SEO

12 Jan

by

Your website’s referring traffic probably looks like this:

Referring Traffic Pie Chart Indicating that 98% of Traffic Comes from Google

Long ago, some damn marketer noticed that this was usually the case and got the bright idea that, since Google is responsible for 98% of a website’s traffic, we must market to Google. And thus, search-engine optimization (SEO) was born.

Getting spam comments on your blog? You can thank SEO. Click what looks like a cool link and fall down a rabbit-hole of incomprehensible copy and then links to even more incomprehensible copy? You can thank SEO for that too.

Yes, there is supposedly such thing as “good” SEO and “bad” SEO. Or, in industry parlance, “white hat” and “black hat.” (I prefer lumping them together under the moniker “ass hat.”)

Good SEO is common sense: useful browser titles, relevant headlines, not making your entire page one big image that search engines can’t read. Things like that. There’s no need for an entire industry of SEO “experts” spouting this advice; I just gave it to you for free and I’m happy to dispense more.

All the other crap? Like creating entirely separate websites whose sole purpose is to link to your main website? Or bots that spam Twitter and other social media sites? Get. Off. My. Lawn.

Tags: SEO, search-engine-optimization, black hat SEO, white hat SEO, ass hat SEO, website optimization, search engines, Google, Bing, Lycos, Dogpile, Excite, WebCrawler, Yahoo, search marketing, search experts, SEM, Overture, Adwords, world wide web, offal, ladies’ underthings.

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9 Responses to “SEO”

  1. Jenz January 12, 2011 at 1:39 pm #

    The tags are absolutely my favorite part of this post!

    Reply
    • noahvail January 12, 2011 at 1:46 pm #

      Thanks. Thank you. Danke. Gracias. Gratitude.

      Reply
      • myerman January 12, 2011 at 2:01 pm #

        Can we please use tags that will monetize GetOffMyLawn a little faster? Oh, and we need more webcam girls. Thank you.

        Reply
  2. felicia adams January 12, 2011 at 1:46 pm #

    Ditto — LOVE the tags :)

    Reply
  3. myerman January 12, 2011 at 1:46 pm #

    I can see it now, I’ll be in a meeting with a client, and they’ll bring their SEO guy in, and I will just bust out with, “Are you a white-hat, black-hat, or ass-hat SEO guy?”

    Reply
  4. Terry January 12, 2011 at 2:02 pm #

    But without SEO, how am I supposed to sell all my Cialis, or Viagra, or buy cheap Darvocet, or even get Paxil without a prescription…. also ProzacVicodinLevitraAmbienBotox?

    from my website http://totallynotafakedomainforrealsyo.ru ?

    Answer me that?

    Sincerely,
    “Best Deals On Hydrocodone”

    Reply
    • myerman January 13, 2011 at 4:47 pm #

      Ha! I had to fish your comment out of the spam filter, it hit all those keywords and got zapped.

      Reply
  5. noahvail January 12, 2011 at 8:31 pm #

    Typical: I post something like this and all the SEO bots start following me on Twitter.

    Reply

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  1. Comment Spammers: Get Off My Lawn @ Noah Masterson - January 27, 2011

    [...] This is why SEO is broken. This is why search is starting to break as well. It’s also why I get a dozen emails a day asking me to moderate new comments on my blog—so get off my lawn! This entry was posted Thursday, 27 January, 2011 at 9:38 am You can follow any responses to this entry via RSS. You can leave a comment or trackback from your own site. « Please tell me what you had for lunch [...]

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