A conversation last week got me thinking about how knowledge spreads in the world of SEO. I noted on a panel that 90% of all SEO knowledge is "out there," floating on the web, mentioned in presentations, and generally findable by anyone who knows enough to ask the right questions or perform the right searches. The other 10% is behind the curtain - it's hidden knowledge that rarely ever rears its head. Things in the 10% might include:
- The names and emails of private link brokers and link sellers whose networks are still passing value
- IP lists of the search engines' cloak-detection bots and methods of identifying potential human quality raters
- Ways around penalties, bans, or other search issues
- Email access to the right people at search engines, blogs, social media sites, & large web properties
- Access to email or online lists of effective social media voting groups
- Methods for scalably grabbing large amounts of competitive intelligence data from the engines or other sources
- Data on traffic, referrals, and other competitive intelligence information for big brands, sites, and verticals
- CTRs, CPCs, CPMs, ad payouts, & conversion rates for specific keywords and phrases
- Lots and lots of other super secret stuff
The 10% number is not a stable one. I'd venture to guess that 10 years ago, it was much larger (which is to say that a far greater amount of knowledge is available today than was back then). Since I've only been in the industry formally since about 2001-2 (when I started working on search marketing and reading industry forums), I can't say for certain what amount of information was available in 1997, but I did make this nifty graphic to give my rough percentages for the amount of material available while I've been active:
Most SEOs probably pick up their knowledge from a few limited sources - competitive webmastering is, after all, still in its infancy, so you've only got a small selection. Blogs, sites, & forums (both private and public) on the web serve as a solid data repository (SEOmoz would be among these), but to grasp SEO, I think you really need some serious experience on a site - either your own or your employer's (or a consulting client's, though hopefully that wouldn't be your first try at the subject). I've put together the following chart illustrating some of these and my personal path.
I'm actually even more interested to hear where you get your knowledge, so I created a quick poll:
Every SEO is going to be different, naturally, but from experience I'd say that nearly everyone goes through some period of working on a single site, at least during the beginning of their career. Obviously, some small percentage of us become active in the participatory web of the SEO world - writing articles, running blogs, speaking on panels, training other SEOs, etc. In working to get VC funding for SEOmoz, we estimated that there were around 60-70,000 individuals worldwide who call themselves "SEOs," and another 250,000 or so who have SEO as a large part of their job responsibility. Since there's something close to 4-6,000 active SEOs in the social, online sphere (voting on things at Sphinn, writing blogs, commenting at blogs, etc), we could estimate that around 2-3% of SEOs publicly share their knowledge.
Once again, I wanted to try to illustrate how SEOs who dive into the practice of contributing and sharing distribute their knowledge, and how much of that actually gets "out there." Here's what I came up with:
I'm generalizing, but my concept is that at the outset of your SEO career, you might share some information - your successes and failures, but not a whole lot of advice since you haven't been down the path before. However, as you ramp up your knowledge, you'll start to share a considerable amount more about what you're learning, what works, and how to apply it. Once you reach the "advanced" stage, however, you're often learning a lot more of the "10%" than anything else, particularly if you take on consulting work and get a lot of competitive intelligence and exposure to issues under NDA. If and when you finally reach the Greg Boser status of "Dark Lord," you might still be sharing quite a bit, but you've probably already shared a lot of what you're going to give out, and the increase in knowledge and experience has given you responsibilities and tasks that eat up the time you used to spend "sharing."
Of course, there are individuals who fit these rules nicely (someone like Dan Thies or Dave Naylor) and those that are outliers, like Aaron Wall (who's certainly in the "Dark Lord" category but still shares far more than 50%).
Hopefully, this excercise in guestimation and colorful chart-building has been as fun and interesting to you as it is to me. Naturally, I'd love to hear your feedback about the general topic of SEO knowledge spreading and, more specifically, your own experiences with learning and sharing.
I believe the "Public sharing Levels of SEOs" chart to be wrong.
The main reason that the "sharing" level doesn't seem to be right for me is that I would say that most intermediate to advanced level people are actually working at companies and/or have otherwise similar access to large amounts of sites or data.
People who work in SEO do not necessarily blog about it, or share anything, however they actively research.
I would say that the beginner actually offers advice far more often that the Advanced does. I am not saying it is good advice,but I think that the people who are apt to talk about and share their SEO knowledge are beginners to intermediate.
I would tend to agree with you on that one. I am by no means "advanced" in SEO (I actually spend the majority of my time in PPC) but am still trying to pick up whatever SEO tips and tricks from the pros. While some do share some of the best practices, I think that the 10% Rand identified is so guarded by those who are part of the club. I can't blame them for that, as they paid their dues and worked the angles get that knowledge.
I can agree with that.
If I had the time to blog, I might share some things I have seen myself. However, I do not have that time free every day and I also feel that my own research gives me an edge that others who do not do their own research do not have.
Agree. Blogging and sharing ideas takes so much time. I started a blog only a few weeks ago and since then I've had too little time for practising.
I'm with Pat on this. I think people who are active on the web in SEO tend to think they know everyone who is anyone in SEO. They don't even imagine that there are multitudes of SEO's who work quietly behind the curtains. Not that I blame them. I just thinks it is a very insulated and self-reinforcing bubble.
I consult with a company in a role unrelated to SEO or web development. They have a subsidiary company that has a HUGE web presence. In fact, their name has been mentioned around in some blogs (most notably Matt Cutts) as being too dominant in some SERPs and that something must be black hat about their SEO approach (they aren't black hat at all).
Up until a few months ago - I knew the name of every person that worked in that part of the company and not one of them is a known SEO expert.
SEO was just part of the site's development from the very beginning and it was done by a team of people who also did the programming, etc. They haven't had any people dedicated to SEO up until a few months ago - and I imagine all the new people are doing is link building.
Very well put Vingold, the bubble thing is true, and is a detriment to "famous" SEO'ers as their roles change from active SEOs to "spreaders of info about SEO"
I have seen some flat out wrong things said by people who I would otherwise trust implicitly.
It is painfully obvious who is actively working in SEO and who is resting on their laurels.
As always I suggest lauching one or two sites a month to stay "in the know" of what is going on with SEO from the standpoint of new sites.
The most professional and knowlegable SEOs are those who no one has heard of and have access to buttloads of data. I use this fact to my advantage often. hmmm.....
That is so true vingold.
As Hamlet Batista is fond of sayinig:
"...knowing and doing what everybody else does is not a competitive advantage."
Perhaps you could consider putting some of this 10% into the Premium section.
That is a good Hamlet quote
Thanks, Sean
I think I'm going to take your advice and make that the slogan of my blog :-) That phrase summarizes what I can contribute to this post.
Where does that secret 10% originate?
It originates from careful research and experimentation. You need to study research papers and top ranking sites; brainstorm ideas, formulate hypothesis, test new ideas, etc.
It costs a lot of time and money, but the results are definitely worth it ;-)
Well, I've seen alot of taglines Hamlet - believe me.
However, that one really cuts to the chase. It is both beautiful in its simplicity and profound in its truth.
I just wish I was the author of it!
Do not forget the happy accident: penicillin, vulcanized rubber, LOL cats, etc.
More seriously - the t-word (test) is the key. I am amazed at the assertions people make about cause/effect when it is clear that they couldn't possibly have tested it.
-OT
That's always worth remembering :)
I second that. Getting that type of info in the Premium section would really set SEOmoz apart. The content and tools are okay but not so good that we can really say that it is a true competitive advantage. I don't really use the tools all that often for this reason.
Rand -
I think it is true that the 90% that is knowable by reading or experimentation is out there (SEO for Dummies?). But it's hidden behind 180% pure horsewash.
You know the saying: it's what you know that ain't so that hurts you.
I know, say, a dozen important things about how to get google to pay attention to something. By "know" I mean I can do them and they work, not that they are the best or only way, but they are *one* way.
I would say that at least once a day I see someone explain that one of them simply does not work.
They they come up with what I call "the PE teacher hypothesis." You remember your PE teacher who could explain *anything* about the body. Never mind that they couldn't distinguish between tendons and ligaments - they had wonderful explanations for the value of stretching, or lifting.
Maybe there is another line on your n00b to dark lord graph - the graph of things you know what aren't so?
-OT
Since I don't have access to the other 10% this is a guess, but probably the 90% that is out there is 100% of what is needed by 99% of all websites.
The other 1% of of websites that need the double secret 10% SEO package are chasing after a handful of super duper highly competitive niches.
Just a guess.
BTW, interesting post. Outstanding discussion in the comments.
I would say even more of an outstanding point, drdave - I think if those 99% (including me) made use of the 90% then that's all we'd need.
It reminds me of the book "Enders Game" where he talks about memory - if we could just simply remember everything we learned for a week, we'd all be doing tremendously in the SERPS
this is really interesting to me. i've always found that there is a lot of information being shared if you know where to look.
the thing is that there's a lot of crap information out there too. you really have to have the seo experience to be able to decide what to believe or not.
and according to your chart there's a lot of "intermediate" seos sharing a lot of information and even the "beginners" are sharing quite a bit there. being able to determine the quality of the information being shared i believe would require a certain level of skillset and experience.
it's kind of scary to think that newbie seos are getting seo advice from reading a "beginner" seo's blog.
I think that this is becoming a bigger issue as the beginner/intermediates are becoming more active in the blogs/forums that so many people have indicated as top information sources.
It is harder for someone who doesn't know as much about SEO to discern whether or not something they read online carries great benefits to their marketing efforts. It seems like so many newbies are learning from the other newbies and not getting the advice that would benefit them most.
This is why I believe that the best way to learn is by having a part in optimizing many different sites in many different industries.
um, yeah...that's what i meant to say.
Almost all of the 10% of which you speak is black hat. Data on traffic, referrals and other competitive intelligence information for big brands, sites and verticals and CTRs, CPCs, CPMs, ad payouts & conversion rates for specific keywords and phrases would be nice (I maintain that proper keyword research and selection is the single most important aspect of search and should come before even domain selection) but the truth is that, once you know what search term you are optimising for, search should be about providing value added content for that term.
Don't get me wrong, black-hat is going to work best in the short term, but maybe life would be better if, instead of jumping from one crisis to another in response to changes in algorithms, we all just concentrated on developing the content of our sites over time?
Or is that just crazy talk?
This is an interesting topic Rand, I am very much aware of this 10% behind the "curtains" so to speak.
From my personal experience I would like to add that blogs, forums, training etc is all very well and good but the best way to learn is by a hands on approach. Thats also how you learn that 10% that no-one else teaches you!
I appreciate the attempt to sum up where knowledge resides in the SEO community.
However, it isn't appropriate to dress up personal, vague notions of things as statistical reportage.
If this thread leads to some proper research I would welcome it, but otherwise it is essentially disinformation.
Of course, having done the research, you could publish the results as premium content ;)
I see your point, but rather than being disinformation, there's perhaps a more polite / accurate word — anecdotal...
I would agree with most of the comments on here. I've been doing SEO for the past 5 years or so and, believe it or not, this is one of my first posts on an SEO site. I guess i've been one of the guys that hasn't contributed to any of the 90% of knowledge out there. Guess that makes the article even more true. Shame on me I guess. So I will add to that here.
Most of the client's sites I have worked on (a few Fortune 100 companies with many large well known sites) have only needed that 90% to acheive the results they are looking for. It's very rare that I've had to dip into that other 10%(i like to call this the grey and black area), of which, I probably don't know as much as I should. I have found in many cases that even for competitive keywords, that 90% will get you to number 1 in the right combination.
The most important things to focus on, in my opinion, would be 1)Keyword research - I can't say enough about this, to me this is one of the greatest things that any SEO worth his salt can do and 2)Focus on the basics, most of which is on-site - site architecture/titles/tags/content/internal & external links.
So do your research, optimize your on-site elements, baseline your analytics, and wait. You may not see the benifits from things that you have done for a couple of months. Retweak as needed. I guess that is an old school approach, but to be honest, I just don't jump on the bandwagon for the latest and greatest SEO buzz. I like to wait and see.
Speaking broadly, I think it's pretty cool that ~90% of the SEO information is all out there for our benefit. What other industries can you learn about the majority of everything you need to know...doctors, lawyers, bankers, and many other "trade" inudstries need to go to years of college. So, thanks to everyone who has contributed to my 90%.
One important fact to bring up. When you were talking about 90% of the knowledge being online I would agree with you. What I think you failed to mention though is the amount of mis-information available still. Compaired to what you would have had in the late 90's.
I think now more then ever, in order to be a good SEOer you have to be able to sift through the garbage and find the good information.
That's very true. I can't believe some of the things I read on forums. People are discussing some very irrelevant stuff due to lack of good knowledge. That's the problem with the internet overall. A lot of stuff just can't be trusted. The future will belong to those that are good at reading between the lines and picking/testing the truth out of the pile.
I have to agree with SamDodd - What blew my mind when I was reading all of the 101 content about SEO, even on SeoMoz - was the amount of contradicting going on.
This is why I love the two surveys I've seen of high-profile SEOs as to what goes into the value of a link. It's fantastic to see the different viewpoints, and each was quite eye-opening for me in terms of how much disagreement there was (is).
HAHAHAHA, Greg Boser is the Dark Lord of SEO! That's hilarious man. Greg is also one of the coolest guys in SEO despite his ominous reputation.I think a lot of that 10% comes with experience and the type of clients you have. Certainly my last two and a half years at my present company has given me new insights into the types of SEO problems that enterprise level clients have (like a CMS they can't change, multiple stakeholder issues for the Web site, branding policies, etc) that I never had an opportunity to worry about before. But being a white hat in that context, I know almost nothing about the latest and greatest ways of the dark ones to manipulate Google...lol.
I'm in the same boat as you. Often the most difficult obsticles to a company's success are its own internal departments.
When I first dived into the SEO world I was more concerned about finding the tips and tricks in the elusive 90%.
Later I understood it was more important to understand what information was useless (A lot of it depending on the source) and focus on the concepts that were firmly grounded.
Today, I find it more valuable to try to understand the evolving 90% rather than hunting for some hidden treasure. There really are no unseen shortcuts in long term SEO work.
This is a great thread and viewing myself a Strategy and SEO guy, I would offer one other viewpoint on this information sharing graph.
As one moves from beginning to intermediate to advanced to dark lord, the information becomes less important as the real issue is when and where to apply the available information.
When talking to a potential SEO client (or a current client with a new issue or idea), I am often listening to them trying to figure out what they are actually attempting to do.
Based on that analysis, I can apply what I already know or seek out new information, but the real expertise is in applying the right information (solution) to the SEO situation. This interpretive expertise is less about information and more about collective intelligence.
So, as a beginner...I can share and communicate information...later in a career...it becomes hard to communicate intelligence and specific application of the SEO information.
So, your chart is right about how much information is shared...BUT WHAT about the value of the limited information is shared?
Rand....I think the hidden knowldege component is probably closer to 2% but the constant inclusion of Internet marketing techniques via social bookmarking, etc. vs. the establishment of permanent high quality relevant links in SEO discussions infuriates me. Many times companies succeed because of their business models lend themselves to establishing high quality links and a large volume of lower quality links from other websites.
The vast majority of people practicing SEO have very few #1 rankings at Google for highly competitve seearch terms so they look to blogs and other sources to see if they are missing something. There is so much misinformation out there that many people end up just chasing their tails. If you want high rankings at Google for highly ompetitive search terms you better be in that 2% or 10% as you call it or have a good business model.
In addition to regular testing and looking at data and trying different things, these is also a part of the secret 10% that comes from some NDA arrangements that certain SEOs have with certain search engines.
For instance, you are selected by Microsoft to try out some new search stuff while it is still in Beta. This not only gives you an opportunity to compare the new stuff to the old stuff to kind of reverse engineer it, but it also gives you an idea of how other search engines - like Google - might approach the search in the same way.
And here is the rub of the whole situation - how do you get those special NDA beta-tester invites? You network like crazy and you're active in the SEO community like crazy - forums, conferences, etc.
So in that sense - yes, part of the secret 10% comes from being "recognized" in the industry as a Dark Lord of search.
It is also my observation that in order to utilize most of that secret 10% - you need to be a programmer at some level (redirects, cloaking, autogenerated content and links, etc.), because I don't think there is too much in there that revolves around different uses of anchor text, title tags, etc.
Speaking of information available out there I like reviewing referrals on open sitemeter accounts. Such as all of gawker media - https://www.sitemeter.com/?a=stats&s=sm5gawker&r=11, https://www.sitemeter.com/?a=stats&s=s12deadspin, my own site - https://www.sitemeter.com/?a=stats&s=s26enhance and Tropical SEO - https://www.sitemeter.com/?a=stats&s=s26tropicalseo. Anyone have open sitemeter accounts they look into regularly?
I was thinking about this exact topic during the PubCon Vegas conference. In fact, I would say that most of what was covered durring the PubCon sessions could be found by a) standard google searches or b) working on SEO/SEM projects within the industry.
Personally, I found that the real golden nuggets of information were generally found during breakfast, lunch, at the bars, or hitting the strip with other SEOs. I know that after I tipped a few back I was sharing some of my 10% :).
That option should go on Rand's user poll: "By liquoring up other SEOs" :)
I have to admit that, whether or not the graph is completely accurate, I'm in that intermediate and climbing the curve stage where I'm learning a ton and blabbering most of it to anyone who will listen. Once more income starts rolling in, I imagine I'll be a bit quieter (to the great relief of the online community).
"That option should go on Rand's user poll: "By liquoring up other SEOs" :)"Note to Rand - If that were an option, I would have clicked it using multiple IPs :).
Good to see at least 31% are learning fro Trial and error. meaning working on their own websites as this is the only true way to learn and understand SEO.
Everything else is like leanring a technique in college. It doesnt really have the same feel until your in the real world applying your knowledge in real time.
Error is the mother of invention...
Too true - you learn more from mistakes than successes. By the time you have made a lot of mistakes you can start your own consultancy.
For me, the last graphic is the most interesting.
Those in the intermediate to advanced space are sharing the most — which must mark some kind of tipping point in their career / thinking.
Maybe it's at this point that the real value is in the sharing and re-distribution of knowledge.
What is surprising is that there isn't more of this knowledge flowing downwards, to the guys 'n' gals at the bottom.
Could we be looking at a niche waiting to be filled?
If X% is the knowledge that differentiates you from the other seo people then you're naturally going to want to maintain that competitive advantage, right?
This is one of my first posts on an SEO site too. Mainly because I'm pretty shy. I've been actively doing SEO since about 2002. I find this post very interesting. It really makes me feel better that I'm not the only one that keeps coming back to blogs and forums thinking there has to be something more than I'm missing. Some secret LOL. Overall it hasn't changed a whole lot since I started doing it and the bottom line to good rankings seems to be time and improvement of content and inbound links.
I've been an SEO since Sep 2002 and consider myself an expert but I don't get involved in discussions much, in large part because I'm a sensitive soul and also I don't always feel strongly enough about stuff to start arguing. There is plenty of misleading opinion out there though.
I used to make a lot of posts when I was a newbie at ihelpyou.com and learned a lot by having my opinions or efforts torn apart by the guys there. They were quite vicious though.
Ever since I've just been living off my success with a few big sites owned by ivgstores.com.
Mostly I think that extra 10% comes into play when you lose rankings and your boss puts you under pressure so you have to go out and find out what you need to know. The main component of that is trial and error. You keep trying stuff until you hit something that works.
Unfamiliar with the etiquette here so feel free to refer me to another thread on the question below, but I hope the on topic bit above buys me some forgiveness.
I'm in the zone I refer to above again with a new client, Google is acting up right now, trialling some controversial SERPS and that brings me back to these forums, anyone know what is happening? My feel for this is that there's a program of link devaluation going on and that my client has links from dubious sources but it would be good to get a link to opinion from an expert who has gone to the trouble of collecting thoughts on this.
David
Questions:
To date I have not seen much in the wayof actual SERP impact from the Google 0% tolerance policy on paid links, so far it has appeared to be mostly an excercise in PageRank reduction but, and not having clients with any bought links myself, my observations are based soley on on third party research and a small test-bed with only a few hundred pounds of test link budget, so this could be becoming a more serious rank based penalty.
I would like to have heard the response to this - does anyone out there have any actual evidence of SERPs changing as a result of paid linking?
Interesting post. Something different. I missed it when you posted it, but now I am glad that I did see and read it.
I learned a lot about SEO based on experience with my own personal sites and client sites where I did was the head developer, but also was able to apply my marketing and other business knowledge that I gained from prior jobs and what I did on the side (the blessing and the curse, if you work for a small start-up company and wear a lot of different heads for too many work hours :) )
I would consider myself somewhere between the advanced and expert level. I share as much as I can and find the time to, but I can't share certain information due to NDAs and other contract related restrictions.
I totally agree with the statement that SEO is not something you can learn in school via theoretical models and simulations. It's still a hands on business where practical experience is worth a lot more than any time spent on school and learning the theory. However, as with other things in life, time spent on learning in a "secure" environment to gain the fundamental understanding of the basics of the subject is never a waste. It will help to be more efficient and organized when you actually do things out there in the "wild". It's like being a soldier. Basic training is important and vital for survival, but you only become a real soldier, if you have seen combat.
Very good post! I've been waiting for something like this.
What pisses me off is the 12 or so hours a week I spend drudging through blog post after blog post from Search Engine Land's daily Search Cap and Clickz's SearchDay feed, as well as a few others, and I only end up finding a couple worthwhile things.
I justify the time spent because those one or two or three things make it all worth it but I'm so sick of the unoriginal content, regergitated crap, and the SEO 101 everywhere.
Great rankings in my opinion come from getting the basics right, attention to detail, loads of original content, zealous old school reciprocal linking (both those last two take A LOT of time and MONEY, often more than those with poor rankings are willing or able to spend), directory submissions, on page work using something like ibp or wpg, attention to site structure. In my experience the hardest sell, as well as overcoming the corporate BS referred to earlier if that's where u are, is site structure, it's not something you can explain in a one liner and attention spans are short.
I am not myself out there all the time trying to get the latest dope on what Google likes, but it's never held me back and the sites that I have promoted have eye-watering results. Number ones on all search engines for really heavy hitting phrases as the foundation to a huge dollar turnover build on hardly any seed capital.
When you put all that basic stuff together and apply the filter of intelligence then you've actually got quite a rare blend and I think a lot of my success comes from just wandering through posts like a magpie without actually contributing.
For me the missing 10% is taking it easy and not trying too hard.
firstly, nice charts and graphs! i would agree to the "Public Sharing levels of SEOs", and of the 90/10 split. I would also say that just because SEO knowledge is mostly available in the public domain, the public at large is still very much in the dark about SEO, even if there are more today as a percentage that have a grasp of at least what SEO is than the watermark of 2000/01. The growth of knowledge has remained largely relatively within the industry.
i just took the seomoz premium members survey where it asks your level and lists them as:
so most of the knowledge being shared is from those that have been in the business for less than 3 years. i find that somewhat discouraging. but it's good to know that i am considered "advanced". :)
Three years is quite a long time in search. I have found that a lot of older SEOs are stuck in a mindset which hinders them.Some people who have come into the industry even more recently than 3 years ago have had considerable trouble moving past Big Daddy and adjusting, indeed one of the best client managers I know has less than 2 years experience in a search specific role.I am not so sure that I like the term Dark Lord though, it does smack of black hat tendencies somewhat.
interesting...i too have experienced this. but i can't figure out why it is that way with some people.
Sorry, I was unclear. Yes, a large number of those who fall into this category are chronolically experienced, but I was referring to those who had been working in search for longer, rather than being more aged.
The two groups often do overlap quite heavily, but I am not of the opinion that age hinders adaption.
i understood that you meant "more experienced" rather than "more aged". i'd likely be considered "old" (more aged) than a lot of SEOs out there.
i wonder why i got thumbed down for finding something someone else said interesting. weird.
The two often go hand in hand.
I have found that, throughout my career, I have generally worked in departments with people about my own age.
Search, as an industry, is growing fast, but is still relatively young.
Most of my Colleagues are still only around the 30 mark.
Interesting post - I do think that you're right that as we gain more knowledge we tend to close up and keep those successes to ourselves.
I also think that your 10% number is actually closer to 30 or 35 % simply because if you think about all the things that people now consider "SEO" vs. 3 years ago, that's quite a large amount of SEO: social media, blog, press releases, travel engines, content dev. etc. I remember back in the day seeing Rand inquire about keyword density issues, now-adays a beginning may be inquiring about 301 redirects and cloaking issues.
I think the type of "SEO knowledg" has changed and has gotten much broader.
What a timely post . . . I recently was reprimanded by the company I work for because I am sharing 'too much of our information' with the public.
I changed my name from TheOneCallGuy to my birth name in order to help from sharing too much of the 10%.
Frustrating? Definitely . . . but they allow me to pay the bills, so I submit. ;-)
Brent David Payne
That's too bad. You're active online so they miss out on the branding aspect of their name in my face all the time. I remembered the Onecallguy but your name has no value to them. Sometimes companies are a real pain in the ass. But I guess they're just trying to protect what's theirs.
I once read that it's best to give all your information away. That way you will always be forced to innovate and be at the front of the pack.
I am not convinced by the 'forced to innovate' reasoning, but I agree that we should share information.
Most, if not all of what I know is available to anyone with the patience to search for it. There are always going to be private webmasters and small businesses who will do this.
What I am paid for is not to practise some dark art, those days are rapidly fading, at least for clients of any substance. What clients pay me for is to do this job for them.
Paying me to represent their search interests represents a far greater ROI than doing it themselves and I am a hard cost which they can easily budget for.
Giving those clients generic information is not going to cost me a single sale. Not one.
What it will do is provide a reference point for the small to medium enterprises who might one day realise the value of outsourcing search or need a day or two of consultancy, provide a resource which is free of spin, provide a resource which is content rich and provide a resource which people will want to link to.
Giving away my generic advice for free costs me nothing and is an excellent advert for my work. Bespoke advice on the other hand, you have to pay for.
I wondered at the change.
I have to say, I always noticed that your posts were very specifically NOT using information about your company but about how things could/should/would work.
So they may have thought you were revealing IP to a competitor, but I wouldn't have called it that. More in the sense of a professional discussion. The fact that it takes place in (semi)public doesn't seem relevant to me.
Bummer dude, as my 12 year old would say.
-OT
Thanks . . . It was not a fun week. Scary words being tossed around.
Payne
There are some men in a wood-panelled boardroom. One of them sits alone on his side of the table and is looking nervous. He shifts in his seat, clearly uncomfortable. His tie is so tight it feels like it's choking him. There is a light sheen of sweat on his high forehead.
Across the highly-polished hardwood table, one of the other men is looking stern. We'll call him "Boss". As he sits a little straighter he brings his hands from beneath the table. There is something cupped in his hands, something dark. Brent cannot make out what it is but already he doesn't like it.
"TheOneCallGuy huh?" says the boss with a sneer. He leans forward and slowly opens his hands to reveal a glistening hairy form. It seems to be jittering with a nervous energy of its own like it wants to escape and scurry off to hide. Brent's eyes widen. Suddenly boss tosses it at Brent. Bent almost falls off his chair as he sees the word 'SPIDER!' coming towards him. He quickly reaches to his right and raises his SEO bible and with a hefty swing bats the scary word into a dark corner.
Brent stands, adjusts his tie. He seems to grow in stature. He doesn't look nervous anymore. He opens the door and as he leaves he says "You can call me Mr Brent D. Payne."
In a year or so we will be paying to give out information that is now sold. Consider the cost of speaking at an SEO conference, blogging, commenting. These information dissimination activities only tangentially make you money, and the physical time cost can be substantial.
It is a bit dissapointing to hear that one of the most open SEO firms is deliberately holding out on us.
Well... 14 years ago everything of real long term value was known because we were all adveneturers in an unknown world... who shared... in the hopes others would.. so, we could collectively turn it into a business/profession... that others could come along after us and shite all over it with poorly researched articles based on a few shittey examples chosen only because they prove a hypothesis! To call it research is to use that word in its loosest fashion. 90% of what you read on blogs is short term algo chasin info that is useless 6 months from now!
There isn't anything behind the curtain that a little time on Yahoo! site explorer and a decent keyword tool doesn't show you. As to CTR etc for keywords... well... the only thing that matters is your data and that is right in your logs the other stuff is just info that can provide little value to a marketer trying to improve. Most of the data you say isn't available actually is because if it's not in your log or a keyword tool then... is it really useful?... it's like most data it's useless unless you can actually use it to improve your conversion and ROI because the rest is just what weak SEO's rest their laurels on!
Great post Rand. What if the Dark Lord's of SEO are really more like Jedi fighters fighting the evil empire "search engines"? I sponsor Rand to be Yoda!
All in favor say I!
From here on out your new name is Rand "Yoda" Fishkin. And SEOmozers are Jedi's in training!
Haha....Jean you were definitely 'that kid' weren't you :)
Edit : I mean that in a good way
As a newbie in the SEO field, coming from web developpement but recently deep in the seo world, I agree with the 10/90 rule. Its very interesting that a lot of information is being shared, but now you better be good as being able to get the quality information among the crap stuff.
first post here, and btw sorry for my English, its not my first language :)
Wouldn't have ever noticed. It's probably better than mine and it's my only language. ;-)
Brent David Payne
Dead on, Rand. From a newby perspective, I started on the exact path you described. I was working on a single site and reading any and every blog/ forum post I could get my hands on. Aaron Wall's website was one of the first ones I grasped onto. I had about about a dozen SEO sites bookmarked before I discovered Moz. Now, it's my go-to source. I still look outside of Mozland, of course, but as you have this nasty habit of linking to or mentioning great content (whether you guys create it it or not), it's just easier to get the info at Moz. I, of course, went through the same newby phase that most probably go through where I think I know it all, and then learn enough to realize I don't know sh#t. Thankfully, I didn't make ignorant promises to a bunch of clients. But, the information I applied from your website has been the #1 reason (by far, seriously freakin far) that our business has exploded in 2007. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
So can anyone share what are the kinds of techniques the dark lords hide in their back pockets?
I have read a lot of the published techniques out there and have tried a number of them on different websites. It seems like I am stuck on my knowledge and want to see how to further learn more techniques (the ones that the dark lords know!).
The levels of sharing certainly explain why some people in the industry are highly regarded and yet there's no obvious evidence of their skills.
I see the same names show up on lists of experts over and over again. The appearance of some makes sense while others are just on the lists because of good networking skills. The appearance of the final group often seems mysterious, but can be explained by your chart. Their reputation comes from having been advanced years ago and sharing a lot, but have now moved to the expert stage where sharing decreases. New entrants to the industry have no idea why these people are so well regarded because they weren't around for the sharing phase.