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10 Reasons Diggers are like SEO’s (really – don’t digg my blog)

Online marketing information can change quickly This article is 6 years and 103 days old, and the facts and opinions contained in it may be out of date.

Neil, Cameron, and I discussed this a bit today on their new show “Rush Hour”, which will hopefully bridge a gap in the two likeminded online communities.
10 Things Diggers have in Common with SEO’s

  1. The run websites
  2. Many have blogs
  3. Willing to forego anonymity to participate in a discussion
  4. Enjoyment of tech
  5. Enjoying cool ideas
  6. Both should agree that the Saginaw Stephen Colbeagle’s ROCK
  7. Diggers appreciate links and their value
  8. There are ethical and political differences within the community that make for good discussion
  9. Diggers nor SEO’s will click on irrelevant ads
  10. They’re not afraid to express an opinion

12 Reasons Diggers Hate SEO’s

  1. Too many ridiculous acronyms and fast talk
  2. Good SEO’s won’t take your money, and bad ones will bleed it from you.
  3. Cold calls, and unsolicited mail.
  4. Anonymous posts
  5. Driveby blog and commmunity spam.
  6. Affiliate arbitrage and economic theory can be ugly
  7. Irrelevant results
  8. Moral, cultural, policital, and ethical ambiguity
  9. They don’t know or understand the foundations of the community, and the people that realized that search marketing was a school of thought 12 and 13 years ago.
  10. We’re always right, and can’t agree on anything.
  11. Comments out of context.
    12. MFA FTW!

Why Diggers Really hate SEO

some stuntdubl self promtional spam

For all you other SEO’s who have already come to terms with self loathing – what do you think the reason a majority of diggers don’t post to my siteyour site, or your favorite SEO communities? Alternatively, what do the two communities have in common?

Okay REALLY – don’t digg my site unless I write something like this

More information about Todd Malicoat aka stuntdubl.

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  • http://www.searchgrit.com/ Marios Alexandrou

    “Good SEO’s won’t take your money, and bad ones will bleed it from you.”

    Am I reading this one wrong or are you suggesting that good SEO’s don’t charge for their services? Yeah, some of these items seem to be a bit tongue-in-cheek, but this one doesn’t seem to fit.

  • http://www.stuntdubl.com Stuntdubl SEO

    After re-reading this – I guess that wasn’t a good point as to why diggers don’t like seo’s. It is more of a reason as to why other business owners don’t like most of their experience with folks who proclaim practicing seo.

    The list of SEO’s I’d hire is short. Short of 5 figures, I doubt I could get many of these folks to help with my site. They are, however, very talented search marketing folks. There are plenty of other qualified people, but it is difficult to determine quality and audit services. Larger companies also have a hard time with client relations and managing their budgets effectively.

    There are plenty of great SEO’s who you couldn’t pay enough to take on a website client in a variety of different marketplaces. This upsets people because it sounds somewhat arrogant – to me it’s just optimizing their time. If most of them wanted to create and market a site, it would most likely be for their own.

    Good rule of thumb – never hire an seo that cold calls or has a hard sales pitch. As basic as it sounds, it happens far too often.

    Last but not least, I’m not sure how I always get sucked back into discussions of why people don’t like SEO and/or re-hashed ethical discussions, when I could be working on something fun or important:)

  • http://www.wolf-howl.com graywolf

    It’s the spam man, they think we’re all spammers. Now we all know not all lawyers are ambulance chasing sharks, but the “stereotype” is there and it’s what we think of first when we hear the word lawyer.

  • shor

    Ughhh… Todd, that “10 Things in Common” list is groan-worthy, sounds almost like you were grasping at straws to make it to 10 ;-).

    Mr Wolf is right, as an industry, we reside in the same cesspool as car salesmen & lawyers. What do these three professions have in common? They are all perceived as the most unethical and dishonest of professions. Top-of-mind awareness of SEO is growing, but what the general populace recalls are reading of BMW.de’s doorway pages & retards bribing Diggers, while deleting comment spam in their blogs and accidentally clicking on MFAs.

    As Jason Calcanis wrote ‘SEO is a tainted term and it means “gaming the system” to 90% of us’. Changing the perception of the masses is difficult, just ask the car dealers and lawyers who have been dealing with it for untold millennia…

    I tell people I work in online marketing, not SEO, SMM or SEM, and my job is to increase traffic and conversion with whatever tools i have at my disposal, without being perceived as even slightly unethical or dishonest. Works pretty well for me :)

    As for Diggers hating on us, f$ck’em! By and large Diggers are young, male, web savvy, short-attention-span-requiring-instant-gratification, jaded and cynical nerds… just like me. I don’t think I really need to care what a community of nerds has to say about my industry. Digg is simply the latest incarnation of the incestuous self-serving network of geekage(yes, and I love it). We’ve had the Slashdots, FARKs and SomethingAwfuls before Digg, and I’m sure they’ll be a ‘next big thing’ too.

    Holy crap, this comment is almost as groantastic as Todd’s post! :)

  • http://www.stuntdubl.com Stuntdubl SEO

    This whole discussion was actually just an elegant ruse to be able to use “MFA FTW” in a context where more than 3 people would understand the humor, or lack there of:)

    Thanks for a nice post shor.

  • contentmuse

    Todd,

    Thanks for providing the link to Neil and Cameron’s show- I hope it goes very well for them. It provides me with another resource for learning..

    As far as you saying on the show about how you ponder the thought of not ‘labeling’ yourself as an SEO- that is just one facet of who you are and any aware person would not short sight you.. Feed off the criticism..

    “So long as I am acting from duty and conviction, I am indifferent to taunts and jeers. I think they will probably do me more good than harm.” – Winston Churchill 1946

  • http://www.internetsplash.com/ Ash

    Hehe, you are just asking to be digged, really ;)

    The point you made about SEO’ers and Diggers not clicking ads is so true though :). Which is why I don’t get why people spam adsense filled sites to the top of Digg… They’ll probably make not even $5, lol…

  • http://williamrock.blogspot.com William Rock

    Todd, what a topic…..

    Great Job with the audio on Webmaster Radio, social networks are popping up everywhere and you had a great point on niche market networks. I feel it is very important to contribution with valid and useful information.

    I tell most of my clients when they get involved into these areas they need stick with what they know, most of them are experts in their industry and have knowledge that can help others within that community. I have seen to much junk being put up and it just clutters things.

  • http://www.improvetheweb.com Yuri

    Todd, no offense, but asking not to get dugg and placing a link to a Digg page creates another reason why Diggers will hate SEOs and not like you, personally.

    Other than that, I’ll say that most Diggers don’t understand that some SEOs work on improving experience for the site visitors/readers and not exactly gaming the system – just playing by the rules. “Knowing the rules is half a victory” or something.

    Cheers.

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  • http://www.stuntdubl.com Stuntdubl SEO

    Yikes – didn’t know I came off as such a wanker. Really I just meant it to be a discussion of the things diggers seem to dislike in their community and such. I like seo and digg, and back and forth flaming and such is just uncalled for. I guess I still feel the need to defend the reputation of seo from time to time, since it’s been very good to me. Perhaps I’ll just have to become more accepting of the public perception that I’m just another snake oil salesman.

  • http://www.stuntdubl.com Stuntdubl SEO

    I should have also probably made better reference to the “don’t digg this” part of the title. In my radio conversation with Neil and Cameron, we talked about Lee Odden being blocked from digg – and I suggested it was probably from ALL of his stories getting submitted to digg by his readers. Not really his fault, and not a big deal really, but I think it can be at digg. The morale of the story is to just submit stuff that is “digg worthy”.

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