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Here is why I would never personally work for an SEO company: (Obviously just my opinion, with all the bias that carries) Search engines are very interesting,

Here is why I would never personally work for an SEO company: (Obviously just my opinion, with all the bias that carries) Search engines are very interesting, technologically. Optimizing a search engine would be extremely interesting. Optimizing websites to keep up with the changes of somebody else's business (the search engine) is not interesting. You're playing catch-up. You essentially attempting to reverse engineer interesting problems, and applying methods to take advantage of the internals of those algorithms for your customers. In 1999 you would have been wildly successful telling people they could put a ton of keywords on their website, using the same font color as their site background color to boost ranking without affecting user-visible content. That worked, for a while. Then it didn't. The technology to "optimize" content for search engines have changed, but the concepts are still the same. You're trying to game the system, and I personally don't find that interesting nor rewarding.

randfish 16y ago
Fair points. We're working to figure out what works and provide software to message that and help businesses optimize. It's not just for search engines (we try to help with, for example, how/why people retweet, link, share content, "like" on FB, etc), but the point is a reasonable one; optimizing against existing systems vs. creating something new may be part of the issue. Thanks for sharing, Brian.
- dejb 16y ago
  > It's not just for search engines (we try to help with, for example, how/why people retweet, link, share content, "like" on FB, ... and how to get a popular item on news.yc :) I guess it just goes to prove your point that you can can promote your brand without being spamy.
sjs382 16y ago
It isn't about keyword-stuffing (and hiding these keywords from users) anymore. It's about optimizing a site for organic traffic and having a true focus on who the customer is. Use the Betty Ford Center, a residential drug and alcohol treatment center, as an example. You want to optimize for "private" and "recovery" rather than dilute your site with keywords like "clinic" which don't serve your target audience.* _This_ is what effective SEO is about. It's only "gaming the system" in the same way that traditional advertising is--you want to do your best to get your message in front of the right eyes. * "Clinic" is often associated with "cheap" or "free" by customers who are a better fit for the Betty Ford Center.

randfish 16y ago

Fair points. We're working to figure out what works and provide software to message that and help businesses optimize. It's not just for search engines (we try to help with, for example, how/why people retweet, link, share content, "like" on FB, etc), but the point is a reasonable one; optimizing against existing systems vs. creating something new may be part of the issue. Thanks for sharing, Brian.

dejb 16y ago
> It's not just for search engines (we try to help with, for example, how/why people retweet, link, share content, "like" on FB, ... and how to get a popular item on news.yc :) I guess it just goes to prove your point that you can can promote your brand without being spamy.

sjs382 16y ago

It isn't about keyword-stuffing (and hiding these keywords from users) anymore. It's about optimizing a site for organic traffic and having a true focus on who the customer is. Use the Betty Ford Center, a residential drug and alcohol treatment center, as an example. You want to optimize for "private" and "recovery" rather than dilute your site with keywords like "clinic" which don't serve your target audience.* _This_ is what effective SEO is about. It's only "gaming the system" in the same way that traditional advertising is--you want to do your best to get your message in front of the right eyes. * "Clinic" is often associated with "cheap" or "free" by customers who are a better fit for the Betty Ford Center.