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.
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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.
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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!
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!
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.
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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.
- 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
- Followers take up the idea and share it. It goes viral very fast.
- Subscribed followers comment, like, and appreciate over their new found wealth and success, and they create buzz across social media.
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:
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 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!
Excellent entry! I'm been looking for topics as interesting as this. Looking forward to your next post.
ReplyDeleteour best to be grateful. Although everything can seem meaningless after a large disappointment, cultivating gratitude for what you have will help to relieve the pain of your loss. Thanks
ReplyDeleteEach and every change Google does is to monetize their company
ReplyDeleteSEO is one of the most difficult jobs for businesses to
ReplyDeletetackle. That isn't to say that having an inexperienced person help out with
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their help should be limited to assisting the chef, not directing the
operation. Through the SEO website audit, the status of the site as evaluated
by search engines can be assessed.
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