American Express Guide Calls SEOs A "Waste"

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American Express Guide Calls SEOs A "Waste"

By WebProNews Staff - Sat, 03/15/2008 - 06:04

Advice from OPEN publication slams SEO pros

Search engine optimization received no love from the credit card issuer's small business guide, which published some oddly contradictory advice about being found in places like Google or Yahoo.

American Express promotes a small business program called OPEN as part of its Business Gold Rewards Card program. The company also sponsors small business Meetups in several cities.

As Search Engine Watch noted, American Express published views on search engine optimization. The opinion in question comes from a PDF called OPEN Book, which AmEx calls "A practical guide for business growth," available for download from that Meetups page.

Here is the paragraph from the guide that's like to ruffle some feathers in the SEO community (spacing added):

Search engines, like Yahoo! and Google, are usually the first place people will look for you. Make it easier for them to find you. Yahoo! and Google offer tools to let them know the site map structure of your Web site.

Also, using clean U.R.L.’s like yourdomain.com/store/widgets instead of yourdomain.com/store.php?id=42&categoryID= widgets will increase your chances of getting indexed in a search engine.

Finally, don’t waste money on so-called Search Engine Optimization (S.E.O.) specialists. Search engines are very quick to penalize sites that try to trick their filtering techniques, and once your site has been put on Google’s blacklist, it will take forever to get off.

The advice appears as part of a broader story on building a web presence credited to design group Cuban Council. This is the San Francisco firm that developed the Facebook logo.

Another document also hosted on the OPEN Meetups page promotes the idea of search engine marketing. This document advocates SEO and gives advice on what to do (Use the right keywords. Beware of "Black Hat" optimizers and their tricks) and provides a brief primer on SEM.

Our advice for small business owners: be wary of companies that promote two different ideas to their customers and don't seem to know they are doing so.

News Tags: SEO, American Express, Cuban Council

97 Comments

By sweatstop (WPN reader) - Sun, 05/10/2009 - 00:32

SEO is good thing for new

SEO is good thing for new sites.

By Guest (WPN reader) - Sat, 05/02/2009 - 00:59

Here it is a year later and

Here it is a year later and SEO is not dead. Guess it was all blah.

http://search-engine-power.blogspot.com/

By VeeFnA (WPN reader) - Sat, 04/11/2009 - 07:00

Hi,

I will not accept this.
My Concept is,
SEO is good thing until doing any spam activities.
Check Processing Services

By Orville (WPN reader) - Fri, 04/10/2009 - 11:51

SEO is not a waste IMO, it

SEO is not a waste IMO, it helps many webmasters to gain traffic from organic search and make money for it.

By seo (WPN reader) - Mon, 03/09/2009 - 04:56

seo is great

seo is great, why people do not understand it.

website design UK

By biznes (WPN reader) - Wed, 03/04/2009 - 07:12

Well I think SEO is not

Well I think SEO is not dead. However search engines algorithms are changing.

By Guest (WPN reader) - Wed, 02/18/2009 - 01:50

Amex should get theirselves right

Perhaps things will just work out fine if Amex will not link so unnaturally.
Fast ways to make cash

By Webdesign Hamburg (WPN reader) - Thu, 02/12/2009 - 16:57

Wow, these people are crazy.

Wow, these people are crazy. But if they don't need SEO that fine too.

By dbvanhorn (WPN reader) - Sun, 01/11/2009 - 17:00

AMEX article taken out of context

While I agree with many here that AMEX took a low blow, I really don't think it is quite in context. AMEX is obviously pointing to acts of malicious link sharing etc., that frankly will get your site blacklisted.

However, proper SEO, done with a systematic approach of optimizing each page is a much different animal. Any 'new' web site owner can come to us at www.webwildcatting.com to learn the difference. We practice the fine art of organic search. Not to gip Google out of any money, because we believe Adwords have their place. Our goal is to demonstrate to our clients the value of 'paying' attention to your page content and taking the time to do it right the first time as over the long haul we will generate better results.

Any quality SEO firm will not promise you 'instant on' results. If they do, run screaming from the room and come talk to us at www.webwildcatting.com where drilling for profit on the internet is our business. Let us help you with yours. db

By Guest (WPN reader) - Mon, 01/12/2009 - 18:58

brrraaaaaaaawwwwwwwrrrrrrrr!

By SEO Service (WPN reader) - Thu, 01/01/2009 - 04:44

Booo, I think they have some

Booo, I think they have some sort of misunderstanding or had a bad experience with SEO in the past.

By Michael Kannon (WPN reader) - Wed, 01/28/2009 - 19:57

Cuban Council advice to AMEX

The article notes, "The advice appears as part of a broader story on building a web presence credited to design group Cuban Council."

One look at the Cuban Council website shows content that channels the viewer to their message. It's very thoughtfully designed to control this. But nowhere on their site does it mention SEO, its just not part of the Cuban Council service.

So when AMEX paid these professionals for content, its not surprising they recommended against SEO.

By CheapWebDesign (WPN reader) - Tue, 12/30/2008 - 15:16

SEO can't be bad for a

SEO can't be bad for a website given that Google itself emphasizes on it.

By C. M. Ballard (WPN reader) - Sun, 12/28/2008 - 19:42

Open or Closed?

Well this does not bode well for those who might have been thinking about going with American Express Open. It's pretty obvious that this is terrible advice. In fact the most important thing a small business owner can do is pay an SEO expert to improve their rankings. Most small business owners who attempt to create their own websites or have them built by some fly-by-night web designer offering websites for $299, will do things to hurt their traffic instead of improving it.

Most of the small business owners I've worked with still keyword spam, use tiny text to stuff keywords into their content, have duplicate title tags on multiple pages, etc...

Good SEO pays for itself for years to come. If you have a small web based business the number one investment you should make is to hire an SEO professional. It's the fastest way to go from a small web business to a fast growing web business.

Amex needs to rethink their position on that one.

C. M. Ballard
President
Ballard Web Design
Houston SEO

By Len Molden (WPN reader) - Sun, 12/28/2008 - 16:46

People Still Want SEO Expertise

I also think that American Express has some other agenda it's pushing making comments like: "don’t waste money on so-called Search Engine Optimization (S.E.O.) specialists."

Being someone who's living partly depends on people who want search engine marketing services, I'm glad that I can still get sites better rankings using legitimate, time-proven techniques like good content and quality incoming links. There are those in the SEO community who've given the entire field a bad name, but there's not much that can be done about this. Maybe American Express had some experiences with these "smoke and mirror" specialists, and has decided we're all not worth it.

Anyway, as long as there are people who want to get their web sites ranked higher so that they can get more traffic (and hopefully more business), SEO will continue to exist.

By ron (WPN reader) - Sun, 12/28/2008 - 13:57

seo

I find from my site logs that about 90% of my traffic from search comes from Goggle,yahoo,& msn. I do my own seo but makes very little difference. have been using the net with my (own sites 3-4 years) for about 12 years so what chance of the average user using any other search engines as a preference to the main 3 in my logs…

By Andrew Stevens (WPN reader) - Sun, 12/28/2008 - 12:41

SEO Will Always Work!

SEO tactics will always be effective in a search environment. The tactics may change, but the skill set will be in demand as long as non-human edited search exists.

If you had a billboard on a highway that gets billions of views a day. 1 side is free, but you have to "know how to do the work" and the other side is paid advertising, both sides of that billboard will have value and marketable. The way to get your sign up there may change, but as long as theres's a "earned side" there will always be a need for search engine optimization. If the public is aware of an "earned side" they will obviously be influenced that direction and thus that side will present higher return and a more profitable investment.

Search Engine Optimization for Niche & Local Markets

By منتديات (WPN reader) - Sat, 10/25/2008 - 12:03

wooooow

By answer archives (WPN reader) - Wed, 10/22/2008 - 09:56

Interesting

WOW.

By Pennington Gap VA (WPN reader) - Fri, 10/17/2008 - 01:35

Amex Knows Best?

"I wonder what is behind this? Perhaps there was an inordinate amount of money charged back regarding seo companies."

Yamir, that's a good point.

This is also coming from a giant company with name/brand recognition long before the internet mattered. Companies like this have never had to 'work' at it.

By full face helmet (WPN reader) - Sat, 09/27/2008 - 10:42

SEO is NOT Waste

Why they said? I cut off my amex card.

By Yamir Coochah (WPN reader) - Fri, 09/19/2008 - 19:19

I wonder what is behind

I wonder what is behind this? Perhaps there was an inordinate amount of money charged back regarding seo companies.

By Articles, News, Facts (WPN reader) - Wed, 09/17/2008 - 16:49

Great article

Great article, I just cut up my AMEX card

By Articles (WPN reader) - Tue, 09/02/2008 - 13:50

What

Damn... thats a pretty harsh statement.

By Free High PR Links (WPN reader) - Sun, 08/31/2008 - 16:34

SEO a "Waste"?

I guess one could say the same thing for AMEX as well. The power of SEO cannot be denied. How else can one take a website from obsurity to be profitable doing nothing else other than SEO?

Get with the program there AMEX

Internet Marketing Website SEO

By Tourism places in India- Famous places in India (WPN reader) - Sat, 08/30/2008 - 16:08

SEO is good

To me, SEO is a way for the search engines to find your sites and filter through all of the crap that the search engine tricksters flood Google and other search engines with. You can be blinded by the truth and think that, "Hey, if we build it and follow rules, they'll come." Soon after, you'll have a rude awakening.

By Kevin - Webmaster (Affiliate Marketing Help 101) (WPN reader) - Fri, 08/15/2008 - 12:27

SEO

In my opinion, SEO is dead! You need to optimize your site for the visitors: it's called VEO or Visitor Experience Optimization. The idea is to build a website your visitors will absolutely love. Provide useful information and provide links to other sites related to yours. If you build a quality site other webmasters will link to it to enrich their own visitors' experience and your site's popularity will rise.

By Runescape Forums (WPN reader) - Sun, 08/10/2008 - 20:18

SEOs are not a waste

its not a waste, they are just mad that they are getting owned by SEOs

By mbridge (WPN reader) - Tue, 07/29/2008 - 16:54

SEO - Results

The only thing about SEO that matters are the results.

What's interesting is the number of companies stating that they are the SEO "Experts." It is far easier to tell people you are an expert, than to actually deliver any meaningful results. Anyone can put up a web-site claiming to help your site gain more audience. After 6 months if nothing happens they can say, "Well.... Google changed their algorithm on us. Let's try for another 3 months and see what happens."

AMEX may have been alluding to this fact, though the way they said it could lead one to believe that all SEO is a waste of resources.

SEO of course does have a place as long as it does what it is supposed to do. The tough part is determing which company will actually make good on their promises.

http://www.mbridge.com

By Kaibo2.com (WPN reader) - Thu, 06/25/2009 - 01:37

No SEO can guarantee results.

If someone tells you that they guarantee top 10 or 20 for 2000 bucks within 1 or 3 months, they are the "so-called" SEOs, who are most likely some "black hats" . Real SEOs can plan good things to improve your ranking in a long run and that takes great efforts, that's why they are expensive, but can really help you maximize your ROI.