Comments on: SEO Baloney From USATODAY http://www.toprankblog.com/2006/02/seo-baloney-from-usatoday/ Grow your business with TopRank Online Marketing tips, articles, & expert information on social media, content marketing & search engine marketing. Tue, 14 Feb 2012 05:17:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Wes http://www.toprankblog.com/2006/02/seo-baloney-from-usatoday/#comment-442725 Wes Thu, 31 Jul 2008 03:30:12 +0000 http://www.toprankblog.com/2006/02/seo-baloney-from-usatoday/#comment-442725 Yeah Alayh, you tell him whats up :) Yeah Alayh, you tell him whats up :)

]]> By: alfred http://www.toprankblog.com/2006/02/seo-baloney-from-usatoday/#comment-20614 alfred Thu, 24 Aug 2006 01:59:36 +0000 http://www.toprankblog.com/2006/02/seo-baloney-from-usatoday/#comment-20614 thats cool, hey :) thats cool, hey :)

]]> By: Freehits http://www.toprankblog.com/2006/02/seo-baloney-from-usatoday/#comment-1323 Freehits Wed, 22 Mar 2006 21:58:07 +0000 http://www.toprankblog.com/2006/02/seo-baloney-from-usatoday/#comment-1323 Alyah Rafeh nice response. Glad to see it was a case of being somewhat misquoted or slanted outside of your own doing. I think a negative spin on seo is driven by the bottom line, seo is painted as "the problem". But the funny part is if we look at link and blog spam for instance it was a problem created by pagerank theory, so we have been sold the poison and now they sell us the cure with algo updates. Alyah Rafeh nice response. Glad to see it was a case of being somewhat misquoted or slanted outside of your own doing. I think a negative spin on seo is driven by the bottom line, seo is painted as “the problem”. But the funny part is if we look at link and blog spam for instance it was a problem created by pagerank theory, so we have been sold the poison and now they sell us the cure with algo updates.

]]> By: Alyah Rafeh http://www.toprankblog.com/2006/02/seo-baloney-from-usatoday/#comment-754 Alyah Rafeh Tue, 28 Feb 2006 18:18:24 +0000 http://www.toprankblog.com/2006/02/seo-baloney-from-usatoday/#comment-754 A lot of you are up in arms with the USA Today article where I was interviewed...the question was about SEO and about driving traffic to a site which is in fact a marketing issue as well. The target audience for the article was business owners who are not technically savvy. The article was not intended to be by any means an SEO guide or in depth reference to SEO. FYI our firm is yes a web development firm but we are a web development firm that specializes in online marketing which does comprise design, programming and SEO. I agree that there is a great deal more to SEO than was mentioned in the article. But please remember this is just a column, we were asked to not get too technical just give ideas on SEO...also not everything we talked about was mentioned in the article...the tips about meta tags were not from us either. We did stress the importance of using relevant keywords within the body of text. This is not an issue of web developers vs SEO experts, we should be working together towards a common cause of educating the public - not judging other A lot of you are up in arms with the USA Today article where I was interviewed…the question was about SEO and about driving traffic to a site which is in fact a marketing issue as well. The target audience for the article was business owners who are not technically savvy. The article was not intended to be by any means an SEO guide or in depth reference to SEO.

FYI our firm is yes a web development firm but we are a web development firm that specializes in online marketing which does comprise design, programming and SEO. I agree that there is a great deal more to SEO than was mentioned in the article. But please remember this is just a column, we were asked to not get too technical just give ideas on SEO…also not everything we talked about was mentioned in the article…the tips about meta tags were not from us either. We did stress the importance of using relevant keywords within the body of text. This is not an issue of web developers vs SEO experts, we should be working together towards a common cause of educating the public – not judging other

]]> By: searchenginepress.com http://www.toprankblog.com/2006/02/seo-baloney-from-usatoday/#comment-661 searchenginepress.com Thu, 23 Feb 2006 19:42:26 +0000 http://www.toprankblog.com/2006/02/seo-baloney-from-usatoday/#comment-661 <strong>SEO Baloney from USATODAY...</strong> Post about a major news publication providing outdated SEO information.... SEO Baloney from USATODAY…

Post about a major news publication providing outdated SEO information….

]]> By: IrishWonder http://www.toprankblog.com/2006/02/seo-baloney-from-usatoday/#comment-635 IrishWonder Tue, 21 Feb 2006 22:26:11 +0000 http://www.toprankblog.com/2006/02/seo-baloney-from-usatoday/#comment-635 [...] Well, it all started with USA Today publishing an article on SEO which was so poorly written that it didn’t stand any criticism - and of course people in the SEO community picked on it and posted about it and certainly linked to it - Aaron Wall posted about it on Threadwatch, Lee Odden posted about it on his blog, as many others probably did (heck I’d rather link to these fine folks than to that shitty article - and I’ll explain here why). Well, shitty it may be, but look how it got a pack of quality links in a matter of hours? Roughly speaking, now if Google picks up all these links and people then search for SEO-related stuff what they will see is an article linked ot by many SEO authorities - ahha thinks Google, this is probably a good candidate for top rankings for SEO-related stuff! And unsuspecting searchers looking for SEO information end up going to an article which contans a lot of misconcepts instead of valuable SEO information… [...] [...] Well, it all started with USA Today publishing an article on SEO which was so poorly written that it didn’t stand any criticism – and of course people in the SEO community picked on it and posted about it and certainly linked to it – Aaron Wall posted about it on Threadwatch, Lee Odden posted about it on his blog, as many others probably did (heck I’d rather link to these fine folks than to that shitty article – and I’ll explain here why). Well, shitty it may be, but look how it got a pack of quality links in a matter of hours? Roughly speaking, now if Google picks up all these links and people then search for SEO-related stuff what they will see is an article linked ot by many SEO authorities – ahha thinks Google, this is probably a good candidate for top rankings for SEO-related stuff! And unsuspecting searchers looking for SEO information end up going to an article which contans a lot of misconcepts instead of valuable SEO information… [...]

]]> By: Lee Odden http://www.toprankblog.com/2006/02/seo-baloney-from-usatoday/#comment-632 Lee Odden Tue, 21 Feb 2006 19:46:04 +0000 http://www.toprankblog.com/2006/02/seo-baloney-from-usatoday/#comment-632 IrishWonder: You've got it! IrishWonder: You’ve got it!

]]> By: IrishWonder http://www.toprankblog.com/2006/02/seo-baloney-from-usatoday/#comment-630 IrishWonder Tue, 21 Feb 2006 18:49:02 +0000 http://www.toprankblog.com/2006/02/seo-baloney-from-usatoday/#comment-630 Lee - well this is called linkbait, good or bad it still gets links ;-) Lee – well this is called linkbait, good or bad it still gets links ;-)

]]> By: Jaan Kanellis http://www.toprankblog.com/2006/02/seo-baloney-from-usatoday/#comment-625 Jaan Kanellis Tue, 21 Feb 2006 17:13:52 +0000 http://www.toprankblog.com/2006/02/seo-baloney-from-usatoday/#comment-625 Right, Lee. I did put is responses to my email on TW and of course their could have 30-40 solid SEO's I could have listed, but that wasnt the point so much. Right, Lee. I did put is responses to my email on TW and of course their could have 30-40 solid SEO’s I could have listed, but that wasnt the point so much.

]]> By: Lee Odden http://www.toprankblog.com/2006/02/seo-baloney-from-usatoday/#comment-622 Lee Odden Tue, 21 Feb 2006 15:16:31 +0000 http://www.toprankblog.com/2006/02/seo-baloney-from-usatoday/#comment-622 Hey Jaan, too bad Steve doesn't have a blog, so he could respond in public to your letter. Kinda behind the times to be a nationally syndicated columnist without a blog - IMHO. No offense, but there's a long list of SEO experts I would have added to your list. IrishWonder, I hear you - but the article was provoking enough to write about it and it is appropriate to cite a source with a link - especially in a blog post. In this case, I think there's enough positive benefit in drawing attention to the deficiencies in the article than to worry about it further propogating SEO disinformation. Hey Jaan, too bad Steve doesn’t have a blog, so he could respond in public to your letter. Kinda behind the times to be a nationally syndicated columnist without a blog – IMHO. No offense, but there’s a long list of SEO experts I would have added to your list.

IrishWonder, I hear you – but the article was provoking enough to write about it and it is appropriate to cite a source with a link – especially in a blog post.

In this case, I think there’s enough positive benefit in drawing attention to the deficiencies in the article than to worry about it further propogating SEO disinformation.

]]> By: IrishWonder http://www.toprankblog.com/2006/02/seo-baloney-from-usatoday/#comment-619 IrishWonder Tue, 21 Feb 2006 12:50:32 +0000 http://www.toprankblog.com/2006/02/seo-baloney-from-usatoday/#comment-619 Well nothing too surprizing, every time mainstream media talks about things like SEO they're bound to mess things up - remember the Newsweek article? What surprizes me though is all you good folks (you as well as Aaron on Threadwatch as well as i suppose many others) blogging about it - and LINKING to it! - so next time some unsuspecting surfer searches for SEO-related stuff this would be the sh*t he sees, instead of quality information. OK this is just a rough scenario and we both understand it - but honestly, is there any need promoting poor information any further? Well nothing too surprizing, every time mainstream media talks about things like SEO they’re bound to mess things up – remember the Newsweek article? What surprizes me though is all you good folks (you as well as Aaron on Threadwatch as well as i suppose many others) blogging about it – and LINKING to it! – so next time some unsuspecting surfer searches for SEO-related stuff this would be the sh*t he sees, instead of quality information. OK this is just a rough scenario and we both understand it – but honestly, is there any need promoting poor information any further?

]]> By: Jaan Kanellis http://www.toprankblog.com/2006/02/seo-baloney-from-usatoday/#comment-614 Jaan Kanellis Tue, 21 Feb 2006 04:09:54 +0000 http://www.toprankblog.com/2006/02/seo-baloney-from-usatoday/#comment-614 Lee I felt the need to blog about it at my website. I had mostly the same feelings you did and I emailed the author to let him know. Like I mentioned in my blog the best part of this is the authors website doesnt even have a title tag! Lee I felt the need to blog about it at my website. I had mostly the same feelings you did and I emailed the author to let him know. Like I mentioned in my blog the best part of this is the authors website doesnt even have a title tag!

]]> By: Scott Fish SEO http://www.toprankblog.com/2006/02/seo-baloney-from-usatoday/#comment-609 Scott Fish SEO Mon, 20 Feb 2006 21:33:29 +0000 http://www.toprankblog.com/2006/02/seo-baloney-from-usatoday/#comment-609 Right, I think I was trying to point out the movement from SEO and web development being two different things, to them being one in the same. This article didn't do much SEO bashing, but there have been many that did their fair share. I agree with you that "keyword analysis, buzz/viral linkbaiting and web analytics are all instrumental to effective SEO as much or more than web design." Absolutely! Right, I think I was trying to point out the movement from SEO and web development being two different things, to them being one in the same. This article didn’t do much SEO bashing, but there have been many that did their fair share.

I agree with you that “keyword analysis, buzz/viral linkbaiting and web analytics are all instrumental to effective SEO as much or more than web design.” Absolutely!

]]> By: Lee Odden http://www.toprankblog.com/2006/02/seo-baloney-from-usatoday/#comment-607 Lee Odden Mon, 20 Feb 2006 19:31:31 +0000 http://www.toprankblog.com/2006/02/seo-baloney-from-usatoday/#comment-607 Hey Scott, The USATODAY article did not have a negative slant towards SEO, so I'm not sure why you mention that. The article doesn't do website owners any favors because of the lack of good information, but it was not bashing SEO as a web site marketing tactic at all. I agree, that on-page SEO and web development should be one and the same to a certain extent. However, keyword analysis, buzz/viral linkbaiting and web analytics are all instrumental to effective SEO as much or more than web design. Hey Scott,

The USATODAY article did not have a negative slant towards SEO, so I’m not sure why you mention that. The article doesn’t do website owners any favors because of the lack of good information, but it was not bashing SEO as a web site marketing tactic at all.

I agree, that on-page SEO and web development should be one and the same to a certain extent. However, keyword analysis, buzz/viral linkbaiting and web analytics are all instrumental to effective SEO as much or more than web design.

]]> By: Scott Fish SEO http://www.toprankblog.com/2006/02/seo-baloney-from-usatoday/#comment-604 Scott Fish SEO Mon, 20 Feb 2006 18:46:34 +0000 http://www.toprankblog.com/2006/02/seo-baloney-from-usatoday/#comment-604 It seems that there has been a lot of large scale press lately about SEO. One thing in common: Always a negative slant. Some of these reporters have no clue what they are even reporting on and they hear that SEOs do things to a site to help it rank well and they immediately think that you're "manipulating". In reality SEO is the purest form of Online marketing - just as tv or radio advertising is successful in creative product placements in tv shows, etc, - online marketing has it's own tricks as well....and good SEO is one of them. Probably the biggest thing that stands out to me is the convergence of good website design and SEO. Any website that is well built, will have good SEO structure. It's taken a while, but people are starting to realize that the line between good site design and SEO is very thin. Now that SEO is becoming more mainstream, this really opens up the flood gates for a lot of SEOs to be in high demand! SEO is simply good web development practice. It seems that there has been a lot of large scale press lately about SEO. One thing in common: Always a negative slant. Some of these reporters have no clue what they are even reporting on and they hear that SEOs do things to a site to help it rank well and they immediately think that you’re “manipulating”.

In reality SEO is the purest form of Online marketing – just as tv or radio advertising is successful in creative product placements in tv shows, etc, – online marketing has it’s own tricks as well….and good SEO is one of them.

Probably the biggest thing that stands out to me is the convergence of good website design and SEO. Any website that is well built, will have good SEO structure. It’s taken a while, but people are starting to realize that the line between good site design and SEO is very thin. Now that SEO is becoming more mainstream, this really opens up the flood gates for a lot of SEOs to be in high demand!

SEO is simply good web development practice.

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