Dan Shafer's Blog

My friend and colleague Dick Kriesel sent me a note yesterday pointing me to a post by one of the Internet's early champions and founders, Tim Bray. In the post, Bray -- who once famously described text as a software application -- says, "I think that for most people who are trying to get a Web presence on the air, SEO is part of the problem, not part of the solution." He calls the vast bulk of what SEO consultants and trainers are trying to teach "bogus."

Bray pointed to a longer article on the subject, a relatively rare ranting tirade by another Internet guru, Derek Powazek. In his post and in the ensuing conversation with readers, Derek is much more venomous in his broadside against the SEO industry.

I disagree.

While it is certainly true that SEO is a breeding ground for more contemptible get-rich-quick-without-really-working schemes than anything on the Net with the possible exception of African inheritances, the fact is that in a Web with billions of pages and millions of sites, getting noticed takes a lot more than the Powazek formula of "Make something great. Tell people about it. Do it again." Now, let me be clear: that is great advice; as Bray calls it, "gold." And if you can do that -- and if you have the patience to wait for the potentially extremely long time it will take to build an appreciable audience with that approach -- then it is pretty sure-fire. But its success -- and the speed of its spread -- is primarily at least a function of how many people you know well enough to tell about your content in the first place. And that inevitably means that the big and the already-famous have a huge leg up on little guys and those just starting out on the Web.

If we're going to democratize content and make the Web a relatively level playing field -- a goal to which I aspire along with many others -- then we need some way to accelerate notice of the great content being offered by obscure authors and newcomers. Because the longer the Web exists, the faster it grows, and the faster it grows, the noisier it gets. Rising above the noise level is difficult to do organically.

Too many SEO consultants are about gaming the system, about trying to find ways to circumvent Google's search engine rules, e.g., and those rules are written primarily with the intent of helping us find things on the Web and increase the efficiency of our surfing. Those who circumvent those efforts for personal game are slime. Those who teach and help others to do so are pond scum.

But that doesn't negate the value of knowing how to do everything legal and above-board to increase the likelihood of your site getting noticed and indexed by search engines. Learning SEO isn't a black art that you need a high-powered consultant for, though; it's a matter of learning a few fairly obvious and well-documented techniques for making your site more search-engine friendly. Some time over the holidays I'll point you to a couple of great sources on the subject.