Googlers Expose Sketchy SEO Company

http://www.seroundtable.com/sketchy-seo-company-google-12786.html

by rooshdi • 16 years ago

73 29 16 years ago

coderdude3• 16 years ago

I think the real take-away from this is to just stay legit. Don't try to do anything shady because it will most likely come back to bite you in the ass. The guy is actually pretty dumb for not realizing they could figure out who he was while using a handle that contains his real name.

daemin2• 16 years ago

I would hope that apart from staying legit, another take away from this be to know the market that you are in, know of some of the key people at those companies, or perhaps being able to find said information?

From the article it seems that the bruben25 SEO guy didn't do any research as to who Matt was, where as Matt quickly found out quite a bit of (public) information on who the SEO guy was.

Now who's the better Search expert?

coderdude3• 16 years ago

Indeed, everyone should learn who the key people are in their industry. It's almost unfathomable that bruben25 didn't know who Matt Cutts is, though. B Ruben seems to be on another plane of obliviousness. Everyone knows who Matt Cutts is. I think this speaks more to the fact that the guy really didn't do any legitimate SEO. People who are legitimate in SEO generally keep up with the trade publications, talk to people, and make connections.

gjm11• 16 years ago

Seems perfectly reasonable to me. Matt Cutts is an expert in search. B D Ruben is an expert in being found. Hence, Matt Cutts was able to find B D Ruben. No reason to expect it to work the other way around.

(For the avoidance of doubt: No, I am not serious. Yes, Ruben appears to be a dweeb. Yes, Matt Cutts is obviously very much smarter than he is.)

dholowiski2• 16 years ago

I'm sure this gets said by thousands of geeks every day, but Matt Cutts is a cool guy. That was hilarious.

Matt_Cutts• 16 years ago

The funny (sad?) part is that I had a lot more material I could have used. The point was clear though, so no need to be mean.

michael_dorfman• 16 years ago

My favorite line from the exchange:

I also was not able to find Matt Cutts in the Google employee directory.

Clearly the words of a true expert in Search...

smiler• 16 years ago

He will be even cooler if he pushes for the feature to allow you to customise your Google searches and have a user-defined blacklist of sites.

eneveu• 16 years ago

I loved how Matt's response was mocking shady SEO techniques where you keep repeating keywords over and over. He placed the company name / website 10 times in his reply!

I don't know if this will have much effect on the SEO rankings, but it was very funny, and I wouldn't be surprised if the first Google result for "better placements" in a few day links to this story (all the social media attention will also help).

dholowiski2• 16 years ago

Good catch. The #1 result for "Better Placement" right now is the article this post links to!

lwat• 16 years ago

Googler's Exposé Of Sketchy SEO Company

Googlers Expose Sketchy SEO Company

rooshdi• 16 years ago

Oops, just noticed that typo. Too late to edit that title now though, but either of those two work.

to• 16 years ago

most boring read in a long time. i think the last jersey shore was more interesting.

lenni• 16 years ago

Why does this side load assets from twitter for every page scroll I do?

haberman• 16 years ago

bruben25's posts are remarkable in how they string together phrases that seem coherent in isolation, but when taken together are long, rambly, and impossible to follow. Skimming them, I have absolutely no idea what he's talking about half the time.

infinity• 16 years ago

Yes, it's almost like auto-generated text.

josefresco• 16 years ago

I would guess that maybe English is not their primary language? I would also imagine that they wrote each reply with their heart racing/eyes twitching as they realized the ship was going down at the hands of Google reps.

jacquesm• 16 years ago

For a second there I thought that google decided to sink Demand Media before the IPO.

leon_3• 16 years ago

Which "SEO companies" aren't sketchy?

phpnode• 16 years ago

I don't know if this is a snarky, rhetorical question, but there are many legitimate SEO companies out there. SEOMoz is a good example. A general rule is, if they guarantee certain rankings, avoid them, if they offer "directory submission" services, avoid them.

leon_3• 16 years ago

As soon as they start talking about "link building" my spam sense tingles. The same for "social media optimization".

So what is left? Glorified mod_rewrite hackery?

/edit: That's not a flame. I'm just interested what non shady SEOs do. The last time I looked into SEO it was all about rearranging your HTML so the spider would get to the content fast. And to put nofollows on your links to get the juice flowing the way you wanted.

But this wasn't that complex that it justified hiring an expensive SEO company. Sure, they all did that link building stuff too - but as noted above to me that's shady (it was mostly about spamming digg-like sites with top 10/5 articles).

jasonkester• 16 years ago

This is how I want to go out.

In a giant long-winded incoherent unwinnable flame war against the best minds in my industry, hiding behind a flimsy mask of anonymity and dragging my business empire down further with every post until there's nothing left. Perfect. Beautiful.

I'm just biding my time until the right person calls me out...

Googlers Expose Sketchy SEO Company

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