SEO -An Illegitimate & Orphan Child of Google? Adopt @ Your Risk

SEO was born under the dark shadow of Google. I call it as an illegitimate and orphan child that Google has produced ‘purposely’. The search engine discourages us to adopt but unfortunately, we have adopted ‘SEO’, and made a mistake, as Adam and Eve had done by eating the forbidden fruits. 

SEO’s Anger - Now, we have developed so much love for the so-called ‘adopted child’ that if anyone talks about its ailment or death, they simply bell the cat. Yes, ‘SEO dead’ topic is a holy crap of millions of thriving SEO agencies. Anyone who dares writing the ‘truth’ simply faces the wrath from a big chunk of SEO professionals. Of course, their frustration stems from their dwindling SEO businesses due to frequent change in Google’s algorithm. 

Original image is different: Credit to Healthy Life Style Plus 

Agencies’ Defensive Mechanism - SEO agencies/professionals always defend any algorithm changes by Google, and justify their existence STRONGLY. They always say SEO is going big and bigger. Not sure how but they give a thesis of explanation as if they are all PhD holders while in reality, some of them may be school/college-drop outs.    

Image Courtesy: Local Smile

Honesty Pays Heavy Price - When some prospects come to me for SEO advice I tell them straight forward, “I can do digital marketing of your web property if you have budget but not SEO because it may be deemed a violation of Google guidelines at some point latter. Everything today is white hat may become black hat tomorrow. It has happened in the past and will continue to happen until Google bot is too smart to display semantic results based on CONTEXT but not on CONTENT and a bunch of LINKS. So, I cannot guarantee 100% safety. Many of them leave because they want to make Hollywood movies by casting Bollywood actors (No offense to Bollywood fraternity. I quoted this as the dollar is getting strong against rupee) and expect a blockbuster. J

I openly try to share industry insights with them and literally struggle to explain that a company’s visibility and traffic in the semantic web depends on much, much more than just its ability to rank high on Google for a few keywords.

Hence, my honesty pays heavy price. See the SEO market today how loosely they sell their service at less than $2 dollar an hour or even less. They promise their clients to make Hollywood movies by casting Bollywood actors, and help them dream a blockbuster. Mission Impossible J

Image Courtesy: Mission Impossible

Dishonesty Gets Us Profit - Everyone is not LIKE me. There are millions of companies you search on Google, and they say 100% guarantee, #No 1 ranking, guaranteed return money, ranking within 30-90 days, blah, blah….! They have truly learnt the art of ‘cheating’ the customers as they have been cheating the ‘system’ over a decade. Well done! 

 Image courtesy: Neuro Science Marketing

Theory of Guess Work &Probability - Does SEO work on guesses and probability theory? A big yes! If 1 of nth is good to try then why not trying 100,000,000 of nth for some quick results, basically fast ranking on Google. There are companies who celebrate with joys if they rank on the top of Google to show their portfolio as a proof of their excellence to sell their crappy services for fat money.  

Image Courtesy: David Amerland

Background of SEO Professionals - Today, the so-called SEO professionals, who we see, have come from either ‘link building background or forum/directory administration background. Yes, there was a time when the so-called SEO friendly directories, forums, classifieds, article sites, etc., were galloping with all success. God knows if users ever search these for getting information about the websites they look for! We still find SEO professionals doing this. Blame them not, but their professional background!  

Image Courtesy: Agents of Value

Join the Conversation for Link Baits - Today, social bookmarking sites, social media sites, etc., are not SPAMMED but literally FUCKED. Excuse my French if I am too strong using this. For them, there is no difference in ‘sharing’ and ‘spamming’. SEO professionals look at everything from search engine benefit perspective than from users’ benefit perspective. They post comments not because they want to join the conversation but because they want to obtain links and referral traffic. Not sure if it is a do-follow or a no- follow tactic! For me, it must be a never-follow tactic.    

   

There was a time when link baiting was ok and today content baiting is fine. Even Google is considering a no-follow tag for widgets, and apps. Not sure if someone can try for ‘context’ baiting’ tomorrow!  

Image Courtesy: Blog Serrp

EBP: A Bullshit Approach? - I don’t understand any logic behind the Exact, Broad, and Phrase (EBP) approach that SEO professionals use while optimizing a copy or web page. Oh…. It’s just because Google shows EBP in keyword tool. Not sure if users ever search in a similar fashion. How Google has made SEO professionals ‘robotics’ who search and optimize the way Google wanted, for both organic and sponsored search results!  

ECP: A Semantic Approach- Things seem moving from EBP now. Google is going beyond keywords, and considering more ‘human factors’, where anticipation, communication, and personalization (ECP) are going to be the main focus to display semantic search results.

Search and psychology go in tandem with each other.  David Amerland has written an excellent post –How Semantic Search is Changing End Users’ Behavior.

The video gives enough signals where the future search is heading towards. To me, this connotes how ECP is going to replace EBP.

But never worry, if one door is closed, God/Google will open another door for performing big and bigger role, as many SEO junkies claim, correct? LoL

SEO – Life is Too Short: The golden era of the so-called SEO is gone. We are entering into an era where ‘real digital marketing’ or ‘responsible marketing’ is a key to all success sans any short cuts. We need to understand that Google is essentially an advertising company that hardly encourages SEO for using its search engine FREE. Even Google uses our Gmail services to make money. It’s OK as long as the search engine adheres to –DON’T BE EVIL -cliché. Each and every change Google does is to monetize their company. Of course some fundamental changes are the need of the hour to stay ahead of their ‘collaborative forces’.  

Image Courtesy: Once Upon a Discussion

Frequent algorithm updates by the search engine are indeed discouraging SEO moves it’s unfortunate that SEO professionals adopt the latest practice because “this is now the way it is done” –they always argue.

SEO would be a Once Upon A Time story! 

SEO Industrial Complex: We have seen how a few the so called 'search marketing gurus' have left Godin and Kotler far behind to gain fame in a new booming digital economy. Not sure if Kotler/Godin has as many followers as these gurus have. Their hands are too big to catch 'followers', alas!

Image Courtesy: The Great and Terrible

We have seen how forums/directories have been transformed to ‘user generated blogs’ to sell their SEO software/SEO products. Unfortunately, SEO professionals/new aspirants share their ideas, posts, articles, etc. Even I have tried a few times but for different reasons but they are too smart to understand my objective behind. 

Their criteria of approving a post by them is rigorous, as they claim, but not for their existing customers who lend all their credit for their success. 

1. Some SEO aspirants/customers experiment an idea to increase search traffic or ranking, writes and posts to these sites. They find them unique, and approve the posts
2. Followers take up the idea and share it. It goes viral very fast.
3. Subscribed followers comment, like, and appreciate over their new found wealth and success, and they create buzz across social media.  

Ultimately, such buzz goes to Google, and the company comes to know how SEO spams its algorithm based on the theory of conditional probability –if 1 of nth is good to try then why not trying 100,000,000 of nth for some quick results. Thus, algorithm changes -Panda, Penguin, and what not…! 

Want Proof? 

On August 20, 2013, Moz in its blog published a post- Amazing Correlation Between Google +1s and Higher Search Rankings. The post became so viral on social media that Matt Cutts had to step in the following next day (August 21, 2013), and said "Google 1+ don’t lead to higher ranking." The post has been published on Search Engine Watch. First time Matt gave a clear and direct answer. Typically, his answer is always in ‘not provided’ mode.   

Do Verification Here: 

1) http://goo.gl/Bi2TNn
2) http://goo.gl/LS4spx

Truly said, build a better mousetrap and mouse gets smarter! 

Image Courtesy: Salon

Matt Cutts’ & His Propagandists - Watch hundreds of Matt Cutts’ videos, you’d hardly get straightforward answer to your queries. His direct answer is ‘Not Provided’. 

He is, indeed, a chief-propaganda officer at Google dining with the so-called ‘big SEO stalwarts’. The so-called SEOs always defend Google for its unusual move in a caveat - a few of them call themselves ‘school drop outs’ comparing themselves with the ones (school/college drop outs) who really contributed to the world.  

SEO is not a business today. It has become a racket, a racket that does EVERYTHING from selling SEO certificates to SEO software. At time, when semantic search is slowly creeping in, they are toasting their breads before it becomes too late. Google, as an advertising company, has made them the best sellers while there is no dearth of customer!  

SEO Professionals– Tools for Google: You must have heard of a popular quote –“if you don’t sell a product, and don’t buy a product, you are a product!.” SEO agencies are LIKE Google’s products. The search giant uses them as tools because SEO professionals do the same, as Google asks them to do. How foolish it is when SEO professionals think Google offers them some FREE SEO tools! 

Wonder, how the search engine has made some humans the real machines!            

Image Courtesy: Mirellasantana Deviantart

Summary: Wear a professional marketing hat instead of SEO’s black & white hats! Remember Google is not your friend even if you build Google friendly website. As semantic search becomes more practical, the ailing orphaned child of Google will die soon.

If anyone is hurt, my apology!