Last Friday, Donna wrote about an article in Google News on Breaking SEO Myths. The article suggests that SEOs are primarily scam artists (not a new accusation by any means) and that even the more legitimate industry personalities hide behind veils of secrecy because - according to the author - any idiot can do SEO and it's only by shrouding ourselves in mystery that we can get any work at all.
Daniel Dessinger, who wrote the article, doesn't strike me as especially daft. His writing is clear, concise and relatively compelling. But, unlike Donna, I think Daniel's article suffers from a lack of research and a healthy dose of envy. His article leverages tactics popular in partisan politics - leveling charges of selfish bias, using circular logic and making heavy-handed proclamations supported by gross generalisms. Here's a few of my favorites:
So what exactly makes a person an SEO expert? Seriously. Don't accept someone's claims without critically examining them. There's no federal or industry-wide standard. So who makes an expert an expert? What’s the difference between an expert and an expert fake? And how can you tell one from the other?
Those are great questions, but Daniel doesn't provide answers (I've written about what I think makes an SEO expert). His goals are fear and uncertainty.
Am I going to present clear-cut evidence here of my claims? Not a chance. I don't have to, and I don’t want to make any specific enemies. I learned what I know by studying SEO online wherever I could because I was trying to join the industry.
This is a gem. He skips over providing evidence using the excuse that it's more noble to be anonymous and overarching with his claims. Then, he states that his knowledge of SEO comes from studying SEO online, yet he's already told us that SEOs don't share their knowledge and obsfucate the practice purposefully to drive business. If he claimed that he had learned SEO on his own, through trial and error testing or by reading IR books, search engine patents and programming his own engines, his claims would have far greater veracity.
If you don't believe me, subscribe to a few SEO newsletters and catch up on your SEO articles. See for yourself if you don't read the same thing over and over, only presented in a different order or from a different angle. Study which groups or individuals support and compliment each other in SEO articles, forums, and blogs. Notice how they build a castle of thoughts out of thin air.
Daniel's manipulating his readers using the same tactics he accuses the SEO world of employing. Rather than point out specifics or go into detail, he glosses over anything that would back up his opinions and makes the argument that when those of us in the SEO world cite each others work, it is part of a vast conspiracy designed to draw in business to customers who have no need of our work.
Daniel, if you're reading this, here's what I want you to do to clear your name:
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Visit this list and point out exactly who you accuse of masking the practice of SEO to prevent clients from learning how to do it themselves.
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Read the Beginner's Guide to SEO and tell me how it obsfucates the truth.
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Give a full and honest disclosure about your goals & experiences - you offer SEO writing services, run several blogs with AdSense and write for several article submission sites - why the venom towards paid SEO consulting and marketing? What made you write the article?
I'm undoubtedly being overly harsh and making an example of Daniel when there are dozens of writers who've maligned our industry with similar contempt and inaccuracy. More than anything, it's the unsubstantiated claims and lack of examples, experience or evidence that puts me off more than anything else.
p.s. I rarely disagree with Donna, but I really couldn't stomach this one. Vitriol and Monday mornings don't make for a happy Rand.
Rand, thanks for weighing in on my article. It's been a solid 10 months since that article was originally published.
I have written a response to several yours and other peoples comments on my CultureFeast blog at www.culturefeast.com.
Thanks again.
Daniel - the article was dated for release into GG News on 10/06 by the market-day site. Maybe they figured it was a good time for some controversy...
This is probably the most important part of your post, Rand. It's so easy for people to point fingers and say "you're blinding people with mystery in order to trick them into buying your services." By providing a clear, plain-English, resource such as the Beginner's Guide, SEOmoz can (or should) never be accused of a smoke-n-mirrors marketing campaign.
How about we all become Doctors so we can cure ourselves, how about we all become Teachers so we don't have to pay for education, how about we all become Lawyers...
Of course anyone can learn about SEO, but is going to take a good amount of years to get the expertise plus an everyday discipline of reading and updating, SEO is like any other professional discipline.
By the way, it's ironic that a year ago, it was Rand who told me online that anyone who is a good writer can become a good SEO, but that the opposite isn't nearly as easy.
Thanks for the tip!
Ignoring the content of the post, I do agree that you've done a good job leveraging your writing skills into the SEO world. :)
Not to stir the pot or anything but here's a comment I left on Daniel's blog.
Daniel, I appreciate you reponse to the negative feedback you've been receiving about your article. The "tone" of your article seemed to indicate the the seo community in general is useless. "I compare it to online grocery shopping – it saves you time and effort, but unless you’re disabled, filthy rich, or ungodly busy it is not a cost effective option." Then why does your company offer SEO services? And I'm sure there are several Fortune 500 companies that would also disagree with that statement. And yet in your post above you say "I am not challenging the statement that many SEO companies are offering useful and helpful services to their clients." I guess I'm confused. You do go on to point out some specific problems with the seo community in general in your post but you article does not make those points. In fact in your article you went on to say "But even the ones who are legit are still count on an air of mystery and difficulty to keep the client from demanding too many specific answers." That's the statement that bothered me the most. Yes, you did say in the article "For all of you still willing and ready to hire an SEO professional, all I ask is that you make an educated decision based on research." Well duh, wouldn't you recommend that for any professional service? Maybe you should take your own advice about research when you write your next article. Anyway just my .02 worth.
I'm just looking at all the linkbait Daniel created! People pay good money for this type of SEO. ;)
Daniel - Did you read my list of "to-do's" above? Any chance you'll be answering any of those questions?
Hey, Rand. I just came across this article again many years later. FYI, the reason why I didn't name names was because I was relativey new in the industry and surrounded by SEOs who made me extremely uncomfortable. The entire Dallas SEO crowd I had encountered at that time made me feel dirty. But I was newly married, writing copy, and having to double up on SEO as a secondary skill set in order to make ends meet.
1. I personally don't like calling out names, but I can tell you that the largest Dallas SEO firm at that time (now bankrupt and slightly renamed) was one of the major players involved. There were also many older, unseemly characters at DFWSEM in those early days. I can tell you that everyone I met in SEO for the first two years had been screwed over by another SEO agency/service and everyone was backbiting and gossiping and paranoid as hell. It was a very discouraging time for me since at that time I saw no viable alternative for making a living as a copywriter outside of SEO.
2. I wrote that post on my pop culture blog to vent my frustration about the SEOs I had exposure to at the time. I was not well connected in the blogosphere and had no intention of starting a ruckus. Some scraper SEO site scraped my post and shared it, which somehow caught Donna's attention. Her response was unsolicited.
3. Pointing to a list of agencies I never mentioned is an awkward tactic. I get the point. Your friends and networking connections are above the board as far as you know. Well and good. I wouldn't call the then most popular SEO blogs crooked as much as unoriginal. I looked at dozens of SEO blogs in the 2006 time frame and saw their historical archive began with strategies and tips. Then without fail, they "graduated" to covering search engine news and social media. One could argue today that these are highly relevant components. But in 2006, they were filler. It was clear that everyone ran out of valuable insights / tricks / tips within the first year or two and then changed the focus of the blog to encompass a wider range of topics. This, to me at the time, implied that the bloggers had either already exhausted their share of SEO knowledge or they were keeping their most effective tricks secret. Either way, that left a bad taste in my mouth.
4. Ironically, I have been involved in SEO ever since the time of this article. I have served as Senior SEO/SEM Specialist for several small agencies, and now I am the Account Manager / Project Manager for an awesome Search agency out of Ohio.
I wish I could say that this post WAS linkbait, but in truth, it was just a venting session that attracted far more attention than I intended.
I love SEO and SEM. The industry has changed dramatically over the past six years. I've always followed SEOMoz with interest and hope that despite the blacklist this article appears to put me on, you can respect the perspective I had and readjust your assessment of my post based on the knowledge that I was intentionally not calling anyone out. Had I called you or one of your partners/friends out, this article would have been well warranted. But as it was, it came across to someone relatively unknown as myself as unnecessarily forceful. This article sounded very offended and defensive.
Perhaps this was just the straw that broke the camel's back for you and you decided to use that moment to take a stand on behalf of the industry. I hope you can appreciate that this article response felt pretty overreactive to me at the time.
Speaking of bait.... I wonder if someone were to approach him, saying they heard he was an SEO expert and wanted to hire him for a project, whether he would take the project? hmmmmmm
this article reads like pure linkbait to me - stirring up a little controversy!!
You're right Rand - he's not daft at all, and how in the world could he know so much about the industry without being so thoroughly entrentched in it.
He brings up some talk points - obviously they worked, there's at least two blog posts on it .... with lots of comments. I wonder what traffic to his website has been in the last week since that article went public?
I agree with your points Rand, as usual you are spot on with your assesment. However, he may not be claiming to be an SEO and quite frankly he's not winning any friends in the industry by slinging mud -- but he did just create some interesting, controversial linkbait, didn't he?
*edited cuz at before 7 a.m. EST I can't spell right! lol
I don't think this guy really believes what he is writing. I think he just decided to go the mud slinging link bait route. Of course Rand was smart enough to toss a nofollow on his link :)
So, if you can't join'em, beat'em up?
I'm confused here... are we saying that there would be more credibility if everyone disagreed? Or by agreeing, it must be a scam? I know, let me use this argument here to substantiate my claim, and then use the opposite of it to substantiate my other claim.
It seems that most fields have areas where many agree, and other areas were many disagree, and in many cases, we're not talking about operating in a vaccuum or simple 2+2 equations... there are many more variables, so neither may be right or wrong taken in context... but is that not true of marketing, physics, medicine, heck, even accountants have different rules based on different situations and methods. And not that any of these other fields are without their fakes too.
However, it is easy to throw out a whole field based on the presence of a fake, since if one is a fake, clearly the field and everyone else in it must also be fake, therefore, the argument must be true?? Okay, while he is saying that not all are scams, he might as well be as he quickly discredits than no scam artists as well.
SEO is like most things... yes, with time and education and experience, nearly anyone can do it, but again that's true with nearly any field.
Can't help but feel this is in itself, and SEO sales pitch... in the vein of "Don't buy this until you read this!" Which includes the authors own offer of said product or service in the byline. But kudos, he has at least learned enough about linkbait now hasn't he.
Let's hope this logic only applies to SEO, else much of the progress of the world must immediately come to a full stop.
I agree identity. I mean look what he says he does for a living; "His writing services include SEO friendly interactive press releases, search optimized website copy, industry-specific articles, creative ads, copy editing, and online public relations consulting." Why doesn't he quit offering SEO friendly interactive press releases and search optimized website copy and quit fooling his clients. And I think if he even read one post on this blog he'd quickly learn there is more to the castle than thin air. Yes it looks like linkbait to me.
It's no different than pop culture or entertainment blogs. When many different blogs cover the same industry, there's bound to be an overlap of information. I don't think that only happens in the SEO industry.
His lack of supported data points us directly to a plea of stupidity. However, if he simply broke down the differences of skilled/experienced SEO’s vs the CRAP SEO’s that are popping up out of the woodworks on a daily basis the article could have merit. These new firms or existing firms that just start offering SEO and saying that they have 20 years of experience are tarnishing the reputation of the industry. A lot of this began with SEO’s like Traffic Power, whom almost single handedly destroyed the industries reputation.
There are nameless other firms who offer similar poor quality service, including a few the rank in the top 10 for the term Search Engine Optimization. Some of these firms at one point of time would submit you to 10k search engines and now only submit you to somewhere below 50. There is even a certain SEO who claims to have optimized websites since before Eric Brewer built Inktomi. WOW! I am impressed; I had no idea that they knew him at that time.
Since in 96’ when Inktomi started all you had to do was put in keywords on the page and in the META tags, I am blown away by this expertise.
Beats me why you wrote about this guy's comments Rand. Even good copywriters don't make a whole lot of money and those like him that have to put AdSense ads on their showcase site make even less. If you wanted to give the guy a break you should have just sent him $10 :)
I have written stuff about how SEO can mostly be smoke and mirrors and it often can. I think this discussion needs to be split up more. It is not as black and white as both sides try to make it. First off you have to take into account the type of clients the SEO takes. A small local firm who takes $250 to $1000 a month contracts or a large firm that only takes large corporations. Also SEO needs to be defined.
Are you talking about ranking for a really hard term? Are you just trying to increase traffic? Are you trying to increase your conversion ratio? Are you talking about PPC? What search engines are you talking about? Are you talking about improving the crawability (is this a word) of the site? Are you talking about improving the usability of the site?
Most large firms do all this stuff. They are legitimate businesses. Now I think some of the SEO firms that take low budget clients are the ones that are just blowing smoke. All the stuff I mentioned above takes money. In this day and age, $250 does not buy very much time with a skilled SEO. Anytime you deal with somebody on this pay level they want more work done than somebody who pays you 20 times that much. So you have to show something. The only way to do this is to provide lots busy work that does not help in the SEO process. I’m not going into the ethics of this I’m just saying that it is a fact of life.
heh, thats ok, rand, i don't mind you disagreeing with me. i really wanted to dislike this guy's article, but somehow, i just didn't. much of it rang true for me, although not all of it, as i pointed out in my comments about it. but i knew someone would get their knickers in a knot about it...turned out to be you. :)