The whole “SEO is new thing”. In Internet time, no SEO is as old as the hills, but in real world time, can you name me a newer profession? In the whole scheme of things, dentists, lawyers, doctors, marketing/advertising have all been around longer. To the general public, SEO hasn’t been around long enough for them to be comfortable with. And, while I’ve had the pleasure of meeting you and several others who’ve been in SEO since the early 90s, others haven’t.

“writers that continue to perpetuate the Black Hat vs. White Hat debates”

This is, without a doubt, one of the many disagreements I was mentioning, but it’s only one in a long line. The ‘nofollow’ debate, paid links, etc all contribute to it. Part of the reason is because things change and some people just don’t keep up. The other reason is because some people just get it wrong.

And you’re right, I did bring up the whole ethics/standards issue. But, I’m pretty sure you and I have the same viewpoint in that regard. Not enough voices is definitely one I didn’t mention.

The webmaster guidelines provided by the search engines are undoubtedly a great start, particularly with new webmasters. BUT, there’s much more beyond those guidelines. Regardless what anyone tells me, the SEs are a business and they aren’t going to tell you how to game their systems. They tell you how to make a page that has a chance at being found.

And you’re exactly right Edward, SEs, SEOs, and even clients need to clean up a bit if things are going to change. I mean, how many times have the search engines changed their minds on what’s good and what isn’t? Then there’s the whole debate about how some authority sites can get away with murder and it’s ok.

In terms of the future of SEO, I’m interested to see what happens with the steady move towards semantics and personalization.

And keyword stuffing gives me nightmares lol

Thanks so much Edward. As always, I enjoyed hearing what you’ve had to say.

Angie Haggstrom
SEP/Angie’s Copywriting

I really hope it’s not that new of a concept. I mean, for those of us who started in the mid 90s, SEO is old news, it is habit, we rarely have to make a concerted effort to get the job done. 😉

“All in all, SEOers seem to have gained a title that’s synonymous with snake-oil salesmen.”

I know who we can blame for that. All the writers that continue to perpetuate the Black Hat vs. White Hat debates. Those who continually assign colors to various techniques in the industry. Who do you think is one of the most vocal on the whole hat thing? Matt and friends. 😉

“No standards, no regulations, not even a set of general rules, unless you follow the webmaster guidelines published by the search engines.”

The Webmaster Guidelines are the industry standards and will be for as long as our pages are in their indices. They set the rules, they set the standards, not us, nor a group of us. It won’t happen.

“Standards are the same. A few short years ago, keyword stuffing was the perfect technique, but today, this is no longer the case.”

Keyword stuffing has been around since the dawn of the Internet. It isn’t going away anytime soon. With the advent of the semantic web, keyword stuffing has become a common practice amongst those who don’t know any better. In many instances, KW stuffing has a negative effect. And these days, the risk is not worth it. There is someone standing right around the corner ready to put your arse on the spot if you do something over the edge like a Senator recently did. 😉

“Maybe the SEOs should get together and set their own standards.”

No, no, no! That isn’t going to happen. I, and many others have pushed the Standards discussion for years only to have it fall on deaf ears in the long run.

http://www.SEOConsultants.com/Standards/

Many will discuss the whole Standards/Ethics thing but when it comes to taking action, there just aren’t enough voices to make it happen. I explain more in the above discussion on Standards.

“In the end, it seems that nothing will improve until SEO sorts itself out or society becomes better educated as a whole.”

Why do you think Google are now putting out their series of tips in regards to SEO? They’ve done an excellent job of providing a wealth of quality information for your everyday Webmaster. Same goes for Yahoo!, Bing and Ask. They offer a very good overview of the basics and if consumers follow the advice given, they don’t need a freakin SEO! But, that won’t happen so don’t worry, we have job security. As long as there is separation between Design, Development and Internet Marketing, we will always have job security. 🙂

Note for Google: You’re at fault here too. You’ve manipulated the SEO results for years. If I look at the top 30 results for search engine optimization, there are slim pickin’s there for the consumer of SEO. In fact, more than a handful of those (at least 12 of the 30) are going to cause grief for the consumer and a continuation of the Snake Oil nomenclature. So, while we’re continually cleaning up our act, maybe you could clean up yours too?

Miguel,

You’re absolutely right. In many instances, that plays a large part of it.

Angie Haggstrom
SEP/Angie’s Copywriting

Always enjoy feedback, but I think you skimmed the article a little too fast. Mel is correct. The entire post does indeed say SEO is vital and viable. But, to any SEOs dealing with disgruntled clients and the bad air that surrounds the industry, it gets downright frustrating.

You see, I read a good 80+ SEO articles or more a day myself, but I also read about other industries as well. During this time, I’ve watched SEOs and the general public blame everything from the ‘evil G’ to their competitors for the problems the industry is facing.

My opinion is that there isn’t a single reason for the bad wrap the industry has gotten, but several.

In short, SEOs, SEs, clients, and the general public are all responsible for the situation the industry is in as a whole. So, instead of whining about it, be aware of the issues and use them to your advantage.

Angie Haggstrom
SEP/Angie’s Copywriting

We must be reading different articles JK as that is not the conclusion that either I or the article reached.
In fact just the opposite – to me this article said that SEO is in fact a much needed enterprise, but that the image needs to be cleaned up.

Just to clarify on the idea that SEO is new, in Internet time, you’re right. SEO is ancient hehe.

But, when you compare it to traditional marketing, doctors, lawyers, construction, oil/gas, etc it is new. Very new. I don’t think I can think of a newer industry. In fact, I’d say that a majority of society doesn’t even know it exists (crazy, I know! But, I can prove it…)

Other than that, we’re good lol I agree 🙂

Angie Haggstrom
SEP/Angie’s Copywriting

don’t sweat the halo talk, mine is shining brightly…

DISCLAIMER: i own a bit of GOOG stock.

SEO is NOT a new industry… I started ranking for stuff in webcrawler and yahoo! 13-ish years ago… and optimizing search was done on bulletin boards, eworld, AOL, compuserve, Usenet and any other type of listing system on the web.. SEO doesn’t begin with Google, it just gets better, because google came out of the box trying to offer the BEST search, not chasing the money trail as many other companies, Lycos, AltaVista, etc.. did.

I’ve been either charging people more for hosting (with SEO) or charging for SEO since 1996.

The issue is the nature of the beast…

The search engine CAN”T say.. “here is how to rank” AND they are continuously fighting the battle against spam…

john,
keep your halo, you have the right idea..
“provide the most relevant, unique content and optimize it to hit #1, the validity of the content will be solidified by the bounce rate being low and you will have provided a good search result, improving the search engine and your client’s ROI on organic SEO”
– me

Terry — You’re absolutely right. Everyone (re SEOs) want credibility, but standards is a whole new story. Still not sure how you could have standards without a clear cut and dried idea of what those standards should be and no regulatory authority. But, you’re right. That’s a whole new debate 🙂