SEO Isn’t All Good, But It Isn’t All Bad Either

Writing by Nick Stamoulis Tweet

(Source) Federovsky warned there was a danger that by using SEO you could eventually run foul of Google and be blacklisted. “Today’s clever optimisation could be tomorrow’s policy violation. You never know. Afterwards, if Google blacklists you, the only thing to do is to close your old domain down and start again, fresh.

“I would say that the most important policy regarding search optimisation is never allowing your programmers to try any kind of SEO at all.”

Oh Wow!

I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a less educated opinion about SEO. Not that I disagree about programmers. They do have a tendency to seek out new skills and try them out wherever they may. Nevertheless, trying to succeed online without SEO today is like trying to fish without a fishing pole. Would you just wade out into the lake or river and start grabbing at gills?

Relying solely on the use of keywords in hopes that you’ll rank highly at the search engines is a bad way to go. It’s almost as bad as no SEO at all. Imagine grabbing a handful of stink bait and rushing to the river to grab some catfish. You might as well just tell your wife (or house husband) that there won’t be any dinner tonight.

Allow me to let you in on a dirty little secret: Since 1995, the basic principles of SEO haven’t changed. Sure, there have been developments, some good and some not so good. But the general principles upon which SEO is built are rock solid and have been since before Yahoo! got its notoriously weird name. When Google came on the scene in the late 1990s they added the concept of off-page web elements (like links) being just as important as on-page elements (like keywords). Since then, SEO has been pretty much the same.

Now, one word on new techniques. Yes, a lot of them are dubious and designed to try to game the system. The search engines know that and are constantly tweaking their algorithms to combat that. If you stick to sound SEO principles then you won’t have to worry about running afoul of Google. If you must write a company SEO manual or establish policy for your programmers to use certain techniques and stay away from others then do so, but don’t tie their hands by saying “no SEO at all.” That’s just plain wacky.