Rally Together
Ben Metcalfe has written was is probably the most reasonable response to the SEO, linkbaiting, splog discussion of recent days, pointing out not only the problems with SEO, but my favorite target PPP as well.
But it’s social media I feel is at most risk. It’s decentralized, it ultimately relies on the principles of honesty and integrity, and because it’s a grass-roots thing it doesn’t have the backing of a few large companies to coordinate counter-measures. That’s why we need to rally together to call this stuff out – and soon before it’s too late.
And that’s exactly what we need to do. Every time I criticize PPP, I get a comment saying that I am just giving them more publicity. True, but enough negative publicity is going to turn potential users off over time. Same for SEO. As long as the SEO world works with its clients to create good, searchable content, no problem. But we do need to call out the black sheep (and the SEO community should do so as well).
The blogosphere only works because there is a system of trust build into it. If I link to you or you link to me, that means we are having a real discussion, not a fake, sponsored “conversation.”
And just for the fun of it, here are some YouTube vidoes on SEO worth watching:
This MSNBC video gives some good advice, with an emphasis on good content.
“There is a war between people who want their stuff to be more relevant and the search engines who want to give good results.”