SEO BLOG

It happened again! SEO hate. This time on StumbleUpon where I did not expect it as people get targeted news there so nobody who does not like SEO or SEO blogs has to read them, unlike Digg or Reddit where everybody has to view it once it’s on the front page. You can choose your fields of interest so if you choose Internet or search or social media you have to deal with people who, like me, help others to learn how to build websites and make them popular.

A dumbass called Vallam “reviewed” my article about the pros of StumbleUpon traffic with the words:

Fuck SEO, fuck you and your shitty blog, fuck creating content just to get traffic, and fuck sandspurs. I hate those things. I can’t even take out the garbage anymore without putting on shoes.

Anyway, yeah, have some AIDS, etc.

This is not the SEO is bullshit kind of point of view, no, this is actual hate speech. As I am new to StumbleUpon I do not know if or how you can inform the SU staff of this violation. Anyways, as this kind of verbal attack is not new to me and I did fight such SEO haters in German I will also do in English.

So I want to repel those spurious arguments once so I can link back to it every time a smartass like that wants to offend me or the whole trade. Also, offenders like him are plainly wrong but many people who do not know much about SEO do still believe this crap.

So check out the 10 reasons why SEO haters are plainly wrong. As this guy offers only one argument and the rest is pure hate I have to add some common negative notions about SEO myself:

1. SEO is “creating content just to get traffic”: No, SEO is creating traffic for your content, creating more content for your users and creating great content for your users and/or clients. SEO is about guessing what the people want and giving it to them. SEO is assisting webmasters to create content not just for themselves and their egos but also for the people out there.
2. SEO is purely commercial: No, SEO is about empowering webmasters of any type and budget, even those with no budget at all to optimize their blogs or websites so that they can reach an or their audience, whether they want to sell something, create a religious site or work for a non profit organization. Especially SEO blogs like mine enable people to do DIY optimization not only in the sense of SEO, but also design, usability, writing so that websites are of any use for the potential audience.
3. SEO is selfish: SEO can be selfish but as stated above SEO can also be used for any type of website and goal. It not only can, it is widely used for different purposes. SEOs assist others in their blogs so that they can master SEO themselves.
4. SEOs pollute social networks and news: Well no, there might have been some spectacular cases where Digg or others has been manipulated but that’s not necessarily or automatically SEO. Most respected and well known SEOs are power users and valuable contributors to all kinds of social sites. In many cases they even help to create the social sphere of such sites in the first place as early adopters.
5. SEO is about manipulating Google results or other services: Well, no, it isn’t. You can manipulate the results in the sense that’s it is technically possible as the Google algorithm is by now a little outdated, robots just can not determine what’s best for humans. A widely used gray hat technique nowadays is that of paid links. It depends on the Google weakness to count incoming links as the main factor for rating a site. I noticed that especially non-SEO webmasters tend to use this or even spammier methods as they think “you should do it”. I often encounter clients who say something like “I already optimized with some hidden text”. Most good SEOs do not need that methods as, like myself they get enough link love just for creating content as in 1.
6. SEO is Spam: No, SEO is search engine optimization, in short making a site crawlable for search engine spiders, creating content for the users and making it known on the Net, basically it’s supporting Google to do “his” job. Spam on the contrary in the case of search engines is tricking search engines so that they “believe” a particular site offers content that is worth to be ranked high in the search results whereas it is not. Although Spamdexing is likened to (black hat) SEO it’s almost like saying that shoppers and shoplifters are the same because they both go to the supermarket and take away groceries.
7. SEO destroys the Internet: Again, SEO helps you to find relevant content on the Net, it allows webmasters to create sites not just for themselves but for an audience. SEO allows users to find the best and most relevant content on the best sites as in the long run only those can establish themselves as authorities and will be ranked high in Google and elsewhere.
8. Only bad spammy sites do SEO: You will only recognize bad SEO on bad sites. You won’t even notice good SEO on good sites. You will find those and enjoy the user experience. Every webmaster, every online news outlet, almost every corporation that has not stopped evolving in 2001 does SEO. The New York Times does it, Yahoo does it, ebay does it, every webstandards aficionado does it.
9. Only rich people can afford SEO: Well no, SEO 2.0 and other blogs make it possible for every webmaster to learn how to optimize their sites. That’s the purpose of SEO blogs like this one. SEO empowers the people to compete with newspapers and corporations. You can outrank the New York Times, Yahoo or ebay.
10. SEOs are sneaky and shady types: No, every webmaster does it or should if he still does not. Representatives of large newspapers or corporations approach SEOs and want to do it. Your neighbour does it and everybody who is not crazy enough to believe that he is the only person to decide what’s good for the rest of the world. I do it and I stand for what I do with my real name unlike many people who offend me.

So if you do SEO yourself, you can send people this link. If you did not know what SEO is about, now I hope I could clarify some points. If you are a SEO hater: Never mind, you will always find someone to hate, either the SEOs or the Jews, the Arabs, the homosexuals or whomever. It’s not about “protecting the Net” or something, it’s your problem, it’s your hate. It’s you. You destroy the Net.