

Why do hackers hate SEO? - shabda

Why do _most hackers_ equate SEO with spam? Why is trying my site to rank better evil?
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brk
I think there are 2 main reasons:

1) Because SEO is today was HTML was in 1995: A simple and basic concept that
almost anyone can master, but is portrayed as some high-level mystery
"language". I think most hackers get upset when simple ideas are over-hyped
and blown out of proportion. In many ways "SEO" is nothing more than
quality/standards-based site design and relevant and current content. Maybe
something like AP English for the web: not mentally tasking, just a lot of
rules to know

2) (Perhaps the bigger reason) Because SEO disrupts the natural food chain of
the web. If someone is passionate, knowledgeable and committed to their site
or the business underlying the site, they will tend to naturally rank high in
SERPs. This would likely be because they put the time into making sure the
layout is clean and orderly, the content is accurate and up to date, and the
site is overall valuable. In exchange for this, users who are interested in
whatever niche that site serves reward them by referencing other users to the
site in blog posts, forums, etc. Now, you get someone with an inferior site
who puts their effort in _SEO_ and not _The Site_ and wants to jump to the
head of the line in a way that they didn't earn. Now users who are trying to
find quality content or products in that category are sidetracked by this
high-ranking but overall less valuable site that came up as results #1, #2,
and #4 in their search for "widgetA". Most hackers despise this blatant
manipulation of the servers and algorithms that are impartial and on a more
level playing field will yield the correct results to a query. Maybe we don't
like SEO because it exposes the flaws and frailties of our system :)

To answer your question: trying to make your site rank better is a good thing,
especially if you do this by making user-centric improvements to the site and
content. Trying to make your site rank higher than it naturally deserves to is
equated to Spam.

------
gaius
Because it's a scam, of course. Tricking users into visiting your site because
of a weakness in a search engine's algorithm as opposed to because you have
relevant content and service offerings is (nearly) as bad as spamming them -
us - directly.

~~~
mynameishere
Notice that much under the rubric of "SEO" is perfectly legitimate:

[http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en...](http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35291)

Many SEOs and other agencies and consultants provide useful services for
website owners, including:

    
    
        * Reviewing and providing recommendations on your site content or structure
        * Technical advice on website development: for example, hosting, redirects, error pages, use of JavaScript
        * Content development
        * Managing online business development campaigns
        * Keyword research
        * SEO training

~~~
j2d2
I would argue that SEO, in the context of google, is really an analysis of how
to make your site more relevant to the intended audience. This is not a bad
thing.

~~~
omouse
It's not a bad thing but it also doesn't require you to hire an snakeoil
salesman, erm SEO consultant.

~~~
tstegart
but there's SEO, and then there's slimy SEO. Too many times people get them
confused. There are a lot of smart things to do to earn a higher ranking just
by changing the way your site's programming works, and none of them involve
link buying, page spamming or underhanded shenanigans.

~~~
gaius
There is "making a better website" and there is "making a website come higher
in search rankings" and the _only_ way to do the latter without the former is
by gaming the system.

~~~
tstegart
What would you say changing your links from using underscores to hyphens would
be? Is that gaming the system, or making a better website? I mean, from a
programming perspective, it doesn't sound like it makes much difference, but
from an SEO perspective, it makes a huge difference. Google recognizes words
when they're hyphenated, but not necessarily when they're underscored. Your
rankings will probably improve just by doing that. Its simple things like that
that programmers should be aware of, and its not really gaming the system, its
programming to match what Google recognizes.

------
quellhorst
Because many hackers don't understand marketing and think they are going to
compete in a level playing field.

Checkout some of the advanced techniques listed on
<http://www.bluehatseo.com/> and then reconsider your SEO plan.

------
babul
As rms mentions, most of SEO is basic practice and are things you should be
doing anyway.

If you want your site to rank better simply provide something people want and
try to give good, fresh, content on a regular basis. This is perhaps the best
way to achieve a good (organic) ranking.

Users you "earn" also tend to stay longer, be more active, more loyal, and
will link to you and spread the word anyway, which is what you want.

With good users and traffic you will automatically get better rankings and
have good monetisation options too, such as advertising/adwords, if you do not
already charge for your service.

Lastly, have a blog as that is probably the best SEO tip most sites do not
utilise.

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greyman
>> Why is trying my site to rank better evil?

It depends on what exactly do you do and don't do.

For example, if your site has poorer content or less usable service, but you
used various tricks to rank higher as sites with better content or more usable
service, then that's somewhat despicable, I'd say. You might have wasted other
people time, because without your "SEO", they could have been served better by
SE. I would not use the word evil, though.

But if you just provide sitemap or use the <title> tag correctly, that's ok.

------
slater
Your site should be ranked according to its content, and subsequent relevancy
to what visitors are searching for.

Not according to Latest SEO Trick #29832 that you* read somewhere.

(* "you" not meaning you personally, of course)

~~~
froo
Unfortunately there are lots of people who do use shady tactics to promote
their sites - and simple grassroots whitehat SEO practises are really all one
should focus on.

Google and Yahoo can, and do change the rules of the game all the time by
changing their algorithm, so just make sure you have your bases covered with
the things that you cant get pinged for.

------
coglethorpe
SEO has struck me as something that _should_ be straightforward but seems to
be black magic.

There's a lot to do, from the URL, to keyword frequency to use of header tags
to if you should have a unique IP and how long your domain is registered for
-- and that's before you even leave your own site. A brilliant hacker can
write a useful, scalable app that has little to no internal SEO and get fewer
visitors as a result.

Then there's all the little games people play to get links: begging for them,
paying for them, press releases, "do follow" comments on blogs, and the
dreaded DMOZ. It's a drain on a small company that probably just wants to
build a better application.

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rms
Because there isn't that much to SEO so it's not really worth talking about.
Let me know if I'm missing anything. To do SEO:

    
    
      1. Use semantic markup and SEO best practices 
          (http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-web-developers-seo-cheat-sheet)
      2. Email people and tell them to link to you
    

Grey hat:

    
    
      1. Buy paid links without nofollow on forums.digitalpoint.com 
    

(not detected by Google yet, but they'll figure it out eventually because the
affordable links are all spam-like webpages that exist only for the purpose of
having pagerank and selling links. For more money, you can get better links
from real sites, or you can hire an SEO that knows what he is doing. Ideally
you only pay him for the links and you handle all other SEO yourself, because
it isn't worth paying for.)

    
    
      2. Write articles and upload them to free article databases

~~~
babul
There are too many SEO cowboys out there trying to make fast money for
little/no work, and most people do not understand what good SEO involves.
Hence many have bad experiences and the industry as a whole gets a bad name.
This is unfair as there are some SEO practitioners, but even from my limited
experience they have been few and far between.

We have to remember as hackers, startups, or computer/web literate people, we
_should_ be doing most of this ourselves, but for most people (SMEs or mom &
pop with their website/ecommerce store) this will be foreign to them and hence
the market for (good?) SEO practitioners.

Whereas bad SEO practice (using link-farms, link-baiting, paid-for
directories) will certainly harm your site (Google penalize against sites that
do this and there are many cases of sites paying for SEO only to see a early
rise followed by a sharp fall later), good SEO at the basic level can
significantly help.

~~~
babul
meant to say "This is unfair as there are some good SEO practitioners..."

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tstegart
I think hackers hate SEO because someone can have a crappy site which outranks
the hacker's awesome, perfectly programmed site. And thats irritating.

But like some people mentioned, there are a lot of SEO tips that people should
be aware of, and quite a lot that programmers should be aware of if they're
going to program a good site. Some simple programming choices in the beginning
can make a big difference to your site's ranking, so if you're not aware of
what those are, then you're not being a good programmer. Check out
<http://www.netconcepts.com/tag/case-studies>

------
rob
Because most of them don't understand it, which is why most of their
'startups' make no money (that and creating stupid websites that can't make
money in the first place). The people who do understand it and create high
quality content websites (with less programming knowledge than said hackers;
sometimes no knowledge at all) are the ones making money online, without
needing 'investment' or going 'stealth'.

