SEO IS Bullshit...say some?

90% Of All SEO is Bullshit....say some?

That is a very popular phrase on the net - posted by the technically challenged - and those who have been scammed by phonies!! And there are LOTS of phonies out here.

The correct phrase should read - 90% of all people claiming to BE SEO's are BS.

It ranks right up there with "getting a lawyer to defend you in court is BS!"

Why are some sites on page one, and others on page one hundred?

To say the SEO concept itself is "bullshit"......is, well, bullshit!

Speaking of nuts: read this quote from a totally clueless blog article.....

SEO is Bullshit

"I hope to promote the truth about Search Engine Optimization, something that everyone with a web site can do for themselves, for FREE, without having to know a thing about technical matters or be fluent in Search Engine Optimization lingo."

The truth? This is, without doubt, the lamest statement on this subject I ever heard!! If it were that easy, then there would be more legitimate practitioners out there.

Fact is, most so called "SEO pros" don't even understand it.

Before you can intelligently deconstruct a subject, you first have to be able to construct it, i.e., describe it in detail.

How to spot a fake SEO - << click here! >>

Very few people know the difference between SEO, SEM and SMO. In fact I learned a while back what SEM was when someone described me as doing it. I asked him, what it was that I was doing? Then I added it to my resume!!

SEO = Search Engine Optimization
- Organic, for natural, unpaid search results
SEM = Search Engine Marketing
- When organic optimization fails, manage client's Pay Per Click campaigns
SMO = Social Media Optimization
- Setting up client's social media accounts - (Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) and possibly even posting in his behalf

I don't like "Buzz Words" either - but if you want to succeed in an industry, you have to be able to understand the dialog used by your peers. Better to learn the verbiage, silly or not, than to be treated like an outsider.

The concept behind SEO is obviously legitimate. A well conceived and well designed page does better in a search than a poorly conceived and poorly designed one.
It's the majority of people claiming it as a profession that's bullshit.
You will never succeed online if you don't take SEO seriously.

When I say well conceived and designed, I mean -

Textually - and not just the text you see on the surface. In the beginning, the web was a text-only affair - no pictures
Technically - having lean, uncorrupted code that does not obstruct the bots from parsing the page. This is critical on mobile devices!

Buying SEO carries an inherent risk - because it is so cryptic - you can easily be fooled - and it will take months to find out!

If "the average Joe" could figure out Search Engine Optimization by reading the equivalent of a dime novel - there would be fewer SEO scams - and fewer clients needing to outsource it. And lastly, fewer people saying "SEO is bullshit".

Click the headings (links) below to expose the details of these prime issues --

Most SEO today is retro-engineering in, what the original designer was unable to do in the first place

Prior to 2008, when Google filed for a patent, it was all just a guessing game.

So, there are two main categories of search-lameness:

The site was built correctly for its time, and is now obsolete
A recent site - poorly conceived and poorly executed, often in Wordpress by people who don't understand the code that makes the web run.

There are tons of both categories online today. I know because I am paid to repair old or substandard web sites, and I see unbelievable messes under the hood all the time. If your site fits category one, good news, you could be "grand fathered in" and inherit a certain amount of rank for time online. Most search engines are partial to web sites that stand the test of time.

Old sites have old code and need to be updated to be competitive. The oldest sites still employ font tags and other obsolete markup for text styling, you are in dire need of an update. As the search engines push to have all presentation code (layout) to be done in CSS, you will get no mercy if they have to read font tags and other code that outdated.

The science behind a web page is "technologically backed wordsmithery"

The internet is the information highway and it is 'written in braille' (live text characters) for blind web bots. If it doesn't exist in live ASCII text characters - it doesn't exist to the search bots.

Even the code to display a picture is comprised of text characters - <img src="Elmer Fudd.gif" alt="Hunting Wabbits". Java scripts are written in text characters - <script type="text/JavaScripts" src="/gagMe.js"></script>. Pure and simple - everything to make you show up in a search is text!.

If you don't understand word processor syntax, you cannot possibly ever have a clue to SEO

HTML, or hypertext markup language, is the code base that makes the web the web. It is constructed entirely of ASCII text characters. Programs like Dreamweaver are actually very specialized word processors, designed specifically to author and markup HTML, the language of the web.

Most "designers" today don't know how a word processor works. If you don't understand the basic structure of a web page, how then would you go about optimizing it? SEO is the exclusive realm of advanced web designers and copy writers.

There is no such thing as SEO software - SEO is all conceived in the mind! There is no software to write a novel either: no plot, no imagination - no novel!

By this I mean there is no software to create the condition of search optimization. There are applications to check search readiness - I use them too. However, to create that situation to check - you must have an idea of how to get there.

There is no software to make you smart, or to make you unique. There is no real "Easy Button".

I don't have this point of view because I do SEO - I do SEO because I have this point of view

I don't demand that you trust me. However, I will state that I am not stupid enough to knowingly stand on a rug that could be pulled out from under me at any time - like offering phony services.

Most crooks are not that smart and are usually found out. They don't do honest business because they don't know how to. I do know how to do honest work, that's why I stay in business year after year. I am still doing business with one client I started out with almost 15 years ago. Honest work is a good investment. I wouldn't do anything for a living I would be ashamed of - however, I do hate the sound of the phrase SEO and, unfortunately, some people are not bothered by shame

Blind Skepticism is as counterproductive as Blind Faith!

The keyword here is blind, and is similar to reverse racism, whereby one goes to such lengths to prove he is NOT a racist, that he BECOMES one by now giving unfair advantage. If you get into a frenzy of prejudice about SEO you will lose objectivity.

The Truth -

Legitimate SEO is necessary to compete with other, higher budget sites
Legitimate SEO is very rare
Don't leave home (page) without it!

The net has always been full of thieves, wannabe's and outright fakes - chat rooms, pyramid schemes, wacko religious cults and fake SEO. There are crowds of phonies and posers ...everywhere suckers line up to get fleeced!

So - who should we blame for this current SEO con game?

SEO scammers thrive on the greed of people who think they can get an "insta-site" from Godaddy for $29.95, find some questionable SEO tricks for another $29.95 and beat out people who work hard for it. They deserve what they get!.

Small sites can make waves, but it takes a lot of extra work to beat the giants - before applying any SEO SEO can not turn a five page Wordpress site into anything more than it is. A site with no effort put towards it will not be taken seriously, by Google or the public.

Serious players, disregard this - you know what I mean. But to those of you who think there is a workaround to real honest effort - you have a lot to learn!!

People, believe it or not, still buy from spammers - that's why there's still spam
Subsistence farmers in the Andes keep growing cocaine - because Americans keep buying it by the ton.
People keep buying the cheap and easy SEO "magic bullet", so bullshitters keep making "bullets".

The reason there are so many so called SEO scammers is that THEY don't understand it either. Their biggest dream is that you either don't discover they don't know jack - or by some miracle, you make it on your own merits and credit them.

What About Social Network Optimization - " SMO"?

Now here's potential for the real bullshit. Although Social Network Optimization has a few skilled professionals operating out there, for the most part, it is the domain of people who have admitted that SEO is too difficult - but - can pull off charging people to upload a You Tube video and steal and paste text into Facebook."

Real SMO pros SETUP accounts for you and show you how to use them - they don't make every post for you. There is no substitute for genuine communication with your clients, and doing it yourself saves money. Big celebrities almost always hire proxies to represent them on social media

Hiring someone to seed the net with a bunch of impersonal, nothing posts is too time consuming for the net result. Social networking has become less a boon to websites and more a world of its own. Twitter - Logically benefits two classes of people

Public figures who have something timely to say. President Trump is a good example
And those who hang on their every word

I have learned to only use a separate, dedicated email address to login to a Social Network. This will send all the resultant spam to a trash email account. I spend as much time insulating myself FROM social networks as I do interacting with them.

Lame SMO practitioners and paid political trolls are already doing to social networking what spam did to email!!

SEO "posers" make it hard for the people who really know what they are doing. Blogger Jason Calacanis' statement - "the only legitimate SEO work is being done by web designers" is 100% correct. Who else would know how to deconstruct a web page, and then reassemble it correctly - piece by piece.

SEO is Bullshit The SEO boom is a direct result of web design by people with no concept of how search engines work, and semi savvy vultures scrambling for "their share" of the money. Much of the content presently on the net is a technical wreck.

I know a few people, personally, who claim to do SEO work and none of them has a clue! I would never trust an SEO outfit that couldn't build a web site as well.

"If it doesn't make sense in the real world - neither does it make sense in a virtual representation of the same" ....M. Walls

Before paying a person to perform SEO upgrades - check him out carefully!

Most sites have some unranked pages, even most sub-pages on smaller sites. However, if his home page is a dud - the rest of the pages are likely duds as well, and he will do the same for you.

This meta analyzer will show how a site is seen by bots
<< CLICK >>
Just input the URL to be checked and you will see how a bot sees the page. Input your own pages too - you may be shocked.

Honest professionals do not fear scrutiny!

<< W3C error checker >>
Keeping up with technical validation, via the W3C, requires periodic checkups. The reason is Google and others are developing new code faster than the W3C can certify it. Perfectly functioning code can falsely show up as an error.

UPDATE - It is now virtually impossible to validate W3C and still avail yourselves of social media snippets, widgets like"Facebook Like Buttons", etc. Using this tool may falsely incriminate a savvy web developer who was asked to put social media widgets on site.

It would take a web developer to discern the difference between errors caused by un-validated code code in the social media widgets, vs. the code created by the developer.

You can still check the Source View in your browser and look for chaotic, unorganized code. This is often the sign of an amateur.

While in the source view, look for signs that he uses a Content Management System to build web sites - this link will be helpful to understand it. The most professional web designers do not use a CMS to build an entire web site.

Search Engine Optimization is not really advertising or marketing —

it is preparation for it, and a necessity for getting organic search results .

I have been in the web business before "SEO" was considered a specialty - separate from web design.

We "veterans" learned real search engine optimization over the years - bit by bit, as it evolved. We included it as a normal part of site design. If you are here it is doubtlessly due to any of three reasons:

Your designer did not give attention to page strength as he/she built your web site.
Your site has old code that worked then but not under the new guidelines.
You invested in shady SEO tricks and now you're penalized or delisted.

The first two are curable and we can help you. If you get delisted, my advise is change your name and start over.

I am not out to baffle you with a bunch of techno babble, I can make an honest living enlightening my clients. I like Sy Simms' approach - "An educated consumer is our best customer"....... Michael Walls

"An enlightened thinker is like a man who gradually struggles free of the chains of illusion in an underground cave and who learns by ascending to the world above and viewing things in the light of day, finally discovering the essence of truth by gazing at the sun itself.

However, it is not enough for the philosopher to grasp truth for himself: he has a responsibility to descend back into the cave of illusion and free the prisoners of falsehood." ………………Plato