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Is Search Broken?
Tom Foremski’s post is fascinating, not so much for what he gets right but for what he misunderstood. Read his post and comments to see what is broken. What is broken is lay people’s understanding of how search engines work. It is why Search Engine Optimists are able to overcharge so many businesses for services they don’t need.
I’m not saying Search Engine Optimization doesn’t have a time and a place. I’m simply saying that the average person doesn’t understand that place. That is why so many business owners pay Search Engine Optimization (SEO) firms–sorry to the handful of ethical SEO firms–what amounts to extortion money out of fear of losing their rankings; even when that ranking brings traffic that doesn’t convert. Sad! They should ask better questions.
About the author
Jeffrey is CEO & co-founder of FutureNow an interactive marketing optimization firm. Jeffrey is the co-author of a Forbes.com column and of two Wall Street Journal, Business Week, USA Today and New York Times bestselling books: "Call To Action" & "Waiting For Your Cat To Bark?". Jeffrey is also speaker at major business conferences and corporate events. Jeffrey is proudest of the success stories from readers, students and clients using FutureNow’s Persuasion Architecture®, a framework for optimizing online experiences to maximize conversions to registrations, donations, lead generation, subscriptions and sales. You can friend Jeffrey on Facebook
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March 5th, 2007
1:27 pm
As you imply by saying ask better questions, garbage in, garbage out. Or, as I like the expression, measure twice, cut once. Or, the easiest problem to solve is the one that never occurs.
It’s all about insight and understanding. As opposed to just information, which too often can be information overload.
We explore how these concepts relate to politics in Politics 2.0 - the convergence between politics and web 2.0. The shifting and evolving political landscape means that the political ROI, in this case conversion being votes, fundraising, media and volunteers, is increasingly dependent upon, or at a minimum integrated with, interactive and social community elements that build “stickiness” and interest and loyalty from among the information clutter (also, the next generation of message microtargeting as well).
March 5th, 2007
3:32 pm
GIGO. That is the problem.
April 7th, 2008
4:21 am
Personally I think the majority of the problem lies within the Industry itself. How can we expect anyone not involved in search to understand the complexities of an Industry yet to be unified and held to some form of standards and testing.
Anyone can just set up shop and call themselves an SEO without any qualififcations at all. Check out some of the freelance sites around and the quality of providers in there passing themselves off as SEO’s. It’s a worry when people who have nothing more than a good list of web directories pass themselves off as an SEO Expert of 4 years.
I think a unified Industry with uniform standards and testing would go a long way to weeding out those giving quality provders a bad name. There is plenty of information out there, both good and bad, regardless though any quality provider would set their clients or potential clients straight in regards to what services are required for their project.