And bear with me again – SEO is bullshit because I have that link in my footer?

Of course I’ve read your post – you make no substantive argument other than that standards should be the only ranking criteria. Yopu also reference marketing. Did it strike you that SEO is part of the marketing mix?

Why should I write a post? I feel no reason to defend the work I do. You were the one who made the statement that ‘SEO is bullshit’, so it’s up to you to rpove that with some evidence, not up to me to disprove it.

Rgds
Richard

Not trying to be a smart arse, but did you read my post that you linked to?

http://www.contrast.ie/blog/seo-is-still-bullshit/

We can go back and forth on this, but I’m not the one trying to belittle the argument using the “it’s just linkbait” defence. How about a post where you defend yourself or your profession? Where you explain why it’s good for your visitors to link to your about page with “Internet Consultant Ireland”? I think a lot of people—myself included—would be interested in that!

@Frank – your comment is a post in itself LOL. Some fantastic points in there, thanks for saying them here. I doubt Eoghan is coming back to answer any of the questions/comments people are making – I still have no idea of his fundamental argument, thusfar he has only made a statement without to much supporting evidence IMO.

@Eoghan – care to answer any of the questions? Maybe another post from you?

It’s a great notion but the reality is we live in a commercial world and the internet is no exception.

As long as search engines are people’s first choice for finding information, products & services on the internet, companies will need to monitor how they perform in search engines. What practices they decide to employ in order to improve their positioning is SEO.

There will always be a balance required to ensure your content is appealing to both humans and search engines, but outside of that balance there is no right or wrong. What’s right is what works.

I can hear the response coming to that one, so let me clarify: something that is likely to get you blacklisted by Google is not ok. Not because it’s ‘wrong’ but because it wouldn’t be a commercially sound gamble to take given the large market share Google has.

But let’s be realistic here, Google have their own commercial interests at heart and any designer/SEO has to have a symbiotic relationship with the major search engines – it’s not a matter of morals or ethics or even right or wrong… it’s what everyone can live with as acceptable.

On the mater of linkbait, some say linkbait as if it were a dirty word these days, for what reason? One of Google’s pieces of advice is to ask yourself ‘would I do this if search engines didn’t exist?’ – if search engines did not exist ‘linkbait’ type posts would be crucial because the more avenues into your website the better for visibility.

I also think saying SEO is bullshit is much like saying design is bullshit – the pitch should be levelled by all websites having plain black text on a white background and may the best content win. It may be debatable in a vacuum, but in the real world things are different.

The one with the best content, product or service that attracts the most natural links.

@Gavin – your secrets are safe with me

I also say fair play for making the stance but at least debate with people and keep them interested. If anyting, make sense when trying to point out why something is BS or people just go off on a tagent, like me.

Oh Richard did I mentioned he has honoured me with the title of being an SEO’er. If only he knew half of it eh?

I admire that you take a position. Just a shame that you haven’t offered any argument to back it up. You certainly haven’t answered the following – if you have 10 sites, all built to best practice as per your argument, which one should rank best? How can best practice design (usability etc.) dictate that?

Rgds
Richard

As I said – maybe I’m reading it out of context. That’s not to say that I don’t still think your 2 posts were bullshit mind

But as I said – nothing personal. Now I must return to doing some more bullshit…

Rgds
Richard

The “linkbait debate” in question is this one: http://mulley.net/2008/02/16/sorry-glengarriff-lodge-im-not-gonna-rig-google-for-you/#comment-617057 I was laughing at SEOs calling my posts linkbait.