« | Home | »

SEO Isn’t a “Fair” Game – Get Over It!

By Nickfb76 | June 21, 2010

SEO Isnt a Fair Game Get Over It!I just got done spending time researching some of my competitors back links.  Since my niche is in the web design, development and SEO industry I don’t typically waste my time as most links acquired are by the same technique… or so I thought – shame on me.  Today I found out a tactic being used that either extremely annoys me or just makes me envious that I can’t pull it off.  Before I get into this tactic a little more let me explain how most links are accumulated for web design & development firms.  We create a website and plop a link on the bottom of the site.  The link always fits the site design and is hardly noticeable unless specifically searched for.  I can only vouch for my company, but 100% of the time our clients know the link is there and many of these times they’re so happy with their project that they never complain.

The Technique In Question

I’m going through a bunch of competitor’s sites looking at their portfolios when I decide to take a look at their link profiles as well.  Typically you see however many sites they have rolled out with an anchor text link placed in the footer.  Nothing wrong with this, in fact I just got done explaining that it’s common practice within our niche.  What I found right next to these links was what shocked me.

Next to the “website created by:” I found a “credits” link.  Clicking on this link brought me to a page with a description of the website and the web development firm themselves.  What I found within this content was optimized anchor text for themselves and to other sites created and optimized by this firm.  I was convinced that this had to be a friend’s site or something of that nature so I went back to the back links page and went to another site.  Guess what I found?  Yup another credits page.

Shady Technique or Jealousy?

I know that none of our clients would be ok with us exercising these techniques, nor should they be.  I can’t imagine one person regardless of their SEO knowledge willingly linking to websites they have zero affiliation with.   Dare I suggest that this is a form of link farming or even paid links?  What if one of these sites stops paying for their SEO services? Will these links stay or will they be replaced with another website?

I mentioned earlier that we talk to our clients about placing a company link in their website.  We have had people in the past politely decline our request and we harbor no ill will.  In fact, our first concern will always be a quality product and a happy client even if it means no link for us.  With this in mind could I just be jealous of this technique? Maybe this website has a clause in there contract that states this credit link/page must be included in any of their work.  If that’s true does it make the technique any more or less shady?

SEO Isn’t Always Fair – Get Over It!

My company typically works with high end e-commerce and extremely large websites that take some time to complete.  Given this statement we don’t pump out 500 sites a year.  I know other web companies that specialize in low priced sites and launch hundreds every year… most of the time with a link pointing back to their website.  Am I jealous of this? Absolutely, but just like link acquisition I know that quality is more important than quantity.  Our sites, once launched gain authority pretty quickly and net us some pretty impressive back links themselves.  I’m not complaining as a good SEO will always come up with additional ways to build additional links.  I know that my industry isn’t the only one in which ‘non traditional’ tactics are used to acquire links so I hope my contribution will help you learn one thing.  SEO isn’t fair, we need to get over it!

No Bullshit? Then just Share it!
  • SEO Isnt a Fair Game Get Over It!

Topics: Other Stuff | 59 Comments »

Posted on 21 June 2010 by Nick LeRoy

Nick is a Minneapolis SEO Consultant at FindLaw a Thomson Reuters business.

has written 4 articles for SEO Bullshit

Newer Comments →
  • http://www.greatwebsitesblog.com/ Barry Adams

    Ooh, nice tactic indeed. Might start using something along those lines myself. :)

  • http://twitter.com/organichat craig daniels

    Hmmmm, gets me thinking about new possibilities. you are right most clients would never agree to something like that.

  • http://exposedseo.com Exposedseo

    They're trading quality web design for SEO. Which makes sense if they're making more from their other sites & SEO projects but it's at the expense of the web design client. Depends what you value.

    Hell they could make a credits page and not even link to it from that site but do all the linkbuilding for it on other domains.

  • http://andrewbleakley.com Andrew Bleakley

    Most clients might not agree to it, but most of the smaller clients would even notice – they want the website done fast and cheap and if you do a good job they wouldn't notice you tacked a page onto the back of there website. Next small job in I might give it a nudge and see how it plays out

  • http://twitter.com/davelorrez Dave Lorrez (E-tail)

    But what if you offer some kind of compensation for the creditpage :o ? Sure some clients will change their mind…

  • http://www.holisticsearch.co.uk Pete – Holistic Search

    Agreed – if a link at the bottom means an extra 100 quid of the price, then most SME's arent going to argue.

  • http://www.seos.si Peter

    I dont really see, what's your point. You do it, they do it… You just assume, that they do not have the OK from the client, or did I misread the article?

  • Nickfb76

    Hi Pete, I think you missed a point within the article. They are building links to their other clients through additional client websites. I'm not saying it's bad or that they are doing it maliciously. For all i know they have an agreement that make both sides more than happy. I am pointing out that everyone has different link building opportunities available to them.

  • jimrudnick

    Have seen same up here in canuckland too, Nick. And yes, imho, these are “web dev client link farms” and this tactic is practiced by quite a few of the larger web dev companies up here. I gained this knowledge, not by the same way you did, ie the clicking of links, but by gaining a few clients who were considering leaving their web dev companies, and who sent me thru to their sites. A quick look, click or two proved that yup, they were involved in a link farm scheme, and when asked all they could do was say that they had been told that their contract with the web dev company included in a clause that the web dev would receive a “credit” in the footer for their work…not anything truthful like a link farm notice tho!

    Sad, really….but hey, whatever “floats your boat” eh!

    :-(

    Jim

  • Jonathon_Weston

    I'm with you Nick – and I've seen it on my competitor's client's sites and felt sick. These SEO's are putting their client's sites (and their living) at risk just to rank other sites better/make themselves look better.

    Its lazy, irresponsible, and Google will *probably* find out eventually.

  • Janeth

    It's sad that an SEO/web designer can't figure out how to get backlinks without screwing someone over.

  • http://www.cheap-nikeshox.com/nike-shox-TL3.html nike shox shoes

    It looks good,I have learn a recruit!Recently,I found an excellent online store, thenrtrsmitters.com XX are completely various, good quality and cheap price,it’s worth buying!

  • http://www.seoibiza.com kev grant

    theres a web designer in Wales who has about 50 sites he's built, all with a reciprocal links page, links.html in fact, all linking to every other site he's built.

    he charges them 50.00 per month ongoing for “SEO” to be included in this list, and when he puts a new site up, it goes into his “SEO” page on all the sites, receives it's own links page and becomes just another 50 pounds a month in his pocket.

    and the best bit about it is that within weeks these new sites are happily ranking for their local terms, i really wonder about Google sometimes, they talk a lot of bull**** themselves.

  • Janeth

    I’ve never seen so many stupid people gather in one spot; as a matter of fact I have seen more intelligence at a pot smoking festival.

    Here we have, what I thought were some of the best minds in the SEO industry, talking about how a lame ass excuse for SEO, that screws over the client, is a great idea. Basically we have one guy that claims to be doing SEO for clients, thinking that sneaking a spamming ass link page onto the client’s site is a really cool thing to do.

    I don’t know about the rest of you but I care a hell of a lot more for my clients then that. And the original poster really didn’t bother me all that much, it was all the dumbasses that left comments about how great the technique was that really upsets me.

    You guys call yourself SEO’s yet this is the best you can come up with for finding backlinks, it must suck being you. No wonder the SEO industry has such a bad name.

  • Johan

    Ehm, unsure how you thought the 'best minds in the SEO industry' thing, but alright.

    Alot of people find this an interesting idea because, correct me if i'm wrong, it's an easy and quick way to get (at least some) results, maybe its not the best thing they can come up with, but i'm pretty sure this trick does it quite well if you look how much effort it takes.

    It's like an 'get rich fast' thing, only in SEO,

    Personaly, i think it's a rather good idea, (I'm a programmer, we think differently then SEO's) though I do agree that it should be done with as little (read: no) impact to the lay-out / usability / etc as possible and with permission from the client. If thats alright, then I don't see why it should be a problem.

    I'm no expert on SEO, hell, it be a compliment to call me a beginner SEO, so maybe i'm missing something, but 'caring for clients' can go hand in hand with this technique if you ask me,

    Maybe you care to tell me why it is such a bad thing?

  • Dawn

    Why is that any more dishonest than paying to be listed on directories merely for the SEO value (let's face it, no human uses these small directiories that we all list on), or posting articles that we don't really care about.

    Any form of link building is ultimately cheating Google, is it not?

    Fair play to the person who's using his web building as an SEO tool – I'm sure if we were the ones building the sites, that is what many of us would do, rather than the slow process of finding people to add links.

  • Dawn

    What 'honest' ways do you say there are of finding backlinks?

  • http://www.searchengineoptimisation.com Phil

    If link is from quality site and high themed contents, in that case no issue at all, even famous blogger provide blog-roll links to each other

  • Nick LeRoy

    Janeth, I was taken a little back by some of the comments as well. I expected a little more 'rage' then 'omg gr8t ideas'. Credits pages are dubius in my book and the value of these links will only decrease as the search engines get smarter.

    either way… thanks for showing a little emotion in the way that i thought this thread would provoke.

  • http://www.kaydinsdale.co.uk/ Kay Dinsdale

    I'm not sure how to react to this post.

    If a client has paid you for web design and not SEO then I guess placing a link on their website to yours would form part of OUR OWN companies strategy.

    However, if the client asked you to design their website with SEO in mind or indeed paying you for ongoing SEO, then placing a homepage link on their website back to you is bullshit. Effectively you are boosting your own websites SEO efforts at a detriment to your clients. If you have permission then you didn't explain what it means to your client, you don't know what it means to the client website (in which case DON'T sell SEO, or you told them a crock of shite (ie it makes no difference). The sites a website LINKS OUT to matters. And when that link out is on the homepage it matters more.

    It is not just 'not fair', it's bullshit. And no I won't get over it cos this is the sort of shite that SEO Bullshit is here to rant about isn't it?

    As for the guy in wales who apparently ranks websites for local terms using shady crosslinkfarming. Local terms aint that hard to achieve, many websites can achieve this naturally with content, no backlinks and basic PR. So no, that method isn't great or clever either, just more bullshit.

  • Dawn

    “It is not just 'not fair', it's bullshit. “

    In what way is it different to any form of link building or not playing by Google's Guidelines. I'm still to find a successful SEO company who doesn't spam blogs & directories and buy/beg for links.

    “However, if the client asked you to design their website with SEO in mind or indeed paying you for ongoing SEO, then placing a homepage link on their website back to you is bullshit.”

    In what way? One link from your homepage is unlikely to effect your page-rank, and most Web Designers will give a reciprocal link as they are proud of their work (unless their sites are badly made and don't meet W3C standards, which is far worse than adding a link, surely).

  • http://www.kaydinsdale.co.uk/ Kay Dinsdale

    Dawn, It's not fair and it's bullshit because a link is being placed on your clients site without them understanding why or you not fully understanding link building or you simply abusing their trust. It has got nothing to do with any link building activity you might do on other sources that are not your responsibility.

    It's really a different discussion this spam vs not spam business but let's go there anyway. Not sure what you consider 'successful SEO company' is but I do ok and I don't do what you describe. When you consider what spam is (untargetted, unrelated and generally unwanted) are you sure those things you talk about are actually spammy?
    1. Spamming blogs – There is spamming where a crappy or duplicate comment is submitted (which may or may not be caught by spam blockers), then there are valid contributions. If the commenter gets a link back to their own website that is called a fair exchange. The comments adds further content and helps keep a post fresh. A two way arrangement, the blog owner can approve or not. Ie. Not spamming. If a blog exists to attract rubbish and approves all crap comments then it's likely the original content is rubbish/scraped/duplicated. It is the blog that is the 'spam' in the first place.
    2. Spamming directories – Website directories are set up to list websites. If placing a link in a directory is spamming then the mere existance of the directory is spam.
    3. Beg/Buy links – Still a 2 way agreement, both parties involved. You are seeking permission or setting up a mutual arrangement. Presumably you are arent responsible for the other websites 'SEO'. Not your problem.

    As for Google's guidelines I don't think that was even up for discussion either. But consider that it was Google who put the cat among the pigeons by basing it's whole formula on links in the first place. Wouldn't it be nice if everyone played nice?

    'In what way'? – A website owner is responsible for the links out from their website. A website selling flowers links out to a technology company? Is that relevant? Is it hell. Nothing whatsoever to do with pagerank (that's swearing by the way). You've heard of quality and relevancy, right?

    W3C standards is buggar all to do with SEO so no it isn't worse than adding a link.

    Are you an SEO yourself Dawn? Or a web designer perhaps? Just interested :)

  • Dawn

    In reply to your points…
    1. Have you tried reading a blog which has been written merely for SEO reasons? They are written with no interest or knowledge in an area merely to get a link. This is not for human readers, it is search engine spam. Fair enough if a company are posting articles themselves (in which case, why pay for SEO), but often it is the SEOs themselves writing them and aren't interested in the subject matter.

    2. Most small directories seem set up just for SEO, and not for the human reader. Certainly, when you check backlinks on a site which has been SEOd, they'll very often be listed in directories in countries they don't even sell to.
    Russian directories seem popular at the moment. Again, if it's not for the human reader – search engine spam.

    3. Google are down on buying links. And as for link exchanges, if you don't let the competitor know that you are doing it for page rank (and if that competitor has a higher page rank than you) – why is that not dishonest?

    “Presumably you are arent responsible for the other websites 'SEO'. “
    - I agree with Google that people should do their own SEO.

    “But consider that it was Google who put the cat among the pigeons by basing it's whole formula on links in the first place. “
    - Basing it on links is a lovely theory – it should mean the most popular sites rise to the top. So you are saying that SEO is not playing nice and attempting to cheat Google's results, rather than making sure you are optimised to do as well as you should?

    “A website selling flowers links out to a technology company? Is that relevant?” – It's always been the way that designers are proud of their work and link back. If it was built by someone, it is relevant. Magazines have designed and printed credits in them. Web design is part of the design industry. I find it more interesting that SEOs rarerly will acknowledge their work. Can you show me some link building you are proud of?

    “W3C standards is buggar all to do with SEO so no it isn't worse than adding a link.” – I was meaning that someone selling Web Design services should build to those standards. If they fail to do so, that is far more serious than adding a link.

    Besides, Google's guidelines do state “Check for correct HTML.” – which I'd say means a site which validates. Would you not?

    I am a web developer who has so far seen no evidence that SEO isn't at least 50% snake oil.

  • Dawn

    “Presumably you are arent responsible for the other websites 'SEO'. “
    - I agree with Google that people should do their own SEO.

    To clarify this point – I think that the actual optimisation site of it is useful. It's the link building / monthly fee crap they should do themselves.

  • http://www.kaydinsdale.co.uk/ Kay Dinsdale

    I've seen many blogs written purely for SEO. I've seen blogs and websites that have useful content with seo in mind too. Most of the rubbish blogs are written purely for adsense and scrape content from other blogs. A number of SEO companies get their staff to manage a blog each and those blogs are used to either build links back to them or drop links to their SEO clients. I'm glad you know the difference too :)

    There are thousands of directories set up to list websites, most of them don't rank anyway. It's up to Google to assess the quality of that directory and decide whether to put any value on the links contained in it. There are also good directories that are built with SEO in mind where a link would be more valuable than a link from a spammy one.

    You mentioned pagerank again. Not every SEO 'buys' links. And not everyone who buys links does so for pagerank. Those who do can be fooled very easily. High pagerank does not equal high SE ranks. It just means you will be crawled more frequently, in a nutshell. If you keep listening to and watching the seo companies that still bleat on about pagerank Im not surprised you think it's snake oil :)

    So a company should do its own ongoing SEO. That would be nice. Perhaps a company should also build its own website, print its own marketing literature, come up with its own marketing plan with no assistance, not receive financial advice…no outside help whatsoever. That way their success will be entirely based on their own merit. Do you think that would make google happy?

    SEO's will acknowledge their own work if approached by a prospective client. Web designers have a portfolio because its a completed job. An SEO who links out to his/her current clients may as well wave a red flag to a bull. I see more and more web designers who link out using nofollow. Bizarrely.

    There is a lot of snake oil in SEO just like there are a lot of crap web designers, car mechanics, double glazing salesmen, estate agents, property developers. There are also SEOs out there who try to help their clients compete in what is an unfair world.

  • Dawn

    RE: Blogs, I was meaning crap like this:
    http://www.dreamdogs.co.uk/take-your-dog-to-a-p…
    I bet you can't see what keyphrase an SEO is targeting there.

    They'd clearly searched the news for “pilates” and then found any blog where they could spam the phrase by writing a bad bit of writing.

    “High pagerank does not equal high SE ranks. It just means you will be crawled more frequently, in a nutshell.” – it is one of the factors involved in ranking highly. This is why links from a site with high pagerank are more important than a link from a site with low page rank that has hundreds of other links on it.
    Please point to me any evidence that says PageRank is *only* used to determine when to crawl and is not used in ranking – that really is bullshit.

    I assume you've studied the Google PageRank algorithm if you are an expert – the whole concept of link building is based on this. If PageRank was irrelevant, link building would be irrelevant.

    “There are also good directories that are built with SEO in mind” – you generally have to pay to get listed in these. Is that not paid links. Can you give an example of a good one you use?

    “If you keep listening to and watching the seo companies that still bleat on about pagerank Im not surprised you think it's snake oil :)”
    What is link building for, then?

    “That way their success will be entirely based on their own merit. Do you think that would make google happy?”

    -”Google try to make it so you don't need to use an SEO Expert” -
    Evidence: http://debajyoti.net/seo/whats-the-future-of-se…

    “There is a lot of snake oil in SEO just like there are a lot of crap web designers, car mechanics, double glazing salesmen, estate agents, property developers.”

    How do you tell the difference between someone who is good and someone who is bad? There are standards for all these other industries and people need qualifications and skills to come into the area.

    “there are also SEOs out there who try to help their clients compete in what is an unfair world.” – why is Google ranking according to relevance not a fair system? People cheating their way to the top – that's unfair.

  • Dawn

    And back on the subject of designers linking to themselves -

    A link from a clients site tells google

    1. The site was built by the designer
    2. The client are happy with the designer enough to let them have a link.

    This is exactly how google want link building to work – natural links between people in the real world reflected on the web.

    If the designer has built hundreds of popular sites, this would mean that they came higher than someone who has built a small amount of unpopular ones.

    Why is this not how Google should work?

  • Dawn

    … add SEO into that equation and do would you think it's right that a designer who has built a couple of crappy sites but posted loads of articles on blogs which don't necessarily demonstate any skill comes above someone who's built loads of popular sites as a web designer?

  • Dawn

    “I have seen more intelligence at a pot smoking festival.”

    - You go to pot smoking festivals?

  • http://www.kaydinsdale.co.uk/ Kay Dinsdale

    Dawn you might be surprised about how much I actually agree with about what is fair and what isn't. But business isn't fair and it never has been. If there is a way for a business to increase their visibility and make money they will take it. If your competitor has stepped up their game you can choose to play the same game or continue to do 'what is fair' and see your business go down the pan. We can debate what is fair and what isnt until the cows come home. Is it fair that the business with the biggest purse dominates adwords? Is it fair that businesses manipulated offline directories by using different trading names such as 'A1'?

    I think a web designer SHOULD be able to put their stamp on a website. There are author tags for the head section of source code for this. They could use an image. But most use a footer link, many of which use anchor text, well aware of the 'SEO' benefits…while moaning about SEO being snake oil. By your reckoning a company that produces 100 websites should rank higher than a company that produces 10 websites. How is the volume of websites that a company produces testimant to where their ranking position should be? And what if those 'websites' become popular because of 'SEO'…is that still fair?

    I didn't say pagerank is irrelevant. You just don't understand link building and think it's all about pagerank. It isn't. You can have a PR6 site that ranks nowhere. You can get a link from that PR6 site and 'magic' yourself a PR4, that still won't make you 'rank'. It takes more than PR to achieve that. Lordy, if it were only that simple :)

    Im not sure what that 'evidence' is. Do you think that everything is about Google and everything Google says and publishes is how it should be? Since when was Google the master of the universe? Some of us think beyond what we are told and what we read. Some of us practise and form opinions from experience. At least that's what I do.

    Now, I have work to do and this anonymous forum-like tit for tat isn't going anywhere. Perhaps we should agree to disagree.

  • http://www.kaydinsdale.co.uk/ Kay Dinsdale

    ps thanks for sharing the dog pilates link. Gave me a chuckle :)

  • Dawn

    You said “You mentioned pagerank again. Not every SEO 'buys' links. And not everyone who buys links does so for pagerank.”

    If not for pagerank, why do they get links? If it wasn't for pagerank, they'd be irrelevant surely.

    “I didn't say pagerank is irrelevant. You just don't understand link building and think it's all about pagerank.”

    What else is link building about but to increase page rank? You are not giving examples. You boldly say that I don't understand pagerank – so explain why I am wrong.

    “By your reckoning a company that produces 100 websites should rank higher than a company that produces 10 websites. How is the volume of websites that a company produces testimant to where their ranking position should be?”

    - because it suggests that they have been in business longer, have more connections and are less likely to by a fly-by-night. This is the sort of information Google should be returning.

  • http://www.kaydinsdale.co.uk/ Kay Dinsdale

    “What else is link building about but to increase page rank? You are not giving examples. You boldly say that I don't understand pagerank – so explain why I am wrong.”

    If my clients want to know about link relevancy and how/which links can contribute towards increased SERP visibility I discuss it with them. I'm not about to give you a training session on it. Link building is about increasing SERP visibility. I've already told you that having a PR4 does not put you in the serps for your target keywords and I've already mentioned 'relevancy'. If SE ranks was all about who has the highest pagerank then you would only see websites with the highest pagerank in the SERPs. If you can't get your head around that then you really have no business making claims that SEO is snake oil. I shouldnt have to seek out a link to some other blog where some other person says the same as if to back up what I'm saying. My comments are against my real name with a link to my website whereas you are hiding behind the anonymous 'dawn'. Where is YOUR evidence to back up YOUR claims?

    “because it suggests that they have been in business longer, have more connections and are less likely to by a fly-by-night. This is the sort of information Google should be returning.”

    That is complete rubbish. The number of websites a company has produced does not mean they are the better service provider. There are many cowboy web design companies out there that throw up absolute shite and swindle small businesses out of a lot of money. And by your reckoning they deserve to get higher ranking than the small web design company who produces significantly less yet better quality work.

    I work with small businesses and the pressure on them to move online or risk going out of business when they have run a legitimate business selling from the high street for years is immense. They don't have the time and knowledge to do their own online promotion which is where I come in and I'm proud of what I've been able to help them achieve which includes expansion and employing new staff. Just 'having a search engine friendly website' is not always enough.

  • Dawens32342

    “I'm not about to give you a training session on it. Link building is about increasing SERP visibility. I've already told you that having a PR4 does not put you in the serps for your target keywords and I've already mentioned 'relevancy'. If SE ranks was all about who has the highest pagerank then you would only see websites with the highest pagerank in the SERPs”

    I am not saying it is the only issue, I am saying it is an issue. Having a high page rank helps – you say it doesn't. People who link to you having a high page rank also helps. Please point me to a single link where it scientifically explains where page rank merely means you are crawled more frequently and nothing more, as you stated.

    I know there are other factors, such as relevence of link and general page structure. However, these come from extra classes which must have been added to the page rank algorithm since it was patented, rather than a completely new algorithm.

    Why would Google have thrown it all out to build something completely new?

    The page rank thing was working nicely, but SEOs buggered it up with link building, so they'll have had to keep adding new classes to try and cancel-out the SEOs.

    I'm not claiming to be an SEO – my evidence to back up my claims were my links to the Matt Cutts video, and the link to the link building. An example of bad link building when I mentioned bad link building and an example of Google saying people can do their own SEO, when you claimed they did not believe this. Backing up statements with a source, rather than wild statements with no evidence, secretiveness and straw man building.

    “That is complete rubbish. The number of websites a company has produced does not mean they are the better service provider. There are many cowboy web design companies out there that throw up absolute shite and swindle small businesses out of a lot of money. And by your reckoning they deserve to get higher ranking than the small web design company who produces significantly less yet better quality work.”

    Which is why Google try and tweak their algothythm to get the best results. What you are proposing is ultimately results in order of who has paid the most for SEO.

    Google is only a success because it has the most appropriate results. SEOs (well, link builders – actually optimising a site to be as good as possible is fine) are trying to cheat these results and mess it up for everyone.

    “They don't have the time and knowledge to do their own online promotion”
    That's what AdWords are for – far cheaper than monthly SEO costs.

    An optimised site and a one off consultancy fee is okay (if the consultant can prove their credentials). Monthly link building is scummy.

    Being a self proclaimed expert without any relevent qualifications is charlatanism.
    (NB This is not aimed at you – but I see it all the time.)

  • Guest

    I would also be interested in why you think this applies to web designers, but not SEOs?

    if an SEO takes over a poorly built website that is totally invisible in Google at the time, sorts it out onsite and obtains a few decent quality links that help it rank..

    once it is visible in Google for it's terms and starts seeing visitors, how is that anything to do with the web designer?

    why, if the owner is deliriously happy with the SEO's service would they not allow the SEO a link to their site as a potential referral source?

    after all it's only now visible because the SEO made it so, why should a poor designer get the credit?

    the other point to this is that if an SEO company has it's link on a client site, surely they are now motivated to go above and beyond the call of duty to make sure that site stays performing? otherwise it looks bad on them no?

    and surely the SEO are then also motivated to ensure quality long-lasting links to that site because they (may) also see small feedback gains themselves?

    and finally, assuming that PR does help rankings, if an SEO takes a website from an invisible PR0 to a well-performing PR3 over a years work, why should the designer get link credit for that over the SEO? why should they get any at all?

    just my thoughts as every time I see this conversation on the internet it's as though designers have a god-given right to linkjuice, when in fact they usually had nothing whatsoever to do with that?

    there seems to be a widely accepted double standard here to me.

  • Dawn

    I don't see any reason why SEO's shouldn't have a link on a website they work with.

    As I said, I believe SEO should be the Optimisation of the site, and that link building is spamming and nothing to do with 'ethical' SEO.

    If an SEO has sorted out any faults and done a good job on the coding, then they should get a credit. That said, to do this would suggest that the SEO is has web development skills. Sadly, most just seem to have PR skills.

    That said, I believe if websites are now not built to be accessible and to Google's Webmaster guidelines then it has been built by a cowboy who should not be working in the industry.

    Just because there are bad devs out there, it doesn't mean that SEOs are good.

  • http://www.kaydinsdale.co.uk/ Kay Dinsdale

    It's interesting that you think it's ok to pay for Googles Adwords but not ok to pay an SEO. Google exists to make money. The natural results are the carrot that draws the users in who click on those ads and the more popular google has become (larger down to the SEOs that you seem to think Google doesnt like) the more money it is making. Pause your adwords and your visibility has gone immediately. That doesn't happen with SEO. If you think adwords is cheaper than a monthly SEO fee then you havent seen many adwords campaigns. Every one of my clients who run adwords campaigns costs more than my monthly fee.

    My original disagreement was not about the ethics of link building in terms of what Googles guidelines are, it was about using your clients website to boost your own visibility without the client understanding why (when you do!).

    I would have no problem with a credits page listing and linking to everyone involved and I've already mentioned there is the source code for design/code credits. You buy clothes and there is a discrete label at the back, you dont walk around with a huge advertisement stuck to your chest and if you had to you wouldnt buy it (most of us wouldnt). Same goes for plenty of other things you buy. Why should that be different for web designers? Why should you, knowing how Google works, with links, get to use your clients websites to boost your own SEO at a detriment to theirs? As 'guest' states there are lots of other people involved with making a successful website. THe web developer does not 'make' a successful website. There can be many other people involved: Whoever created the logo, whoever wrote the copy, whoever consulted on the SEO part of the site, the offline marketers (promoting the website), production management, manufacturers of the product.

    I dont like 'self proclaimed experts' either. Nobody is really an expert, some have more of an understanding than others but at best we are all providing the best service we can to the best of our knowledge and experience.

    You seem to think that SEO is all about link building and perhaps this is where we have crossed swords. I'm one of the SEO's who doesn't think it is all about link building and have not been of that mind for some time. I don't like aggressive link building quite frankly it pisses me off. I believe content/site structure is VERY under-rated and SEO's that charge stupid money just for link building are not looking at the whole picture. You can build a link to any page but it's what you find when you get there that matters the most. This is largely what I mean by PR not equalling SERP visibility. High PR does not mean your website will rank. The higher the PR the more frequent you are visited and crawled and new content/changes are discovered which can boost your SERP rank. However there are now other more natural ways of achieving that now such as producing new content via RSS (blog posts can appear within a few minutes). Basically PR is comes down to link quantity, not quality. There are still SEOs that spend time and money increasing that PR and getting links from HIGH PR pages when they should be spending time addressing the content, site structure, getting links from relevant sources (ie replicating a natural looking link profile). That is what gets sustainable ranks. At least that is how I work and I continue to see success that way.

    “Just because there are bad devs out there, it doesn't mean that SEOs are good.”
    And just because there are bad SEOs out there it doesnt mean all SEO's providing an ongoing service are bad, or 'scummy'.

  • Dawn

    I agree with you that SEO *should* be about things like interesting blog posts that people naturally link to and page structure.

    However, when you say “SEOs that spend time and money increasing that PR and getting links from HIGH PR pages when they should be spending time addressing the content, site structure, getting links from relevant sources” – unfortunately almost every SEO company I have performed a back link check on has spent their time doing this. It seems to be the most successful technique.

    To go back to the original point about the ethics of linking:
    You have stated that Page Rank only is of interest to determine how often a site is crawled. If that is the case, a link would make absolutely no difference, surely? So why would it matter if page rank was passed on?

    According to my understanding (which you say is wrong), Google uses pagerank to determine the 'popularity' of a page. If lots of popular sites are linking to a popular page, then that is seen as a vote of confidence in that page. It's page rank will then increase.

    PageRank can then be used as part of the larger database query to calculate a results order.

    If, as you say, they only use PageRank to know how often to crawl, then surely Google has reverted to the way search engines used to work when they were very easily cheated?

    As far as I'm concerned, PageRank was a great breakthrough in terms of how search engines work.

    If Page Rank is irrelevent, how do you think search engines have changed since the 90s? I personally think it was the biggest factor in Google's success.

    “I dont like 'self proclaimed experts' either. Nobody is really an expert, some have more of an understanding than others but at best we are all providing the best service we can to the best of our knowledge and experience.”

    Why do you think that so many SEOs do not come from a web background without knowledge or experience? Surely, understanding specifics of code and algorhythms is a very specialist part of web development. Surely a specialist needs to have a decent overview of the whole area, before focussing on a small amount.

    I'm shocked by the amount of SEOs who cannot answer basic “why do you do that?” questions about their work.

    What qualifications would you look for in an SEO?

  • http://www.kaydinsdale.co.uk/ Kay Dinsdale

    “unfortunately almost every SEO company I have performed a back link check on has spent their time doing this. It seems to be the most successful technique.”

    Just because a website has a backlink profile (the most accurate only visible in Yahoo) does not mean this backlink profile is WHY the website is successful. It could be those links have been there years and counted when they were first achieved. There could be 100 links that are pointless and do nothing. It could be there are 3 links that carry the real benefit.

    It was first suggested that the reason I wouldnt want a link on a homepage to the web designer could perhaps be to do with 'losing pagerank' that is not the reason. It's about theme and relevancy. A website should consider its internal link profile and it's external link profile including the websites it links out to. A sitewide/homepage link is a strong 'vote' and this contributes to how your website (and it's focus) is seen. Lets not forget this is all done by bots and algo's, not human review.

    Yes there is a pagerank formula which forms the basis of how the search engines work but I've explained several times how chasing pagerank does not equal serp visibility. Since an SEO should be focussing on increasing the visibility of a website in the SERPS for it's target terms. A link from a page JUST because it has high pagerank DOES NOT MEAN that website will rank for it's target terms. There's more to it than that. If that is how it worked then how would you explain pages with less Pagerank ranking above pages with more?

    “Why do you think that so many SEOs do not come from a web background without knowledge or experience? Surely, understanding specifics of code and algorhythms is a very specialist part of web development. Surely a specialist needs to have a decent overview of the whole area, before focussing on a small amount.”

    So many SEOs dont come from a web background or have knowledge or experience? Who? Which SEOs? I think this is quite a sweeping statement. On the flip side we can say so many web designers have no knowledge or experience or qualifications too. To be honest I don't know what point you are trying to make. I was asked recently to sit on a panel where university students demonstrated the 'SEO' part of their course. I was given a brief of what they had to do and it was incorrect and outdated. I had to refuse. But those students will likely get this 'qualification' on the SEO module of their degree.

    I'd choose an SEO with nothing but GCSE's and 3 years experience who can demonstrate their knowledge and provide examples of results over someone with a 'qualification' any day. And I use the same method for everything else including web designers.

    Seriously, I've spent too much time on this thread. It's a shame people can't comment more openly with real names and links to their websites as it's very easy to troll anonymously.

  • Dawn

    Why is it trolling to ask questions? I am keeping to the subject of the therad, am I not?

    It is an area I find interesting, but you are failing to point to any examples and are using the most wishy-washy explinations. For example…

    “It was first suggested that the reason I wouldnt want a link on a homepage to the web designer could perhaps be to do with 'losing pagerank' that is not the reason. It's about theme and relevancy. A website should consider its internal link profile and it's external link profile including the websites it links out to. A sitewide/homepage link is a strong 'vote' and this contributes to how your website (and it's focus) is seen. Lets not forget this is all done by bots and algo's, not human review.”

    What is this 'vote' and 'theme and relevency' if not part of Page Rank theory?
    And why do you never say “because….” and point to an example or well written explanation to back up your claims. They all sound like guesswork.
    The easiest way to make a point is through evidence.

    “I'd choose an SEO with nothing but GCSE's and 3 years experience who can demonstrate their knowledge “

    What knowledge? Again, wishy washy meaninglessness.

    Personally, I'd say they need
    *Strong coding skills to be able to update complex dynamic sites to such a way that they can be rendered with SEO friendly code.
    *Ability to write htaccess and robots files.
    *Statistical abilities to test new theories.
    *An ability to explain why they are making changes, rather than relying on blog hearsay.

    If you'd disagree, why and what “knowledge” do you think is required?

    What questions would I need to ask to tell the difference between a bad SEO and a good SEO?

    “Just because a website has a backlink profile (the most accurate only visible in Yahoo) does not mean this backlink profile is WHY the website is successful. It could be those links have been there years and counted when they were first achieved. There could be 100 links that are pointless and do nothing. It could be there are 3 links that carry the real benefit.”

    You are paid in this field. Yet you are saying “could” an awful lot. What scientifically valid tests are you doing to *prove* your theories?

    The backlinks I come accross are usually like the one for the pilates class where an obscure phrase has been shoehorned into an article. This suggests they are not natural links to me.

    If you don't do link building, you must check out the backlinks of sites doing better than you and see this formula a lot, surely?

  • http://www.kaydinsdale.co.uk/ Kay Dinsdale

    Making confusing contradictions about what you do and remaining anonymous. Previously you commented as if you were an SEO:

    “…let's face it, no human uses these small directiories that we all list on)”
    and
    “Fair play to the person who's using his web building as an SEO tool – I'm sure if we were the ones building the sites, that is what many of us would do, rather than the slow process of finding people to add links.”

    But later saying:

    “I am a web developer who has so far seen no evidence that SEO isn't at least 50% snake oil. “

    Failed SEO? SEO http://seobullshit.com/seo-bullshit-seo-snake-o….

    I'm sorry if you can't get your head around the many ways I've tried to explain things to you Dawn. Feel free to continue reading and quoting other people, hiding behind an anonymous name and assuming SEO is all about what you see in someones Yahoo backlink profile. I'd rather refer to my own experience however wishy washy you may believe it to be :)

  • Dawn

    I have deliberately not linked to your own work or used comments from your own website as I felt it would be trolling to bring any external elements to this thread.

    I suspect if I linked to my own work, that you would use that against me as your entire debating method seems to be building straw men. What I do is irrelevant. The discussion is about SEO and what is ethical. If I make false claims about SEO, disprove them with evidence. That is the easiest way to prove things.

    My questions to you as an SEO are…

    1. What “knowledge” do you think is required?
    2. Can you point to any valid proof that Page Rank is not used for anything other than crawling rates?
    3. How do you makes sure that your own experience is not just guesswork when many theories fall into this category – http://teddziuba.com/2010/06/seo-is-mostly-quac…

    As for “I'm sorry if you can't get your head around the many ways I've tried to explain things to you Dawn. ” – you haven't explained as you have just made statements without evidence.

    (As for my earlier thread, I'll admit that was slightly troll-y. I thought I'd pretend to be what I imagine most SEOs to be in the hope that people would say “that's not SEO”. You are the only one who said that SEOs shouldn't do that (fair play to you), but then you have not explained why any alternative methods work)

  • Dawn

    “Feel free to continue reading and quoting other people, hiding behind an anonymous name and assuming SEO is all about what you see in someones Yahoo backlink profile.”

    And you wonder why I don't give out my url to you? I've clearly never said that all SEO is about is backlinks. What I've been questioning is your belief that Page Rank is irrelevent – and I'm happy to change my mind when I see logical evidence.

    If you could explain why “quoting other people, hiding behind an anonymous name” has been a negative issue here, that would be good. Surely quoting is a good way to refer back to a previous point, and the only reason you would want to know who I am is through off-topic point scoring.

  • Dawn

    Failed SEO? SEO http://seobullshit.com/seo-bullshit-seo-snake-o….

    You do seem to love a good Ad hominem fallacy.

    You never explain why it isn't bullshit, just have a go at people who say it is bullshit. That is not a logical argument.

    And I've never said it's all bullshit, I've said that lots of the theories are bullshit, and the influx of people with only PR skills and no understanding of code doing it is bullshit – hence the 50% bit.

  • Endy

    yeah, when I see a credit in the footer to the design firm I think “low-budget” site, or “small design firm” and if I ever saw a credits page, I'd think “ignorant client” or “barter arrangement” — I've never seen anything like it on a fortune 500 owned site built by a major ad agency or interactive shop.

    Moreover, link building isn't about quantity, as much as it is about contextual relevance of the linking page to the linked page.

    If the linking page is about web-development and links to the design firm, then great link.

    But if the site is about gardening equipment and linking to a design firm, I'm not sure 1000 such links will be of much value, anymore, for improving rankings on keywords related to web design.

    I've seen 20 links on contextually relevant yet low-traffic sites help a client grow month-over-month traffic on competitive organic keywords, and I've heard of sites getting 100's or even thousands of links (what I consider lower quality links) and get no results.

  • http://www.kaydinsdale.co.uk/ Kay Dinsdale

    Off topic point scoring? i dont need to resort to that. Are you judging me by how you behave? Anonymous debating is actually quite cowardly. One minute you are the one building the site and submitting to directories, the next minute you claim to be the developer who believes that link building is scummy. Wishy washy indeed. You are so full of contradictions. You are given rational answers then you come back with 'yeah but….' a complete time waster who knows jack shit about SEO.

    I've said all i wish to say on this matter Dawn. I've answered your questions and you just cant get your head around the answers. I don't quote other people I go off experience which I've said time again. You quote other people and resources all you like love and stick to what you know (very little) and I'll stick to what I know (more than you).

    Ta ra :)

  • Darrenernest

    if you're a web designer, an “HONEST” way of finding backlinks would be to submit your work for design competitions, best of, lists of sample sites, submit articles to reputable publishers, listing yourself in local directories of web shops, interactive agencies, graphic designers, etc., speaking at an event and getting mentions on people's blogs, twitters, etc. The list is fairly endless.

  • Dawn

    “I've answered your questions and you just cant get your head around the answers”

    My questions to you as an SEO have been…

    1. What “knowledge” do you think is required to be a good seo?
    2. Can you point to any valid proof that Page Rank is not used for anything other than crawling rates?
    3. How do you make sure that your own experience is not just guesswork?
    4. What questions need I ask to tell a good SEO from a bad SEO?

    You have not answered any of these.

    “You quote other people and resources all you like love and stick to what you know (very little) and I'll stick to what I know (more than you). “

    I know

    *PHP
    *MySQL
    *AJAX
    *DHTML
    *CSS
    *PERL
    *UML
    *Actionscript 2 & 3
    *Facebook application development
    *Joomla
    *Drupal
    *.net

    I'd hope that you do know more – you'd need to if you ever needed to on-site SEO a particularly complex database driven site in any of these languages. I would find that tricky.

    “Off topic point scoring? i dont need to resort to that. Are you judging me by how you behave?”

    At what point have I gone off topic or made a personal attack on you? Wheras you have called me a troll, a coward and someone who knows jack shit.

    I am asking questions about SEO on an SEO forum.

    Yes, I am cynical, but it's easy to dispel cynicism with evidence. Surely as a professional, you should be able to point me to this evidence?

  • Dawn

    Are these methods not all things that *all* businesses can do for themselves better than an SEO could do for them? Surely an SEO could provide useful consultancy and a list of publishers etc, but the monthly fees seem excessive if they are not doing any buying/begging for links – which is work, if a little underhand.

    Out of interest, if you are an SEO yourself – when you back-link check on sites that are doing better than you and they have lots of unnatural links, do you not feel this is an un-level playing field or part of the game?

    One point I would make is that designers have always linked back to their sites, from times before links were used by search engines to calculate order. As much as anything, they want people who like the look of the site to get in touch. Some clients will ask you to remove the link, some won't.

    I know you could say that they should therefore use a no-follow, but if you had a link on a site you had built for yourself, would you yourself no-follow it just to be “honest”?

  • Dawn

    All good points well made.

    However, as Google has clearly added some contextual relevance class to their algorithm since it was patented, surely a link to a designer from a non-design client is nowadays going to have minimal SEO effect, in which case why should SEOs care about them having a link if they make practically no difference to anyone's ranking?

Newer Comments →