Rrreoww! There’s A Cat Fight Over Search Engine Optimization Standards
Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Sunday, 30 of March , 2008 at 5:56 pm
Over at Sphinn you can witness a real live cat fight - yep, the old-fashioned kind. Jill Whalen and Lisa Barone, two of the hottest Search Engine Optimization chicks in cyberland are brawling over whether or not there should be Search Engine Optimization standards. Personally, I dig fighting chicks.
It all started when the infamous Jill Whalen came out slugging with her “We Don’t Need No SEO Standards” cat chant. Then, Bruce Clay’s own decided to pop a jaw with a solid left hook and an awesome yell: Muahaha!
Jill Whalen’s reasons for not needing Search Engine Optimization standards boils down to four main points:
- There are too many ways of skinning the Search Engine Optimization cat.
- We can’t even agree on the definition of search engine optimization.
- There are already laws to protect people from Search Engine Optimization scams.
- There’s no such thing as “cheating” in Search Engine Optimization.
And she does a good job of defending her position. But Lisa Barone countered pretty well with her headlock followed by a drop kick (she’s no lady in the ring!).
According to Lisa, just because you can cook a pork chop doesn’t mean you don’t need a recipe. And that made me wonder how Emeril got in there. So then she followed through with one heck of an uppercut by countering Jill’s “no common definitions” argument with, “Yeah, but we need them!” Good comeback. I wish I’d thought of that. 
After that saucy taunt, Lisa did a slideback and came around Jill’s sexy little hindquarters and whopped her a good spaghetti sauce chop in the collarbone:
I think Jill needs to understand that the best practices and standards we’d be creating aren’t meant for the black hats. I’m not trying to bring anyone over to the light here. What I’m interested in is helping upcoming search marketers learn the ropes and to give them the tools they need to learn to do things right from the very start. We’re creating standards so the next generations of search marketers get a head start and have more than just SEO blogs and forums to learn from. We’re trying to cut back on the amount of disinformation.
Are you kidding me? Disinformation is what makes the world go round Baby!
Seriously, though, I have to agree with Jill Whalen (which doesn’t happen all that often). Search Engine Optimization standards will only help the politically savvy and the dirty, greasy, grimy black hats. Teach people how to look clean and everyone will take a bath just before the preacher drops by. Leave them to their own devices and eventually all their spots will show. The beauty of free enterprise (and who can argue that the Internet is the last bastion of free enterprise?) is that people are free to succeed or fail. Consumers are free to research the products and services they are buying, or choose not to. If Lisa Barone gets her way, we all might be bowing down to worship the Goddess of High Search Engine Optimization Standards (Who Killed Freedom And Creativity For A Chance To Grab The Throne). Can anyone say “Anne Boleyn”?
Well, I might be overstating it a bit. But standards inevitably lead to one group of insiders having control and authority over everyone else and I’m against that.
Category: SEO
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Comment by namecritic
Made Tuesday, 1 of April , 2008 at 3:49 am
It’s the same on almost every seo blog. When an SEO Blogger starts with something like “Things you should ask your SEO company before hiring them” or “Proper SEO means following this list” you know what comes next.
The SEO blogger lists all the things they do as the right way to do things and anything they don’t understand or don’t provide as the things you do not want to do.
So it’s advice with an agenda. Who does Lisa think is going to decide on the “best practices” or “standards”. What happens when we think outside the proverbial box and do something different and it works? Will we be considered black hat seo even if no search engine tricks were involved?
Will we have to write a white paper to get the new technique adopted by the “standards” gurus?
I have to agree with Jill. Let the clique of elite gurus create standards. I’d really love that because then we will all know exactly what techniques they will be using and counteract with newer, better techniques.
