News Alert: SEO is a Scam
Derek Powazek - no, I hadn't heard of him until today either - is, according to the blurb: "one of the top 40 "Industry Influencers" of 2007 by Folio Magazine..has worked the web since 1995 at pioneering sites like HotWired, Blogger, and Technorati".
A designer, apparently.
He doesn't care much for SEO.
The fact we may never heard of him just goes to show that the web is a big place. It is quite common that the rockstars in one niche can be unknowns in an adjacent niche. It is therefore no surprise that those who spend a lot of time in separate niches may not understand each other particularly well.
Derek understands little about the value of SEO.
Read the anti-SEO rant entitled "Spammers, Evildoers, and Opportunists".
I'm sure you'll find it amusing.
If Someone Charges You For SEO, You Have Been Conned
Search Engine Optimization is not a legitimate form of marketing. It should not be undertaken by people with brains or souls. If someone charges you for SEO, you have been conned
Uh-huh.
Well, I'm sure some SEO is undertaken by people without either brains or soul, but the same could be said of web designers.
It is true to say some web designers are clueless about the web, seemingly only interested in crafting pretty pictures. In Flash. They charge clients a fortune for it, and have no idea whether their self-indulgent nonsense will add any value to the clients business. It's barely even a consideration.
That's rather misleading. It might be true, but it's still misleading. Some web designers, just like some SEOs, are pointless. That doesn't mean all SEOs or web designers are pointless. Unfortunately, Derek thinks the entire SEO industry is a con.
Judging an entire industry by what some bad actors do is wrong.
And so, like the goat sacrificers and snake oil salesmen before them, a new breed of con man was born, the Search Engine Optimizer. These scammers claim that they can dance the magic dance that will please the Google Gods and make eyeballs rain down upon you.
Do. Not. Trust. Them
Yawn.
Of course a good SEO can "make eyeballs rain down on you". We do it every day. A good SEO can take a site where a "designer" has indluged in what loosely passes for an adult version of finger painting and get it ranking under appropriate keywords. SEOs do this by identifying keyword traffic (demand) and ensuring pages (supply) meet that demand. We untangle messes made by designers and developers and we implement web marketing strategy where there was none.
Whilst Derek is wrong about SEO on a number of levels, he says some stuff I agree with, stuff we often talk about on this blog.
Make something great. Tell people about it. Do it again.
That’s it. Make something you believe in. Make it beautiful, confident, and real. Sweat every detail. If it’s not getting traffic, maybe it wasn’t good enough. Try again.
Then tell people about it. Start with your friends. Send them a personal note – not an automated blast from a spam cannon. Post it to your Twitter feed, email list, personal blog. (Don’t have those things? Start them.) Tell people who give a shit – not strangers. Tell them why it matters to you. Find the places where your community congregates online and participate. Connect with them like a person, not a corporation. Engage. Be real. Then do it again. And again. You’ll build a reputation for doing good work, meaning what you say, and building trust."
Seth Godin says the same thing. We often quote Seth.
But the problem with "making something great" is that the search engine may not think it is great. This is because a search engine is stupid. It's a machine. And like any stupid machine, it may not recognize greatness, especially if it can't crawl it, or if that greatness doesn't exist in a form it finds palatable.
SEOs help make sure the search engines don't miss greatness.
Derek appears to think SEO is mostly about crawling and hacking. Competent SEOs know that crawling is one part of the puzzle, and most have never hacked to get links. SEO is mostly about the publishing and marketing strategy that comes out of keyword research. Most designers don't understand this concept and therefore misinterpret how SEO works.
As for publishing content for Google, then - yes - guilty as charged, By making content Google wants, Google rewards you. Don't, and it won't. Content can satisfy both Google and humans. It is false to suggest content that appeals to Googles algorithms isn't what humans want to read. Google wouldn't be a business if their results didn't satisfy humans.
Web Design Is Mostly Unimportant ;)
Here's a quote Derek makes lower down in his comments section:
Also, I didn’t call SEO people “fucktards” because that wouldn’t be fair to actual retarded people.
For a "influencer", the guy sure is mature.
Let's try that with web designers to see if it is any less vacuous:
Also, I didn’t call web designer people “fucktards” because that wouldn’t be fair to actual retarded people."
Nope. Still vacuous.
I have nothing against the web design community. I use web designers - good ones - who understand a little about SEO. Good designers who understand a little about SEO are as rare as hens teeth. And even though they do understand a little about SEO, that still leaves the real SEO work to do, which is identification of traffic streams, content creation and link building.
SEO plays, like eHow and Mahalo, attract hundreds of millions in venture capital funding. SEO play About.com sold to the NYTimes for $410 million. Microsoft and Yahoo employ inhouse SEOs to advise their staff and maximize traffic to their content.
Meanwhile, content management systems are free. Great looking templates are cheap. The worlds most valuable web properties don't use "designery" design. They place most emphasis on function. The web is evolving from the crafted, fixed brochure into a platform. Perhaps custom design just isn't as important as it once was. Design has become commodity.
Now, I know that web design is about a lot more than making pretty pictures. It's about structure and interaction. Defining design narrowly as "picture making" is just as stupid as Derek's implied narrow definition that SEO is about crawling, hacking and generating low quality content intended only for Google. Such narrow definitions can lead to false assumptions and conclusions.
Danny Sullivan has also dissected Dereks rant.
Comments
I think it is interesting that Aaron and Derek can be from totally different angles and still reach the same conclusion: focus on making a solid product that adds value.
Sure, the use of "fu**tards" is a little elementary, but after exploring Derek's comments a little more, I think he just got cranked up about the same thing that motivated Aaron to make this such an awesome website: there are a lot of people talking about SEO who don't know what the hell they are talking about.
Aaron,
Your writing style is more & more entertaining! Have you been going to night class =D?
I had to comment on his follow-up post (which btw, well ... I'm sure you've seen, but if you haven't its there). I truly believe that "good" SEO is more of an art than web design! In the sense that there are many more moving pieces, and a balance of both creativity and technical competence is required in order to be successful.
Web Design although eye pleasing and sometime emotion-invoking, is simpler both creatively and technically. It just is, and I will NOT hear their side of the argument because I know what it entails. If I had any artistic ability I would be crafting my own websites on top of everything else.
Thank you =D
Excellent post Peter. I always find it funny that Aaron is always assumed to be the writer when you do a hefty amount of the blogging on here. I enjoy both!
Reading Derek's post really hurt my mind to think that so many people, even those who have been on the web for over a decade, can get things so wrong.
The irony is that Derek's article is a perfect example of SEO out there. This is like the 5th blog that I subscribe to that's responded to this rant. Talk about linkbait!
I've heard of him. in fact i have one of his books sitting on my desk. he is passionate about design and i can see where he's coming from. Still i think his "build and they will come" ideology is a little naive - a bit like writing a beautiful manuscript, leaving it on a park bench - then expecting royalties to start coming in next week.
If you have a great idea why not shout about it - that's where good SEO/SEM comes in.
"Web Design although eye pleasing and sometime emotion-invoking, is simpler both creatively and technically. It just is, and I will NOT hear their side of the argument because I know what it entails. If I had any artistic ability I would be crafting my own websites on top of everything else."
Please. Quit self-affirming. Even creating a definitive marriage between web design and artistic ability shows a lack of understanding on the subject. And calling it simpler in the ways that you describe is also telling to your knowledge on the subject.
I like the part where you put your fingers in your ears and say, "I'm not going to listen to 'their side' of the argument". Who is "their" side, and what argument? The one that you are attempting to create by calling SEO marketing an artform?
How ridiculous.
SEO marketing is more of an art form than web design. Almost every aspect of web design is incorporated into a holistic SEO strategy...but in addition to being conversion oriented and well researched SEO also needs to please customers, linkers, and search engineers. As the web gets more competitive pleasing all 3 profitably becomes more difficult. You have to know how much risk to take on, what short cuts you can take, how the algorithms work (and change), and a whole host of other stuff.
I believe that learning web design and becoming in the top 5% to 10% of web designers is FAR EASIER than learning SEO and becoming in the top 5% to 10% of SEOs.
SEO is more of a Science, and anything can be called an "artform", but I believe that what makes something an artform isn't the perceived difficulty, or creativity involved, it's whose problem you're solving. SEO marketing is never frivilously done just for the passion of doing it, as art is. You do it because people want to make money. Most Web Design is a science, but it can be an artform... it depends on whose problem you're solving... But noone is doing SEO for the "art" of marketing in this fashion.
If you are just using the term to try a put distance between one profession and another, and apply more merit to your own in the process (which I suspect is what is actually going on), then this like the pedal calling itself more beautiful than the flower, in my opinion, but people will always argue of who has the harder job that requires more skill, but in this case your job depends in whole to the actual content makers that are making these websites that you promote.
Personally, I think this is like the people who buy spots for commercials for Films (marketing people), calling marketing more of an artform than filmmaking.
There's lots to be done, known, researched, tested, studied in SEO marketing... there's even room for creativity in the way that you get links I guess... sorta. But let's not try to self-glorify to point of losing grasp of the fact that it is marketing, and people have been doing marketing for a long time.
People have been doing marketing for a long time, but they have not been link building and reviewed by Google search engineers for a long time.
Working the gray area ***is*** where much profit is created for many businesses.
For 95%+ of websites (or 95%+ of the websites that aspire to be profitable businesses) it is FAR MORE IMPORTANT that the SEO / marketing approach is more artistic than the design approach is.
I have ranked ugly websites and produced profits (and later improved design to further aid the perception of quality). But a beautiful website with no exposure is worth exactly $0.
And I have done SEO for artistic and social reasons as well...not always driven by Dollars.
I feel that SEOs do great work, have an interesting job, and can turn an ugly website into a profitable machine. So don't get me wrong.
What is being hung up on here is the word artform, comparing who works harder and is more "important" thusly, and now using the word "artistic".
"...marketing approach is more artistic than the design approach is."
SEO/Marketing can be "artistic" in 1 of the 7 definitions of the word (showing skill or excellence in execution), I concede that. But to say that it is more "artistic" than the design is silly, and you are just throwing a word around to express your bias for your chosen field, but you should chose a different word, because web design can fall into all seven of the definitions of the word "artistic".
"Artistic", and "artform", do not mean "important" or "profitable".
"And I have done SEO for artistic and social reasons as well..."
Social reasons I'm sure. But I think you are confusing the word "artistic" in order to make your field sound different.
How do you do artistic SEO, or for artisitic reasons? Was it like, a performance? Writing about SEO is an artform, and artistic, but it's the writing, not the SEO, that is an artform.
You don't craft anything with SEO... there is nothing to look at, listen to, or watch... it's results oriented, and the results are making something else popular/seen/profitable.
SEO is important, in some cases more than others, and in some not at all... just like design... but SEO cannot be done for "artistic reasons". If you were to say that, then it means EVERYTHING can be done for "artistic" reasons.
I'm a plumber for artistic reasons.
I'm an investment banker for artistic reasons.
It just doesn't make any sense to compare it to art.
That is your problem. You think SEO is separate from the content. They are often 1 and the same...intertwined from idea conception on through to implementation and promotion.
That might be true if the SEO specialist is there from the beginning... or if they have free reign to drastically alter content. All of which I think would drastically dilute the idea of the content, unless it's just marketing copy... which isn't artistic writing.
This expresses exactly the idea that Derek was touching upon. Which is, now your are saying that the content is tailored for search engines, instead of users. If it is tailored for users, but just so happens to be good for SEO, as well... then it's not SEO, it's writing good content.
If you are changing your writing because of keyword research, it is no longer artistic... it has become marketing copy optimized for a specific purpose, which hopefully is good for the user still, but the priority is SEO.
A "problem" that you have is not understanding web design enough and thinking that it just making things look pretty, and that development of information hierarchy, link structure, robust navigational structure, semantic and well-crafted code, etc... are things that are left up to SEO specialists to work on, instead of things that any web designer worth her/his salt should have in mind during development.
"SEO" is something that should be considered through the development process, but only in 2nd priority to user-friendly content, and you don't need an SEO Marketing Specialist to do it.
You have elevated your title, in your head, to be the be-all end-all masters of internet creation. And the content makers are second-class citizens.
That was broken logic.
I am an SEO who publishes sites, with many of them driven with the goal of gaining rankings. And believe me that when I decide to try to create something viral and remarkable that such efforts do not "dilute the content". Your problem is your mechanical view of SEO...you simply can't see beyond it.
Hugh McLeod understands that marketing is partly art. But you don't. You both still have the right to breathe, but he probably makes more for his marketing efforts, which is fine. ;)
Aaron, web design and development is WAY more than just making "beautiful websites". You have usability issues which are quite complex when you consider the functionality of CMS / e-commerce websites. Some may think this is extreme, but I think it's common sense: a decent developer/development team will have developed their own CMS platform too, so they know the code inside out, and can adapt it at a moment's notice for clients. Then there's accessibility, search engine friendliness - making sure your content management system marks up pages clearly in a semantic sense, URL re-writes etc, programming/database (which is a HUGE area in itself, of course), speed issues such as looking to cache particular areas of a website instead of fetching from the database, and understand the impact your coding has on hosting too. Yes, hosting. I've learnt the ins and outs of IIS because it benefited the sites I have created for my clients, and moved all my sites from shared hosting to my own dedicated servers a number of years ago. You might think such a setup can only be created by a team, but I am part of a growing number of programmers who have turned to web design and can holistically create quite complex sites and host them too. Having learnt all the disciplines needed to create and host a site, I *know* web design/development requires a very complex and demanding set of skills. My own website template has taken 5 years to develop, and will be forever in development as updates are made to it.
In terms of "beautiful websites", in my 12 years experience in the web design/development field, I've actually seen websites move AWAY from pure aesthetics (what you would call a "beautiful website") to out-and-out usability, so even your idea that web design is purely about aesthetics is missing a whole raft of issues that are far more critical when it comes to website design and development, it's just that they're "under the hood". Imagine if I said SEO is basically about buying links? Your head would be spinning with a list of other areas that involves SEO. And so too, web design is WAY more than just aesthetics.
I say all this, and have also known for 5 years now how critical SEO is to a website's success.
Hi Andrew
I agree with you that usability is huge...but the clowns that say SEO is so obvious that it is never worth paying for and that it is either obvious a scam are not people who are doing holistic development. If they were doing holistic development (like you do) then they would realize the importance of search as a distribution channel and not just brush it off like that Derek clown did.
I agree with that 100% and my views are pretty much yours in terms of people downplaying SEO. In an ideal world, search engines would list websites according to quality of content and/or service provided.
Unfortunately we live in a much more algorithmic reality where the best sites do not necessarily (or even often!) appear near the top.
Unfortunately there are a million 'fake' SEO's from overseas that are making the whole industry look like crap. Just head over to a forum like DigitalPoint and you will see 100's of posts claiming to do SEO for $peanuts$ by spamming comments, forums, profiles or some other link building schemes that don't work.
I think Derek is just mad that he is being undercut by overseas designers that do the same quality of work for 1/100th the price.
Seriously, these attacks on SEOs are getting tiring, reaching the edge of "ah, you again *yawn*".
Calacanis, Seth and now this. Will they ever learn to learn what they are talking about? I'd figure this is the first thing they do before designing a website (right?)
jgsaw123: I beg to differ: I am quite an overseas SEO (Russia), but I do provide quality services. Then again, I do agree that DP is, for the most part, a den of dirt cheap, mostly spammy, SEOs.
Yes Yura, you are one of the rare exceptions and don't get the idea that I have a problem with working with quality overseas providers. My coder I have worked with for over 4 years is from India and he is very good and very affordable. I took a look at the site in your profile and it is a 'real' site with backlinks, ranking and probably some visitors too. Most of these 'fake' SEO's advertise they are doing Dick and Jane's magical link pyramid that will guarantee you top ranking on all search engines for $29.99 - and the amazing thing is that people actually buy they services??? If they even have a site it is a free template with 10 backlinks and zero ranking.
Part of the reason there are so many scams is that hosts, web designers, registrars, email spammers, and cold callers sell junk product at commodity prices. They teach consumers that SEO should be cheap. Then consumers use inadequate budget which precludes honest workers from being interested in servicing them. The true fault of the market is generally consumer ignorance. And when you consider that sites like this one share millions of dollars worth of SEO information for free you have to feel that the consumers who remain willfully ignorant and cheap deserve to get scammed.
Maybe it would go some way to appeasing cynical webmasters/designers to rephrase "SEO", search engine optimisation and all of its derivatives to something else. I believe you have blogged about this before mentioning that these phrases are also a red flag to Google. Unfortunately this has become the default way of referring to website optimisation.
No matter what marketing phrase you use, if you create something legitimate and valuable that produces high ROI then scammers WILL follow. It is sorta like the water cycle and rivers flowing downstream toward the ocean.
It is tempting to blame the consumer for their ignorance and greediness (do they really think they will get a gauranteed number one ranking in Google for $99.99) but at this point the onus is on SEO's to join together and educate the masses. Really in the end all SEO's lose because of all the scams and sub-par services offered from over nook-and-cranny of the web. Once a person is burned by a scam or wastes money on a useless service it make it 10 times more difficult to bring them on to a legit program.
I understand the process of a greedy person wanting millions for $20 and then blaming others when it doesn't work...but it is not the job of the industry to come together and inform the cheap, the ignorant, and the lazy.
In what other professions do people expect (and feel entitled to) business tips worth millions of dollars for free? You wouldn't expect a lawyer to prepare a free example case. You wouldn't expect an ad agency to make an example campaign for your brand.
Perfect response, Peter, well done.
Smells like Derek is a plant to spice up the conversation. The Howard Stern shtick; create a train wreck, stand back and watch the players argue over 'who is the real victim?' If that is not Derek's strategy, he should become aware of this formula and use it. It is working. The devil often screams the truth just to get your goat. Normally I would yawn and keep working, but I value what goes on here. Don't fall for this design vs seo BS. Back to work doing SEO that changes things for millions of clients every day.
Doug Heil had a bastard child?
I totally agree with him that Black-Hat SEO is a nightmare that is creating unbelievable amounts of noise on the Internet. But in his own words:
"Make something great. Tell people about it."
And how do you tell people about it? That is all good, white-hat SEO stuff.
You can make the most incredible whatever in the world, but if no one knows about, you didn't fail because your idea was bad. You failed because your marketing was bad.
Good marketing on the Internet leverages white-hat SEO practices.
So, I disagree with him, in part.
Few successful people wait for the market to find them. And if they do then typically a competitor will find them first, rip off their idea, repackage it, and push market it...beating them out on their own idea.
I have seen the above happen numerous times. And I even saw it happen to me. Then I started to become more aggressive and more in tune with reality.
To many people ***any*** form of push marketing is spam. But you can't get the word out without doing push marketing. And of course the people who call all forms of push marketing spam never apply that theory to themselves when they are launching a new project.
Very nice reply. The one thing I can say is that if Derek was looking to get some exposure out of this he has accomplished that. Look at all of the people talking about this and linking to his article.
You will note that our only link in goes through a 302 redirected link. He didn't "earn" any links from us by being a loud-mouthed ignorant dirtbag. ;)
Yeah I agree Aaron, and I'm a developer and I KNOW SEO is VITAL to the success of a business.
I'm tired of this "make yourself remarkable" rhetoric. In fact, all it does is provoke people into hyperbole and gimmicks - viral videos, fake controversy, hyped-up opinions. To me, that's garbage (I know some will disagree, but...). Instead, I tell my clients to put their efforts into improving their services. SEO introduces new customers to their ever-improving services. A virtuous circle. While they're busy improving their website and services/products they offer, I'm "push marketing".
Look at offline. You don't need to be remarkable to survive and thrive. You just need to offer a good service/product, be trustworthy, and offer the service/product at a decent price. And then you use advertising and marketing to help introduce customers to you and convince them to buy your service/product.
Why would online be any different? And it's that last point where SEO comes in.
All valid points Peter. I've actually heard of Derek and live-blogged his session at Webstock (Wellington) this year. The scary thing about this is that he's got a lot of influence. He's a crowd-sourcing fan and actively promotes community driven web sites. Shame he chose to isolate an entire community with his misinformed attack on an industry he clearly knows very little about. You might enjoy my response also: http://www.ask-kalena.com/seo/dumbass-of-the-week-derek-powazek/ (assuming URLs are allowed in comments)
Thanks Kalena.
There will always be clueless twits, like Powazek, who will spout uninformed garbage. The upside is that the more people who believe him, the less completion there is for the rest of us :)
DreSeo
"Reading Derek's post really hurt my mind to think that so many people, even those who have been on the web for over a decade, can get things so wrong."
Heh. Indeed :)
As Casual points out, Derek Powazek is clearly a master in the art of linkbait. He will probably be channeling all of the lovely link juice that this article creates into some side project shortly.
Has anyone approached him to buy a link yet? ;-)
So Derek calls out SEO as a scam while touting social media - a field that is quickly cornering the market on snake oil. Fast talking social gurus charging boring clients with nothing interesting to say big $$$ to make Twitter profiles, blogs and Facebook pages that will bring in zero return. They just make the client feel like they are "doing social media."
Infuriating.
Great point, Webster :)
Laughed out loud....
I think that if anyone who is caught 'really ripping people off' more than five times, they should have their hands cut off at the wrists. This would deter them a bit more.
A lot of Derek's statements are so ridiculous and absolute that there is no question in my mind that his post was a link-bait, attention-bait piece. In that regard he has been quite successful, having two of top SEO's fire back.
Nice reply btw, also enjoyed Danny's SEO FAQ that isn't from the land of unicorns follow-up.
Well designed web page definitely has it's wonders over attracting visitors to frequent your site again. Very true that knowledge of SEO will help tremendously in designing effective web page =)
Cheers!
Clearly, Derek is the true con artist here. If you take one look at the source code on his site, you can see that. His page title alone screams SEO as he has planted his name there twice! He says these things to gain backlinks...no doubt in my mind. And guess what? It's working! Who is the con artist now?
My favorite comment Derek makes is in his SEO faq response page where he says - "and I rank 3rd for Derek". Hey Derek, let me know how much business that brings you.
Perhaps dinner at the fine Dereks eating establishment, with live music performed by the Derek Trucks band. After dining, a viewing of the movie Derek by Isaac Julien may be in order!
OK, I'm being bad. But is it worse than posting insulting and ignorant commentary, with the sole intention of creating controversy for the sake of self-promotion (or for link bait)? None of these other 'Derek' related sites resorted to such tactics. Don't they deserve some link love too?
Yeah. But the problem is not that he ranks #3 for Derek (that drives no business to him). The real problem is he is an arrogant and ignorant asshole. ;)
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