there are definately two issues here.

The first, is Google’s self delusions of ultimate power.. Google is the dominant player in the market of search, but like every other dominant entity in civilisation has been, Google is slowly being corrupted by its delusions of ultimate power and its insatiable hunger for more money. Like a corrupt dictator Google will merrily implement rules for others but at the same time happily discard the rules without a second thought where it’s own income needs to be maintained or can be increased

The second is that Google doesn’t really know how to evolve in my opinion. It stands astride the search industry like a colussus with competitors snapping at it’s heels and can’t see a way to maintain the large income to which it has become acustomed so it can only shake the search industry up every now and again by changing the rules and sending out vague and often contridictory messages in order to continually re-invent itself.

I don’t understand what the complaints are about! I have found that big SEO firms usually just don’t know what they are doing. I am a web designer and one of my customers recently went off to a major SEO company and had them talk to me. Their representative analyzed my site and got onto me about things like META Keywords, he thought they were crucial for Google ranking. He also wanted me to include words like “in, to, and” which Google truncates in the content and was especially worried about special characters at the end of body content keywords. Lastly this guy told me further optomization would benefit from reciprocal linking.

If you are Google savy you probably know that this thinking is a bit old school and in some cases misled. That is why I have drawn the conclusion that SEO companies many times just don’t know what they are doing and don’t drive the traffic because of it.

Otherwise there are great SEO companies. It is unfortunate that today Google has a legal monopoly as a search engine. If you want exposure you have to simply play ball with Google’s wishes and at times those get unreasonable.

We are trying to advertise, it is just part of making a living. There is nothing wrong with making a living and providing for yourself or your family. To think there is would be a complete dillusion and is a very marxist mindset. This ideal if widely adopted would mean the end of competitive business and would destroy the overall quality of products that people would consume in the long run.

So don’t frown on people trying to make a living. Either by promoting other people’s business however they can, or doing so for their own.

I have no affiliation with Google but I can say I pretty much view SEO as a rip off…a necessary evil, if you will. I’ve paid more money than I care to mention to have my safety and security web site optimized with little or no results.

I found a guy at the beginning of this year who worked on it a little and I started to see some results but now I can’t find him. I’ve sent him emails, visited his blog and web site but all I get is silence. I’d like to continue working with him but I can’t seem to find him.

I’d love to do my own SEO and have done a few things that are simple but I just don’t have the knowledge or time to devoted to it.

Thanks, Mike, for sharing.

SEO feeds my family and buys our Mustang/house/cabin/snowmobile — we’re too big to fail….if they put us out of business I hope the Government will bail us out!

SEO is not Anti-Google and seo are not bad guys, unless untill they are not doing any black hat methods and not trying to do any thing to implement with Google rankings.
its an interesting question for the seo’s and very generic whether they are search engine friendly or Anti-Search engine

Are “SEO’s” the bad guys ??? No.. Not really !!!!

The “internet” is the “wild west” of our day. Trust NOTHING and
NO-ONE !!!! Do Your HomeWork !!! If a “blog” says its “true”
… that should be the 1st warning !!!!

Any time “you” “click” a “link-back” you should be prepared for a sales pitch !!!!

I do believe “paid” links should be acknowledged and if “you”
“write” a blog about a “gift” it should also be acknowledged.

Anything “online” should be taken with a spoonful of SALT ))

SEO companies first and biggest pitch is to guarantee top 10 ranking to all and sundry and I need nothing more than this to conclude that SEO is a bad thing. Simply put, it is lies all lies.

As an example.. you start up a website advertising anything from cars to hotels, first look at all that competition there is already out there. “English Hotels” brings shows more than 21 million results… 21 MILLION. So you got to an SEO and tell him you wanna be in the top 10 for the search “English Hotels”, thing is only 10 sites can feature in that top 10.

Being very conservative, lets say that 21 million results equates to 20,000 genuine individual websites. So you have to beat 19,990 other websites in order to get on the first page. Question is are you the only one using SEO companies to get you into the top 10? Chances are, if you are doing it, so are many of those already listed in the results. Lets assume then that the whole top 10 are already using SEO to get them there, and now you come along as number 11. There lies the rub with SEO companies, they simply cannot get everyone who uses their services the positioning they want for the terms they want.. only 10 out of every 11 sites, and the thing is, I bet they dont give the money back when they fail.

The main reason this has come about is because of our good old friend “affiliate marketing”. Sure we all use it, but consider a users experience when he/she searches for a product only to reach blog after blog after link farm with reams Of Adsense space or hotlinks to other affiliate schemes. This was my experience only a few weeks ago when I was trying to find somewhere to by a new mobo – the sites where I could actually buy the mobo from didnt appear until the 3rd page. As an internet user, this is not my idea of a good experience, but it is because there is so much money to be had from blogging about products and services out there, that SEO is a required evil nowadays.

SEO’s are bad? In my opinion – YES. I also think that their lifecycle is coming to an end. This is evident by the increasing number of SEO companies using affiliates to send SPAM email from yahoo and hotmail companies. I wonder if they even consider how this makes their business look when prospective customers receive email from yahoo email addresses LMAO!!! So no credibility in their marketing and no credibility in their claims – for me they GOTTA GO!

Mostly NO.

People who are better than me at SEO are good. And believe me, I’ve spent enough on gurus!

Link farms, pages of keywords with no real content, illegible text etc are bad – and Google knows it.

Doing the right thing gets there slowly – as I believe I am doing with my photographic sites http://www.opusalbums.com, http://www.printalot.org etc

Daniel

SEO like web design is a service, to help web site owners improve their site positioning etc etc.

For the most part SEO practitioners do a much needed service. Sometimes think some people within the SEO and search community get their knickers in a knot, they should just get over it and get on with the job.

Like all industries you will get your cowboys, but don’t demean the whole industry because of a few, even if that few are a big rather than small group. Do have to admit the industry has the reputation similar to car salesmen and real estate agents.

But we still use them because they are needed.