SEO’s to Google - We’re Your Best Friends, Stop Treating Us Like Enemies
I decided to add this note at the beginning of this post. Please understand while there is a ton of fact in this post it is to be read as a form of satire. Many did not seem to grasp that, hence my addition of this notification.
Sometimes it seems that despite owning one of the biggest SEO Companies in the world that Google has it in for all of us. They have waged war on buying links, crippled paid blogging services by nuking their networks page rank and have even banned web sites of major corporations. They constantly seem to push a covert mantra that all SEO’s are spammers unless they “just create content and let the system work” or some version there of. Personally I think it is getting old! So on behalf of my fellow SEO’s here is my direct letter of truce to Google, let’s see if anyone cares.
Dear Google,
As a person who has been optimizing content for Search Engines before Google was a search engine let me say I admire the work you have done and the industries you have created that have benefited so many of us. That said I and many other SEO’s resent the fact that you have worked so hard to make our lives miserable, spread propaganda about us and generally blamed us for your search engines limitations.
To be blunt every time a person runs a search and can’t find something they are looking for it is not because some evil SEO have optimized spam web pages. Often it is a failure of Google to return a relevant result and it is also at times a searcher who is, well, not capable of running a proper web search.
The following is a list of why Google could not exist with out SEOs
- The Long Tail - Right now searchers are beginning to search with more and more 3 and 4 word queries, to find specific content. It is SEOs that are out here doing deep data mining to find out what these people are looking for and creating specific content to meet those needs. Without us building that content and optimizing it such queries would now still be bringing your users the same 30 - 40 websites that show up for most of the larger terms and giving them the poor result that led them to go to long queries in the first place.
- Someone to Blame - Honestly with out us optimizing content when your algorithm takes a dump who would you blame? Who would you point the finger at? As mentioned above if we did not optimize tail search terms your results would be worse and we would not be here as your whipping board.
- Links - Honestly you would not be able to find much of the quality content that allows you to sell those wonderful ads (that you arbitrarily make one person pay more for then the next for reasons only you know) that make you those billions of dollars. Most site owners are simply unable to understand the nuts of bolts of making content indexable, findable and friendly to your bots with out our guidance.
- Even the Real Spammers Helped - Seriously when your first few versions of search were released they had holes one could drive a truck through or perhaps a cruise ship would have been more accurate. With out spammers you would have never improved your product to the level you have reached to day.
- We Must be Profitable - As an SEO I must either make my content or the content of my clients profitable. To do this I must have valid and useful content and my optimizing must match the search terms to content the user wants. If I simply get a page about Panda Bears ranked number one for the term “animals” it does my client or my own company no good at all. SEO’s do not try to rank irrelevant content as you sometimes infer, we purposely rank the best content we can develop to match the users need based on what they search for. In short the best and most accurate content online today is being created by professional SEOs.
At this time I would like to propose a truce, though we are sure you have no interest in doing so, as you need us as much to have someone to blame as you do for the other reasons I have pointed out. Still do you think you could tone it down a little? I mean we both know that you need us to make your search engine the best it can be so why are you always driving that multi colored bus over us?
In conclusion you built the system that values links over content so don’t blame us for using it that way. We are only doing what is necessary to help you provide relevant search engine results to your users. Sure we profit by doing so but based on the current financial reporting you are providing it is clear you are profiting a lot more then most of us.
Sincerely,
Jack Spirko
To my fellow Internet Marketers, so anyway I am sure I missed a few things. I am sure I missed some reasons why we are a far better friend to Google then an enemy as we are often portrayed. Please chime in below with your thoughts on this and point out the other ways that SEOs have made Google better then it would be with out us.
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April 7th, 2008 at 11:45 am
What ever gave you the impression that google is treating us like enemies?
All they are trying to do is prevent abuse.
You can still SEO your site without abusing their system.
April 7th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
The key is what is defined as “abuse”. If you read the TOS it is technically abuse to intentionally link one site to the other with the intent of gaining search engine rank. If you call yourself an SEO and don’t build links specificly to push rankings you are only fooling yourself.
And personally I do feel we are blamed a lot by the big G for their own problems. It isn’t our fault that they built an algorithm that will rank a picture of a green frog number one for purple fish if you point enough links at it.
Remember “abuse” is a very subjective term.
April 7th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
A lot of SEO is simply quality control, using tags the way the W3C intended. This gets called SEO but it isn’t.
d
April 7th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
Hi Jack, You have lots to learn.
You wrote:
“If you call yourself an SEO and don’t build links specificly to push rankings you are only fooling yourself.”
I do NOT build links specifically to push ranks. How’s that? Trust me bud; I’m not fooling myself either.
I personally believe it’s articles like this that hurt the SEO industry and puts it in a bad light for all the outside world to see. I think you need to actually start reading and learning at the right places.
Sorry Jack.
April 7th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
@Dave,
While I completely agree if you listen to what Google states it is often about judging the intent more then the action.
April 7th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
@Doug,
I am sorry you feel that way but you are either
1. Not telling the truth about building links or some how convincing yourself that it is not really what you do.
or
2. Not very good at what you do.
The reality is that you simply can not rank for competitive terms with out links that are formated with the correct anchor text. You can be angry in your comments if you wish but I am not going to censor you and so I also must answer you.
Please show me any competitive term that you can take to top ten with out link building as major component. If you do a viral campaign (which we often do) and get links that way the motivation is still the same and so is the result. Lots of links pointing at content you want ranked.
Any person who is successful ranking competitive terms today is in some way building, constructing and manipulating links. There are many ways to do this, buy them, directly creating them, getting them with viral marketing, etc. If you don’t do it in some way you don’t rank for competitive terms because the system is built that way. Can you get lucky, can it happen by accident? Sure google “click here” and you find Adobe but how much good does that do them?
As for getting my information in the right place. That is a pretty arrogant statement in my opinion.
As for putting us into a “bad light”, did you actually read what I wrote or just skim the title and comments?
April 7th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
OH and Doug, I know who you are (apparently you don’t know who I am) and I know you are very good at what you do. However, like most “White Hat Only” SEOs you are arguing intent and semantics rather then reality.
April 7th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Yes Jack; I read what you wrote. The reality I live in is all I have known for eleven years now in this biz. I have read the very same stuff from others with just the words changed around a little. It’s nothing new to me and those who have been around awhile. The fashion statement thing to do has always been to paint a picture of google and other se’s as the enemy. I simply disagree with that fundamental concept that many SEO’s seem to have. I’ve never agreed with it and never will. The se’s have never seen SEO’s as the enemy unless the SEO is a spammer/blackhat. That’s a fact.
As to your other points, I don’t need to respond as I know how I help websites…. and it’s not done specifically for a rank.
April 7th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Doug,
“spammer/blackhat” is also very subjective to interpretation. Is it black hat to build links with specific anchors? To some it is and to others it isn’t.
I also would point out Doug that “eleven years” does not impress me. As I said you clearly don’t know who I am. Not everyone in this industry goes around ringing their own bell. As for me I started doing this in 98 so I ain’t wet behind the years as you seem to infer.
I also do not see other SEOs as the enemy for Pete Sakes nor is Google. I also don’t think that Google really sees us as the enemy either. Apparently tounge and cheek humor coupled with a bit of fact is not something that works for you.
Lastly, when you stated, “I help websites…. and it’s not done specifically for a rank.” There could be no more of a semantical statement made by an SEO thanks for making my point for me.
April 7th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
That’s right Jack; I build and help websites with their visitors in mind. If I wanted to “impress” you or anyone reading, I would have put my url in here. Not everyone knows me, as you seem to infer. You are right; I do not know you, but even if I did I would still disagree with most everything you wrote in your post and in your comments. Here’s something else you wrote:
“That said I and many other SEO’s resent the fact that you have worked so hard to make our lives miserable, spread propaganda about us and generally blamed us for your search engines limitations.”
Who are these “many” SEO’s who resent all of this anyway? If you life is being made miserable by google, simply disallow googlebot from crawling/indexing your pages. Your problems would be solved.
If I only had one dime for every time some SEO out there stated as you stated. The only reason why Google would blame SEO’s for anything is if those SEO’s were “spammers”. In that case, I don’t call those types SEO’s at all. I call them spammers/blackhats.
It’s high time this industry calls things as they are. The politically correct crowd needs to go and stay with real politics. We don’t need political correctness in this industry. Stop behaving like little kids and start calling things correctly.
April 7th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
BTW Jack; let’s just agree to disagree with everything, OK?
HM2K above said something real good:
“What ever gave you the impression that google is treating us like enemies?
All they are trying to do is prevent abuse.
You can still SEO your site without abusing their system.”
April 7th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Google is not making me miserable again I guess you are not familiar with humor and facts blended together. You are also not much on judging people my friend, I have been called many things, Politically Correct is not one of them.
I also hate to break it to you but you don’t get to decide what is black hat and what is spamming. Just because you say something, or I say something for that matter does not make it true. You know what you believe and you know what you stand for, on that I admire you. I just don’t agree with you and what I am often hired to do is get a group of pages ranked for specific terms. If doing that makes me a spammer, then a spammer I am. I just don’t think that is the case. I don’t think it is evil to put a link on a page pointing to another page and think about the anchor text when you do it. I mean I don’t have many clients that are worried about ranking for “who we are” and “what we do”.
Doug I am truly sorry you don’t seem to get the satire and humor in this post.
April 8th, 2008 at 8:10 am
Jack, I completely agree with you about everything you said in this post.
I do not buy the argument that Google’s sole motivation is to prevent abuse. I wasn’t born yesterday, and I refuse to believe that Google’s crackdown on paid links had to do with anything other than eliminating competition for AdWords.
Do they really expect us to believe that the fact that they stand to profit in a big way from the crackdown on paid links is sheer coincidence? Perhaps the better inquiry would be to find out what the people who actually do believe the ‘benevolent Google’ crap are smoking.
By punishing TLA-associated sites (and other similar sites), Google hopes to convert the link-buyers who did business on these sites into loyal AdWords customers that depend on paid Google links to bring traffic to their sites.
Google’s real problem with SEO’s is not that they muddy-up the search results, it is that they get paid for essentially delivering a steady stream of traffic to the sites they service, and that the people paying for this service would likely be spending big bucks on AdWords if organic search traffic were not a viable option.
April 8th, 2008 at 8:11 am
holy shintos, this is a terrible article. i could go point by point but in summary the presumption that google could not exist without SEO’s is laughable. the notion of “search engine optimization” requires, well, a search engine. i do agree that the link-based page rank algorithm is fatally flawed and needs to be shelved - and to a large degree the SEO industry exists today to capitalize on this flaw. really, how much time do you spend telling your clients why a title tag is important?
also, this statement -
“In short the best and most accurate content online today is being created by professional SEOs.”
you’re kidding, right? you’re taking credit for content creation now? really?
here’s a suggestion - learn to swim. the only spec of value in this post is, as I mentioned above, the realization that back links have nothing to do with relevancy. i hope your marketing skills go beyond link-bait because this gravy train won’t last forever.
April 8th, 2008 at 8:15 am
[…] = “http://www.searchenginejournal.com/open-letter-to-google/6668/”; Jack Spirko has published an open letter to Google explaining why SEO’s should not be treated as enemies of the Google state : Sometimes it […]
April 8th, 2008 at 9:07 am
im agree with you 100 %
April 8th, 2008 at 9:19 am
April 8th, 2008 at 10:25 am
@Jack - You missed my point. Perhaps I was too subtle.
The basic premise of your post is that Google needs SEO’s, right?
Per your first point and second points, they need SEO’s because otherwise the search results would be non-relevant. And my point is exactly what you stated above - on-page SEO work is relatively trivial compared to off-page, and off-page largely consists of link building. And so, without the link-based page rank algorithm, a large piece of SEO work goes away and perhaps people start to wise up and realize that the on-page stuff isn’t that hard. Follow the best practices and integrate it into your content production work-flow. Educate your staff instead of paying lofty prices for external SEO companies. Like you said, it doesn’t take much time to teach.
Your third point states that Google needs SEO’s building inbound links because otherwise they’d never find content to index. This makes no sense. Create a site-map, submit it to the search engines, and add it to your robots.txt file. I’ve created many brand new sites that get indexed without ever having a single inbound link. Google subsequently tries to use inbound links as a means to attribute value to individual pages, which is another issue.
Your fourth point credits spammers for helping Google fix problems with their search engine. Sure, but this is like crediting bank robbers for helping police improve their detective work. Every software company on the planet revises it’s product based on feedback from the field. There’s nothing specific to SEO about this.
Your fifth, and last point, really doesn’t seem to make a point at all beyond saying SEOs are making money helping clients optimize their content. I fail to see how this supports your argument that Google needs SEOs.
Finally, SEOs do not create content. They optimize existing content for search. There’s a huge difference.
April 8th, 2008 at 10:26 am
April 8th, 2008 at 10:34 am
April 8th, 2008 at 10:35 am
Just reading these comments, I’m assuming Doug is an SEO?
In which case, I find it difficult to believe someone whose job title is ’search engine optimizer’ when they say they don’t work on websites to gain rankings. True there are many other ways you can help a website, but these are more the wider picture of internet marketing and not strictly SEO.
And now to my two pence/cents - I don’t believe Google owe us anything. It’s their search engine to do with as they please, and it’s up to us to adapt.
April 8th, 2008 at 10:40 am
@webr
You said, “And now to my two pence/cents - I don’t believe Google owe us anything. It’s their search engine to do with as they please, and it’s up to us to adapt.”
You are correct they owe us nothing, I never said they did. I said real professional SEOs made Google better. I do believe that is the case. Besides how many SEO client do you have that don’t do adWords too? SEOs bring a TON of money to Google.
@Matt
One more thing, you said, “it’s just that Google talks about webmaster issues more, so we’re a little more visible when we communicate”.
I think it is more because you control 69% of all online advertising and the dominant share of search above all others combined. Not because you are more vocal about it. Rank well in Google and you can be successful, rank well in MSN Search, it may not even matter.
April 8th, 2008 at 11:04 am
Jack, a bunch of those issues mix together, but I like to think that the fact that Google communicates more with webmasters helped it grow faster. I can’t prove that of course, and I could be totally wrong, but I like to think that.
April 8th, 2008 at 11:09 am
Hey Jack, I mentioned this over at SEJ but let me repeat it here:
I’m happy to say that in my opinion as Google’s webspam team leader, there are great ways to build links without spamming, just like there there are great ways to do SEO without spamming. Just last month I did a post that talked about some great ways to build links for example: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/seo-advice-getting-links/
I do think SEO can improve the quality of the web. On our official page about SEOs, we say “Many SEOs and other agencies and consultants provide useful services for website owners, from writing copy to giving advice on site architecture and helping to find relevant directories to which a site can be submitted.”
April 8th, 2008 at 11:11 am
@Matt,
No I agree with that too! Like you say some of the lines begin to blur but yes the fact that Google has been more open about the “how” of things made you more popular with webmasters. The over lap then is that you could make a case that being more popular with us, helped make you more popular with everyone.
The web is a symbiotic environment. And thank you so much for your comments! I do owe you a beer at the next conference or something like that at a minimum.
April 8th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
[…] I recently did a post where much of the satire was lost on many of the readers. It was angled as an open letter to Google and pointed out ways that SEOs in general have made Google and other Search Engines for that matter […]
April 8th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
Jack, while your open letter read like an initial draft, I agree with you on most points. Doug, I can’t figure out where you’re coming from, fella. Seriously, you’ve lost me.
While I’ll agree ranking isn’t the main aim of good SEO, but more a byproduct, you can hardly make a case for chasing down authoritative links from high-ranking, relevant articles as being bad SEO!
Let’s be clear, there’s been a colossal amount of FUD surrounding PageRank, with plenty of people have been dismissing it out of hand. Yet it’s still the very reason Aaron Wall rank better than I do for “SEO” on Google.
Should we penalize Aaron? Of course not.
Finally, the first few comments, with Doug’s included, are bordering on personal attacks, which I think is exceptionally disappointing.
If you can’t articulate a point without drifting into veiled attacks, don’t comment…
April 8th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
Can’t we all just get along?
April 8th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
I think someone needs to get a thicker skin. Or maybe shouldn’t be reading blog comments? LOL If you think my comments are attacks, you should go over to my forums for awhile.
I think the SEO industry as a whole is way too sensitive. NO ONE can seem to take criticism. I’m thinking people brought up on the internet are spoiled in that way.
No need to penalize Aaron. He’s already been penalized for blackhat tactics as is/has many other SEO types out there.
The biggest FUD I see in this industry is the constant flowing and promoting of really bad information.
April 8th, 2008 at 9:03 pm
@Doug
I think we have learned something about you. It seems that you think everyone should be able to accept any criticism from anyone else unless it seems the person getting criticism is you. You know why Wayne stated, “If you can’t articulate a point without drifting into veiled attacks, don’t comment”? Due to your pure arrogance, your statements to me as though I must be some idiot that started yesterday and could not be anywhere near your level of genius.
Now I remember where I first met you, it was on SEOMoz where one of my employees posted about research he did on nofollow and you acted like an angry child there as well.
Note I did not point out that you were being a jerk, a disintrested third party with no dog in the hunt did. Also note that no less then Matt Cutts chimed in and stated, “I’m happy to say that in my opinion as Google’s webspam team leader, there are great ways to build links without spamming”.
I guess Matt is wrong too? Perhaps when Matt links with anchors from his blog to content (specifically Googles) he is a black hat spammer too?
April 9th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
[…] Recently in the post I did called an “Open Letter to Google” a lot of debating went on. One thing to come out of this is that many SEOs consider the link […]
April 9th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Jack,
Totally Agree with you.
SEOs are now under obligation of GOOGLE.
April 9th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
I dont think SE’s are considering SEOs as enemies. With only a 3 yrs of experience in SEO what i feel is Big G and other SE’s are trying to improve the search results and avoid spammers.
April 10th, 2008 at 1:56 am
Decent article, better thread
I think the Googler can do whatever it wants to with its product. They’ve always been kind IMO, but it would be nice to continue to tell small struggling businesses that I can help them in a few months rather than several years.
April 10th, 2008 at 5:35 am
As a SEO i m agree with matt’s suggestion, seo person should help to optimize client’s site to make it search engine friendly. We must provide quality content to our customer by following search engine guidelines. If we are going for link building than it must be natural one. never go for spamming.
April 10th, 2008 at 10:21 am
@B2B, To a degree you are correct but there are also some real holes in the algos. We often get blamed for them simply because we figure them out. Now once I realize I can get a client ranked by doing something, (something that there are often no real TOS violations with) do I not owe it to them to be honest. Should I not say, this will work, here are the risks and here is how long and hard the road with out it is. What do you want me to do for you? To me that is fair, honest and responsible.
@Jayson, thank you. The thread was the goal in the first place. And your right my point is the on site only, just make content for humans approach is great. It is great for the giant company with a million links for free and it is great for the small company in some easy low competition niche. Come up against someone like me in a mid tier, highly competitive market with small buisiness site and try to be a pure white hat and you get totally owned.
@seojig, I agree with you ALMOST and almost because you said link building must be “natural only”. Just what does that mean, so does that mean when I post in one of my blogs I should not anchor what I want it to rank for just to comply? When I gain a link should I have the company name anchored instead of a specific targeted term? Doing that is a disservice to a client in my opinion. I also certainly don’t consider making sure links we can influence are properly anchored “spamming” and I don’t believe Matt does either.
April 10th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
Jack, if replace the words “satire” with sad and ignorant your article actually makes a tiny bit of sense.
April 11th, 2008 at 3:01 am
Haha, excellent post.
April 11th, 2008 at 7:12 am
@Dave, OK if you say so then it must be true. - Geez!
@SEO Ranter, Glad you got it and glad you liked it.
@Everyone - I am beginning to wonder if many people even get “satire” any more. Satire is according to the dictionary - “Irony, sarcasm, or caustic wit used to attack or expose folly or vice”.
In that vein I took truth such as
“SEOs get blamed by Google users for poor results when often it is the users lack of search knowledge, expecting to find what doesn’t exist or at times Google’s own shortcomings”.
Now look that is true, it does happen and again post something about SEO in Digg or Reddit and you will see the accusations come. Then I went overboard with that fact and said things like,
” Honestly you would not be able to find much of the quality content that allows you to sell those wonderful ads (that you arbitrarily make one person pay more for then the next for reasons only you know) that make you those billions of dollars.”
See that is a blend of more fact (Google is the only one that knows exactly why one person pays more for an ad then the next, sure we have some idea but to many it look very slanted) and added complete nonsense to that with, “Honestly you would not be able to find much of the quality content”. Geez, of course they could find content with out us!
Do we help with indexing? Of course our well optimized sites get indexed faster, when we do build accurate links it is actually beneficial to Google (even if not wanted). Is it needed though? No of course not!
Look, satire is a blending of fact with the ridiculous but a ridiculous that is often claimed as reality by some group of the audience (at least when they are angry or upset).
They say the lowest form of communication is print, this shows why. If I read this out loud and made an MP3 I am sure that it would be quite clear what the “voice” of this piece was intended to be.
April 21st, 2008 at 11:55 pm
RockStar,
You took the words right out of my mouth. Google needs to put up effort to weed out the spammers, the mass directory link buyers, the keyword stuffers, the blackhaters. I think Google should start offering a SEOer of the month award. Give credit to a true SEOer that values what people are searching for, trying to take there clients web page and put it in front of the proper people.
What ever happened to the “Help us, Help You” view?