Should SEO Be Regulated?

Writing by Nick Stamoulis Tweet

Shame on TechCrunch. Not for running an article suggesting that SEO should be regulated (though I disagree), but for running such an article from an anonymous poster.

The following post was written by a well known executive at one of the largest sites on the Internet. The author has requested to remain anonymous – not for dramatic effect, but because of the backlash he would receive from the SEO industry and possibly Google itself. He also doesn’t want his company associated with the post.

Well now, isn’t that just the shiznit? His idea is so brilliant he doesn’t even want to be associated with it, nor does he want his business – one of the “largest sites on the Internet” – associated with it. Since when did Keynesians want to be anonymous?

Yes, I’d imagine that he’d have a lot to fear from the search engine optimziation community if we all knew who this big, powerful Internet Sir Robin (Monty Python reference) was. Because SEOs are a really dangerous lot. We tend to sit at our laptops all day, coding away with ballistic div tags that can do so much physical damage and harm to weak and wimpy execs who can’t understand how the game is played. Bully, bully, boo!

Alright, let’s break it down:

Imagine, if you will, that the entire Internet is contained within a single continent. That continent is filled with countries, states and cities. Each jurisdiction is autonomous, relying on visitors to cross on to their turf to engage in commerce. Now, imagine if the only way to get into this continent involved just two methods: SEO and SEM. Let’s further imagine that the borders to this continent were controlled by a single company. Let’s also hold that the rules for search engine optimization listings and search engine marketing were not only defined but were completely controlled at the whim of this single company.

You see, his entire philosophy is based on a complete misunderstanding of reality.

1. The Internet is not contained within a single continent; there are parts of it that are completely inaccessible to millions of people due to security codes and firewalls and a host of other reasons
2. If each jurisdiction of the Internet continent is “autonomous” then how is it that the borders are all controlled by one company? Completely illogical. A fallacy.
3. Only two ways to get in to “the continent”? No. There are also display advertising, social media, and widgets and gadgets, to name a few
4. The borders are not controlled by a single company. Google may own the lion’s share of search, but there are other companies in the search space and one can run a successful business without Google (as John Chow has proven).
5. Rules for SEO and SEM completely defined at the whim of Google? Except, of course, at Yahoo!, Bing, Ask, Miva, AdBrite, and the other umpteen or so PPC companies and search engines out there.

I won’t even get into the SEO is voodoo discussion. Whoever this anonymous executive is, he’s obviously just some guy who doesn’t know how search engine optimization and search engine marketing really works. Or perhaps he’s someone who’s had his accounts suspended and feels like he needs to get revenge on the big, bad Google for punishing him. But the solution is not regulation. Algorithmic transparency isn’t going to solve any problems. It’s only going to make big, wealthy players like our anonymous TechCrunch blogger more powerful and able to manipulate the rankings in their favor instead of allowing little guys to compete on a fair and level playing field.

Shame on TechCrunch for not seeing through the ruse.