
The Art of SEO - DanielBMarkham
http://www.hn-books.com/Books/The-Art-Of-SEO.htm
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ivankirigin
"So this SEO copywriter walks into a bar, grill, pub, public house, Irish bar,
bartender, drinks, beer, wine, liquor"
<http://twitter.com/#!/drelabre/status/24646925328326657>

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bauchidgw
OMFG - this is the worst seo book ever - and i know because i'm propably the
only one who ever read it front to cover (during my sabbatical on a beach in
mexico) there are four authors which republish their old blog posts mixed
together by an editor who was obviously overwhelmed with the task. but it is
not only mixed (with no way to find out who wrote what) it is also repetitive
(the same topic up to 5 times) and unstructured (soemtimes there are
refferences like: read more about that in this chapter, but then the whole
topic is discussed again nothingtheless) ... oh yeah some of it is factually
false, with refernces to blogposts wich talks about something completely
different.

the truth is: this book stands for everything that is wrong with SEO as a
profession. SEO as a profession is 80% bullshit and 20% actionable knowledge.
this book celebrates the 80%.

the biggest letdown is, that its published by oreily but way below their
quality standard they are known for.

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acconrad
The art is there is no art. It's called "making useful stuff that people can
find." I always felt like a criminal when people paid me loads of money to do
this :(

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aaronwall
1.) People pay public relations firms a lot for press coverage. And they pay
Google ~ $30 billion a year for AdWords ads. If SEO is way cheaper (and it
typically is) then what makes it overpriced (when similar traffic streams
indicate that rates should be, if anything, higher)?

2.) Surely you were not knee deep in link building if you felt overpaid. ;)

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epoxyhockey
The title of this post should really be: The Art of Affiliate Marketing

Good show!

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aditya
Not sure what you mean? Because the guy who runs hn-books adds an affiliate
code to amzn?

(this is what the book url expands to:
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0596518862?ie=UTF8&tag=...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0596518862?ie=UTF8&tag=whtofi-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0596518862))

EDIT: The first line on the homepage states this quite clearly: _external
links to amazon are through their affiliate program_

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epoxyhockey
I think it's general Internet etiquette that when you are referring a
community of people (that you are a member of) to a specific product though
your own site, you don't pass in a referral code. It shows that the product
you are talking about is actually recommended, rather than a quick money maker
for yourself.

I don't have a problem with the website in general, especially if I found it
through Google. But, what's to say that 10 other HN'ers don't post a book
review tomorrow with an affiliate link? Because, after all, it's profitable.
Who cares if the book is good or not?

Given the OP's unofficial librarian status, I don't think it's a major offense
in this case. But, I didn't find that out until after I posted my first
comment.

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JamesDB
It's a good book to use as reference. Such as should I do x or y. Easy to
read, and with well explained examples.

Great book to sit along with Web Analytics 2.0.

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bauchidgw
yeah you open it one page which tells you you should care about x, but you do
not like x, so you open it on another random page which tells you to do y and
you like y better so you do y.

seriously this book is shit, if you see an SEO mention it as his reference run
for cover, take your business with you

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leon_
It hurts me deeply that HN has become a stage for the SEO circus. Wasn't
"Spinh" enough?

