Comments on: We Do Need SEO Standards

By: Say it Green - Organic, Fair Trade Shirts and Apparel

Say it Green - Organic, Fair Trade Shirts and Apparel — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 22:58:19 +0000

As someone trying to investigate SEO services for my company, let me throw in my 2 cents and say that standards maintained by an industry group would be *immensely* helpful to me.

It is very hard for a newcomer to the industry to sort out what is good practice from what is bad, and which companies fall where.

By: Internet Advertising

Internet Advertising — Tue, 12 May 2009 23:02:56 +0000

Nice ideas for SEO Standards.

By: Chris Chong

Chris Chong — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 15:04:43 +0000

How do you set standards for a marketing activity? Isn’t it always going to be somewhat of a free for all with ineffective practices constantly being weeded out?

By: Alan Bleiweiss

Alan Bleiweiss — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 20:39:21 +0000

Lisa, I’m late to the party on this topic, (too busy actually doing the work of SEO to read blogs that often lately) yet nevertheless, I totally agree with your point of view on the standards topic.
I’m consistently peeved when a company or “expert” claims SEO and then either just stuffs 100 words into the keyword field or uses blatantly pure black hat, and calls it a day.
And when I’m not getting peeved over that, I’m patiently explaining to clients why “guaranteed top position for just $9.99″ is a scam…
It’s really so uplifting when I do get those prized first page / 1st position listings for my clients, and I got them there through best practices (based on what many of us who really care about that notion really do see as a fledgling list of to-do tasks)…
And given how many of some of my client’s competitors got there through black hat, I happen to be intensely grateful that “doing the right thing” really does pay off – both from results and professional pride.
So as far as I’m concerned, go pit bull, go!

By: Tom Roberts

Tom Roberts — Thu, 22 May 2008 09:26:09 +0000

A standard is a document that establishes uniform engineering or technical specifications, criteria, methods, processes, or practices.

If these “standards” are constantly changing and always left in secrecy… it can NEVER be accomplished. While the SE’s do provide all the information you need to know to improve rankings, without providing the weights of each… there is and never will be a “standard” for SEO, which I take to mean Search Engine Optimization and not SEM (Search Engine Marketing).

By: Link Builder

Link Builder — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 23:21:37 +0000

yeah, i agree!
: D

By: Aaron Poehler

Aaron Poehler — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 09:33:44 +0000

One thing is certain: no matter what SEO standards are developed, they will be obsolete almost immediately and completely useless within a year. Whatever short-term aura of legitimacy they might impart will dissipate quickly as they quickly become a millstone around the neck of forward-thinking SEO writers and a catalog of excuses for the least-effort-possible types.

By: Doug Heil

Doug Heil — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 13:36:11 +0000

Yes Eric; the buyer beware mentality has been alive and well in the SEO industry since I can remember… since 1996. What other industry out there is purely buyer beware in nature without a set of best practice standards to follow? I cannot think of another industry off hand, can you?
It seems to me the main reason that the industry does not want standards is the fact that so many have a vested interest in tricks and those who try their very best to trick. Afterall; look at all the articles wrote by SEO’s on blogs out there that tell you how to spam the search engines and get away with it? Does anyone see many in this industry calling out those SEO blogs? Hell no.
I’ve heard from the very start of my experience that all is fine and dandy as long as you explain to your client what you are doing. That was BS in 1996 and it’s still BS in 2008. It assumes that all clients are knowledgeable enough to begin with to fully understand the repercussions of getting a penalty or banned from a search engine. Do we all really believe that ALL clients in this industry are this knowledgeable?
Come on now.
Do you know how many so-called clients I’ve talked to in the eleven years that had NO clue about what could possibly happen with some technique their SEO was doing? A bunch. To simply defer to the knowledge of a client in this industry and claim… buyer beware, and “explain what you are doing” is not understanding things at all.

By: Eric Itzkowitz

Eric Itzkowitz — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 15:35:24 +0000

1. It is my opinion that the Government will NOT step in to specifically regulate "SEO" anytime soon, if ever (probably the later).

Again, SEO falls under Marketing/Advertising, which already has standards. As such, you can be held financially responsible for deceptive advertising and business practices.

2. BE UPFRONT & HONEST with your clients about your optimization process. Let them decide if your tactics truly fit their needs.

By: Martin Edic

Martin Edic — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 13:05:44 +0000

We can’t have standards as long as the search algos are a black box, which means we will never have them because these are the prime intellectual property of the search engines. Unless we had a set of guidelines provided by Google et al, a la feedthebot.com, there’s no point in this entire discussion.
To my mind the standard (note: singular) is good relevant content displayed with accessible web standards. Everything else is guesswork or trickery (blackhat, grayhat, fez).