seo lies Archives - Page 2 of 2 by Mark Murnahan

Remembering Farrah Fawcett and Google PageRank

Google PageRank? Seriously, just get out your checkbook right now and write me a blank check. Don’t worry, I will go ahead and fill in the dollar amount. You just be sure to sign it.

I was thrown back into yesteryear by a blog article I read at Search Engine Journal that discussed Google PageRank. No, it was not something from deep in the bowels of their 2003 archives, but rather a real life demonstration of sad linkbait published only yesterday. I don’t need a pissing match with these guys, but it was sad to see a long-dead topic like PageRank being exhumed for public consumption.

It reminded me about who I write for, and why. I write for you, and I try to make useful facts and good ideas spring to life with a touch of entertainment value. Once in a while I will throw in my Murnahan Cheez Whiz style to keep you on your toes and make you say “what?!”

My objectives include reducing the abundance of blatant SEO lies and myths that search engine optimizers promote. Sure, I may not be able to fix the whole world, but I can do my part to blow the “bullshit whistle” on bad SEO information.

Since I want you to subscribe to my blog and come back, I try to overlook topics that will be genuinely useless and guide you wrong. You know, topics to scare you into putting crap in your brain like Google PageRank changes.

The article I am talking about brought acid to the top of my throat and reminded me just how easy it could be to scam people out of a blank check. It touched on just how “unknown” this SEO business I am in really is, and it made me feel like one hell of a nice guy for telling things straight.

I will go ahead and link to the article, so I guess their “linkbait” idea worked. The article is titled “New PageRank Formula May Change Your SEO Priorities.” Below is my comment, in which I replied to my friend and fellow long-time SEO who also criticized the article, Jim Rudnick of Canuck SEO:

OMG, are people seriously still writing about PageRank? Maybe we can throw some meta tags into the conversation. While we are at it, I want to break out my old Farrah Fawcett poster and leave my mom a “surprise” under the bed, too.

Agreed, very old news. It is funny to me that somebody recently mentioned the PageRank of my blog and my first thought was as nostalgic as my Atari 2600.

I have not even looked at the “Green Fairy” of PageRank in half a decade. If you are doing the things you should be doing, people will love your stuff enough to link to it. If it is relevant content for a given search, on a reasonably decent website, and other people crave it, the site will rank well. Isn’t that a whole lot easier than waiting for Google to give you a number?

The remembrance of Google PageRank brought to mind the different qualities of search engine optimizers that I enjoy just enough to squash them to pieces and bury them in a shallow grave.

It is easy to understand how people could get confused about SEO. It is an industry that begs for naivety, ignorance, greed, and dishonesty. Sadly, these things are in great abundance among website owners and want-to-be SEO providers, alike.

Lay Down Your Google PageRank Gun and Listen!

Don’t shoot the messenger, but if you are looking at measurements like Google PageRank as an indicator of progress, your efforts are a hot mess. Save yourself some grief. A far better answer is to create something useful, creative, interesting, and relevant to people. These are the things which compel people like crack cocaine. These are the things which cause people to reference you and link to your website content. These are the things which make a difference, and not some misunderstood 1-10 measure that Google itself tells you to ignore.

I do not even understand why there is still a Google PageRank measurement, because Google has made it damn clear for many years that the most important thing is to give people what they want. If you concern yourself a fraction as much about what you are delivering to people as you concern yourself with Google, you will very likely rank a whole lot better. Plus, your PageRank will go up, too!

Note: I am not one of those people who only preach the gospel of “Content is King” and that writing a bunch of stuff on a blog will make something rank well. There are a lot of things which go into good SEO. Google PageRank is not in my list of SEO lessons, and I don’t think it was anywhere in my SEO blog archive, either … until now.

OK, doubters, now that you have heard me out, go ahead and fire your PageRank guns and tell me how wrong I am in the comments section below.

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Have you ever been hit by a stroke of Genius, telling you that automated directory submissions will help your ranking in search engine results? Maybe you thought that some nicely crafted meta tags would help your search engine ranking. I may be a bit too hard on people at times, but common sense just completely eludes many people when it comes to SEO (search engine optimization). Many website owners want to rank in the top of search results so badly that they will try almost anything. Well, as long as it is cheap, easy, and sounds techie-fancy.

When I started to write this, I was going to rant about automated directory submissions. Then I realized that I have touched on the topic of directory submissions before. I still have something to get off my chest, and I still have something to say about the toxic lies and misinformation that have been created surrounding the SEO industry. It is often fueled by greed and hope of getting something for nothing.

It is easy for liars to make something believable to people who know little about the topic. This has created an ugly monster of the SEO industry.

The SEO Monster Eats, Every Day!

In just the last spin of the clock, I have had several people ask me for information about automated directory submission services to improve their search engine ranking. It reminds me that most people really do not understand SEO. Judging from the glazed look on their faces, I can tell that many people really don’t want to understand. They just want it to magically work. I understand that, and I can imagine how frustrating and stressful it must be for non-SEO people to filter reliable information about search engine optimization through all of the common SEO lies (although this may help: 7 SEO Lies: How to Know When the SEO is Lying).

Outdated, Outrageous, and Downright Dishonest SEO Garbage

There is so much bad information and outdated material spread across the Internet that I think it would frustrate the heck out of me if I was trying to feel my way through it for the first time. What bothers me is how many people are out there trying to earn a buck by selling things that do not help, and even more commonly, severely damage paying customers’ hopes of being found in a search engine.

The world of SEO truly is like a foreign language to most people. They read something about SEO and meta tags, and they think they are on to something revolutionary. It just stuns me that with all of the great information out here on the Internet, how many people are fooled by the first scam they come across.

For some people, I think there is a sense that if it is written, it must hold some truth. Once they find out the hard way that it was a scam and it didn’t work, they either give up and hate everything about SEO, or they take the time to learn the difference and read something sensible and logic-based like “Good SEO vs. Bad SEO: How to Tell the Difference“.

Even in large corporate settings, I have often found people in the role of search engine optimizer collecting a nice salary who got their job just by spouting out a few industry buzz words. The people hiring them are either enamored by their “vast knowledge”, or just give up and offer them a job on blind faith.

A really hard pill to swallow is that most of today’s SEO “experts” have never ranked for anything significantly competitive. That is not a gouge against my industry, and these people are not my competitors. It is a statistical truth. To make this point clear, just have a look at the backlinks to most SEO websites and then see where they rank for the first four words of their home page title. Try this with the website of the SEO who reaches you by email, on the phone, or in a paid advertisement, instead of you finding them through a search.

Productized SEO Services Created a Monster

I think that productizing SEO and selling easy to understand pre-packaged SEO services has created and fed this monster. As an industry, those of us who sell SEO services realized a long time ago that it is much easier to package things up and say “Here is your price, and here is what you get.”

This certainly makes it easier to sell SEO. After all, it is easier for clients to choose from a list and compare it to what others offer. Also, it is a lot more profitable for the SEO to create something once, and sell it many times. The truth is that it is seldom what is best for meeting the customer’s objectives, and it creates a mentality that ranking well in search engines is merely a predefined set of SEO tasks.

This is not to say that things like SEOmoz’s SEO tools, SpyFu, and the squillion other SEO tools are not just great. These are tools, but like a paintbrush, they are only as good as the person using them. A tragedy that happened is when a lot of SEO realized that they could sell far more, and easier, if they promised something such as top ten ranking for “x” number of keywords and then price it and put it in a shopping cart for people to buy. There are countless types of SEO services being promoted with a “buy it now” approach, without any consultation, without any strategy, and with a promise of easy results.

Do you really trust anything that is so easy? OK, rephrase … Do you really trust anything that is so easy in 2011?

Directory Submission Service Example

I started my rant with directory submissions, and I will still use it as an example. “What is a directory submission service?” I hope that is what you are thinking, but in case you did not already know, I will explain it. It is a once-heralded way to automatically submit a website to long lists of search engines and directories, with a hope that it would help search engine rankings, bring more visitors to a website, and boost sales.

I suppose it seems logical to a lot of people that if they use SEO directory submission services to add their website link to a squillion directories and search engines, it will produce magical results. Now let’s clear this up. Seriously, do you think that a magical automated fix like directory and search engine submissions will be your pink pony ride to success?

Oh, and nobody else ever thought of that, so it will be revolutionary! Right? Search engines will suck that up like grape soda and will count all of those backlinks (links to your website) as proof that your website is valuable.

Rub a lamp, sucker! Maybe a Genie will come to your assistance, too.

The Productized SEO Monster Awakens My Inner-Sailor

There are just a few things which make it hard for me to hold back my inner sailor and refrain from dropping severely foul language all over my blog. People falling for things like automated directory submissions and other simple tricks helping their SEO efforts is one of those things. I just don’t think I can even be nice about this. Shit! Call it a temporary case of Tourette’s Syndrome, but this inner-sailor in me is wanting out pretty badly.

People who actually fall for things like this drive me nuts. I just want to say “Hey, Genius, do you want to know the truth, or would you rather waste more money and time to screw up your website?”

If you want the real truth about SEO, slow down, pay attention, and stop breathing those SEO fumes in the air. Spend some time to learn things that will actually work, and will help you to grow your business. For example, those links in the text of this article are not just there for me, and they may help you, a lot. Better yet, here is a link for some relatively easy SEO tips that can save you a lot of time and frustration: SEO Lessons You Should Know.

These tips will not cost you a penny, and will only take a short time to read. Maybe I am just full of hot air, but if so, go ahead and search Google for SEO lessons and see where that link I just gave you shows up in non-advertised, relevance-based organic results. Hint: It is not number two on the list.

I do not write about this because I am seeking a bunch of customers. I only work with a couple clients at a time, and I turn away far more than I work with. Yes, writing about SEO helps people to find me, but it is not just here to help me. This is here to help you.

Just one more thing! Have you subscribed to aWebGuy.com yet?