

The end of SEO, powered by Google - agentbleu
http://thenextweb.org/2008/05/26/powered-by-google/

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matthewking
White hat SEO is the practice of making sure sites are well structured and
well covered by related sites.

Like making sure a book has a contents, index and the pages in the right
order, a title that is going to look attractive, and a description that will
make readers want to know more.

That part will never change no matter what search engines do, because people
always make sites that aren't put together properly.

Good SEO's also look at converting the visitors that originate from search
engines, nobody is going to change that either.

I think this article means to say 'The end of the recent black hat techniques
in SEO' - as we all know, those breaking the rules always find new ways.

~~~
agentbleu
I will give you a page that breaks every SEO rule in the book but that is
ranked very high for one of the most important search terms currently on the
collective worlds mind.

The search term is “global dimming” and the result I am referring to which
absolutely has ZERO SEO, is this:

<http://www.documentary-film.net/search/sample.php>

[http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=global+dimming&...](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=global+dimming&start=10&sa=N)

It is now up to others to disprove my claims, that: 1) General White hat SEO
is no longer relevant 2) That you cannot game Google with any form of SEO on a
new domain.

Enjoy the doc btw.

~~~
matthewking
From first look, that term has very little competition and so would not be
difficult to rank for.

You have links to the site (4005 of them)
[http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/advsearch;_ylt=ArrNxOma...](http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/advsearch;_ylt=ArrNxOmaiQ_eTyCSBMMVxkval8kF?p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.documentary-
film.net&bwm=i&bwmf=a&bwms=p)

And the page has the main keyword in the title.

You rank 3rd on the page.

That doesn't look anything out of the ordinary for SEO :)

~~~
agentbleu
Nothing out of the ordinary!

Not a single word on that page! No meta tags, no text, nothing but a 2 word
title. That is out of the ordinary.

If you think that is an easy term to rank for, your mistaken, the next result
down is PBS.

~~~
matthewking
There's only 220,000 competition. The main factors (yes before, and after all
these latest updates) are title tag, and links - both of which you have.

Since its a low competition keyword, you don't need _everything_ to rank. But
saying that, you have 4000~ incoming links, which is pretty high.

~~~
agentbleu
220K competition sure sounds like a lot to me.

So you agree then that white hat SEO, I.e. meta tags, H1 text, page text, page
layout, content on the page, keyword density, validation, is all absolutely
pointless. My point entirely!

~~~
matthewking
Most keywords that actually generate traffic have much more results returned,
usually 1 million plus, 5 million is pretty normal.

Keywords that generate traffic can also be marked by the amount of PPC ads
that appear for the keyword, people paying money don't go after stuff that
doesn't generate clicks, or even impressions.

What you've listed there as white hat SEO is just the on-site SEO side of it.

Are you the author of the article? or just submitted it?

------
mhartl
_This new algorithm changes everything_

Which new algorithm? The article doesn't say. In fact, it doesn't say much of
anything, offering little more than unsubstantiated assertions. It might be
right, be we have no way to tell.

~~~
agentbleu
See substantiated claims, in my other response.

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gills
Hmm...using search dominance to make sure they get all of the paid link
business. Sounds similar to using desktop OS dominance to corner the browser
business. It smells.

~~~
josefresco
I agree 110% and not because Google penalizes new domains, but because Google
will go to extreme and unfair measures to protect their (soon to be) monopoly
in the paid advertising market.

Google whacks paid links because it competes with AdWords. Doesn't get much
more complex than that. If you own a company that makes it's money by selling
links or providing webmaster an alternative to AdSense/AdWords, prepare to be
attacked directly by the Goog.

The MS-like backlash will happen with Google, just give it time.

~~~
gnaritas
Google should whack paid links, they're less relevant than natural links; this
is a good thing and makes the search results more relevant. Selling links is
gaming the system. Paid links spoil the relevance of search results.

~~~
josefresco
Selling links only spoils relevance because that's what Google bases their
rank algorithm on. This is a flaw in Google's logic. Google created the market
(both the good side and the bad), and now they want to control it too. Without
Google's ranking math there would still be paid links. It shouldn't be 'our'
problem that Google's logic if flawed, they should engineer a new solution.

If we take your and Google's word on this, that paid links ruin relevance, it
just displaces where the money and time is spent. If direct paid links are
penalized, it shifts the power and influence to other parties/locations (and
all the paid link money directly into Google's pockets)

~~~
gnaritas
Do you remember before Google? Do you remember how bad search engines sucked
and how irrelevant the results were? Google was smart enough to see that when
lot's of pages link to a site, that site must be considered relevant by a lot
of people.

Ranking results by inbound links was the breakthrough that made search
actually work. Paid links are bad, they allow people with money to game the
system and make irrelevant content show up in the search results. Unless
you're a spammer or an SEO, Google is doing the right thing for the user. It
is the user after all, they're trying to serve, not middle men trying to
arbitrage the system. Ideally, they figure out a way to make spamming and SEO
completely irrelevant, that industry needs to die.

You act as if you have some _right_ to show up in their search results, guess
what, YOU DON'T. It is Google's search engine, they have every right to do
with it as they please, including exclude anyone they wish.

Google's logic isn't flawed, yours is. Google's search results are not a free
market, they have every right to game their own system to make them money and
there's nothing unfair about it. You have no rights and no expectation of
rights about how they index your site with _their_ search engine.

------
josefresco
Funny article coming from a website which has ads without Google's 'required'
nofollow tag.

~~~
Bomega
Ddn't know that was 'required'. Can you tell me more? If you are correct I
will change the code...

~~~
matthewking
I think it was on Matt Cutts blog that he mentioned any links to advertising
should have a nofollow, to protect your site from being seen to "sell links",
which would then result in a penalty in the form of not being able to pass
page rank, and having your page rank reduced.

