble putting it any more simply than this. Part of SEO is about writing content people wish to read that is relevant to the search terms and giving the search engines a damn good reason to deliver fresh readers to your website!

It’s So Obvious …Anyone Who Pays For SEO Is a Fool

Very true Sir Derek, and I can wash my own dirty dishes in the kitchen sink fairly easily too. Does this mean anyone paying for a dishwasher is a sucker? What about financial outsourcing services? Many small to medium sized businesses find that a outsourcing to a professional accountant gets the job done quickly, and therefore costs less in the long run.  SEO is certainly not simple, otherwise why would so many resources, blogs and self-help websites exist?  There are some great links in this blog I openly encourage people to visit.  SEO is by no means simple, and anyone who believes it is, probably isn’t doing it right!

SEO is Poisoning the Web

This is my favourite of all! Six months ago I began writing my own simple search engine using PHP 4 and MySQL 4, and actually found it helpful to rely a on META Keywords, META Descriptions and Titles of documents a little, as they often gave clues as to the documents content. The honesty of the user can be easily verified by simply checking to see if this word occurs within the page itself. Aside from the obvious overspaming of these elements, I actually found this gave me more information on which to base my search queries. Without them, I would have less information on which to base my SQL query, making the job harder, and forcing me to do more complex analysis of the text content itself.

Equally, encouraging users to include relevant links between documents actually help make the web easier to navigate, giving your visitor the choice of learning more about any particular topic under discussion. When I began building my own search engine I found this document very helpful, and would thoroughly recommend the O’Reilly book on  High Performance MySQL.

Google Believe in SEO

If SEO is a scam, why would Google post their own official web master guidelines? You calling them a liar?

Finally, My Own Testimony

As a graduate of Computer Science who left the University of Liverpool with a 2:1, writing his dissertation on Genetic Programming – a cutting edge form of artificial intelligence at the time – I have used a range of languages to develop everything from Windows to Linux platforms.  I maintain a web server on my home network of six computers, yet I can quite honestly say that SEO is a labour that demands all the skills I have, and plenty I’m still working on!

No ladies and gentlemen, Derek is the child who cannot stand being beaten at a game, so he throws his toys out of the pram and tells us that the game was stupid anyway.

When the history books are written, we shall not be painted in as con artists and SEO scam merchants, but pioneers of a cutting edge (and often misunderstood!) form of marketing, still in it’s relative infancy. A form of marketing which didn’t exist before we started typing.

Tags: defend, defending, derek powazek, manchester seo blog, scam, search engine optimisation, SEO