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Bullshit Prevails When Good SEOs Do Nothing

By SEO Mofo | February 5, 2010

Do you really want to know why I call myself the World’s Greatest SEO? Well I’m gonna tell you anyway. It’s because I’m 100% confident that no one is ever going to look at the information I’ve published and call it bullshit. Am I always 100% right? Yes. No, of course not. I make mistakes just like everybody else. The difference is…I don’t publish information that I’m not sure about. In fact, if you look at the dozen-or-so articles I’ve published on my website, you’ll see that most of them are how-to’s about things I’ve actually done.

How do I know my article about creating a golden-ratio, 3-column layout in Thesis is accurate? Well…because I wrote it after I formatted my Thesis-driven website’s columns into golden-ratio widths. How do I know my method for tracking Google Sidewiki comments works? Because that’s what I personally use to track the shit people are saying in Google Sidewiki. Oh…and why would I write a guide about how to customize your Twitter background? Well…two reasons, actually: (1) because no one else on this planet has researched Twitter background properties and dimensions as thoroughly as I did when creating this modern-day equivalent of the Sistine Chapel:

SEO Mofo's custom Twitter background

…and (2) because 99.9% of you so-called “social media experts” and “web designers” are using Twitter backgrounds that make your information unreadable to anyone using a 1024px-wide monitor–a demographic that accounts for roughly 25% of the internet.

(Oh and FYI…the Apple Ipad has a screen resolution of 1024 by 768 pixels. So despite the fact that it’s a worthless piece of shit that will literally slow down the evolution of internet technology–and therefore, the human race–for the sake of pleasing Apple’s stockholders…inevitably, this screen size is about to become much more popular.)

Damn it…I already forgot what I was ranting about. Let’s see…I’m the greatest…everything I write is pure gold…Oh! Right. Now I remember. I was basically trying to tell all you stupid people to stop publishing bullshit. Let’s continue…

You see, before this whole internet thing came along…we had this old-fashioned way of exchanging information, where before you were allowed to teach people about a given topic…you first had to actually know something about it. I know it sounds crazy, but stay with me here.

After the internet showed up, things changed. Suddenly it became very easy for someone–anyone–to disperse information across a very large audience. The benefit of this was…intelligent people could communicate more efficiently, and easy access to information led to a tremendous growth in science and innovation. The downside to this was…we no longer had the means of silencing stupid people. It was like inviting the football team to a chess club meeting. And to make matters worse, all the jocks started watching the nerds play chess, and eventually they began to tell themselves absurdities like “I could do that” and “chess is easy.” Before long, the whole school wants to play, and now the quarterback is charging people 1600 bucks a head to attend 3-day chess conferences. (Oh shut up…that was the most incredible analogy you’ve ever heard and you know it. In fact…I’m gonna keep going with it. This baby ain’t tapped yet…)

It doesn’t take long before one of these jocks-in-nerd-clothing says to the others: “Hey…you know what chess really needs? Tackling!” The rest of the football team loves the idea so much…they rename the game Chess 2.0 and start bragging about their superior skills. They even try to hit on the nerds’ girlfriends! But then the nerds start taking steroids and working out…and they begin walking around school, jump-kicking jocks’ heads off!

[For some reason, I just pictured one of The Oatmeal's illustrations going perfect right here. That guy's my hero. Heroes get links! Um...let's see...what's some valuable content on theoatmeal.com that I would like to vouch for with a hand-picked editorial-grade link...got it!]

Pterodactyl Comics

Even though I’m not a fan of dinosaur pictures, I really like comics about the pterodactyl. Although I guess pterodactyls aren’t really dinosaurs. They’re more like…winged lizards from the Pterosauria order. How do I know all these fun pterodactyl facts? I read them on Wikipedia’s Pterosaur page. But really, I’m just adding more instances of the word pterodactyl to this page, because I suspect that Google might take the pterodactyl link more seriously if it’s coming from a page with strong relevance to pterodactyls. Maybe if Matt Inman’s pterodactyl comic increases its ranking from 11th to something on page 1…he’ll draw a chess nerd jump-kicking jocks’ heads off for my post!

Ok, sorry. Back to my point…

My point is this:

  • If you’re an SEO bullshitter…
  • If you “just kinda fell into SEO” from a job that has nothing to do with websites…
  • If you think “content is king” means “publish as many posts as I possibly can”…
  • If you’ve never created a website without using WordPress…
  • If you blog about X because everyone’s talking about X…
  • If you blog about X because Matt Cutts mentioned X…
  • If you think an SEO’s abilities are measured by the number of years they’ve been doing SEO…
  • If you’ve ever said something like “Google probably doesn’t even use PageRank anymore”…
  • If you don’t have a strong understanding of HTML…
  • If you take social media even the slightest bit seriously…
  • IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT…

…then don’t talk when I’m talking, don’t stand in my way, and don’t you dare try to take what’s rightfully mine. Because I will kick your fucking head off.

SEO Mofo

Ok, the “author” voice inside me is suggesting I end this rant here to maximize poignancy, but the “sociopath” voices are cheering me on and suggesting I go for maximum awkwardness. So…I’m gonna forge ahead with this brilliant video production that I feel truly embodies the seriousness and the deeper meaning of this post.

Enjoy: Stop Sphinning SEO Bullshit

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Topics: Business Bullshit | Comments

Posted on 05 February 2010 by Darren Slatten

SEO Mofo has written 2 articles for SEO Bullshit

  • Martin
    Hmm, you actually are a cock.... do some fucking work and stop bitching about people smarter than you.
  • Robert
    Love your "My point is this: "

    Okay, so I'm guilty of the "Google doesn't use PageRank" speech. But only because I'm trying to convey that that bloody Toolbar doesn't count for anything. We all know that it's a lot more complicated than that, but when people tell me that 5 green pixels rank better than 3... I call bullshit!

    As for the rest, agreed. I can't believe how many people who have never worked with anything internet related simply read up on Matt Cutt's blog and now think they have it sussed.

    That said, SEO Bullshit is now my favourite site!
  • Sebastian
    Darren, I couldn't resist and actually read this "speed up WP" piece of crap. After cleaning up the vomit and replacing my totally ruined keyboard, I'd say your outing was way too polite.
  • Alysson
    Here's the thing about you, Darren...some people write you off as an enormous dick because you're proud and unapologetic about the "I'm a motherfucker" image you've crafted for yourself. But when push comes to shove, you know your shit more than most of this industry. And when you go off on one of your rantastic tangents, people should really just STFU and absorb the useful information.

    You're way smarter than I am when it comes to a lot of the uber-technical stuff and I learn something new from you regularly, you jackass. You do realize I just said smarter than me, right? Don't take that lightly. I don't recall my having said that about anyone previously. And I don't foresee it happening again anytime soon, so enjoy.

    The data and no bullshit evidence to support your claims (not necessarily in this post, but in the posts on SEOmofo.com) is exactly what I've come to expect from you and you never fail at the delivery. The heads of the small business owners I work with would explode with one glance at all that geektasticness, but anyone inside the industry should do a deep bow of thanks. And then they should storm off to talk about what an ass you are. But before that, they should do a deep bow of thanks. ;)

    I particularly enjoyed "If you’ve never created a website without using WordPress…", because while I use WordPress almost exclusively these days for a variety of reasons, I built my first site in the mid-1990s using straight HTML and supposedly WYSIWYG tools like Claris HomePage and Adobe PageMill. It's amazing how WYSIWYG really wasn't and how much HTML was actually required to build a site that didn't look like someone just shit out a 64 count box of Crayolas onto your screen. :)
  • Micah
    Game on:

    1. e4
  • Posthumous Tommy
    27bslash6????????
  • monchito
    talk the talk versus walk the walk :)
  • Marjory M
    Don't be so modest Darren - tell us what you really think. Seriously, though, if more people put the amount of thought and research into posts the way you do, there would definitely be a lot less BS out there.
  • Dean Cruddace
    A pterodactyl, apart from being pre-twitter would have been an awseome site in it`s day, but i feel it is being undervalued in favour of the T-Rex. When the Oatmeal sells more of his great collection maybe he should tout a cheeky bid for http://pterodactyl.com/.
  • rishil
    Oatmeal originally hosted the comic on http://pterodactyl.me but then decided it merrited being on his parent site.
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