SEO Shenanigans Pose a Clear and Present Danger to Social Media

As someone who reads a lot of blogs about search and social media (a term I am still not nuts about but has stuck), I have recently witnessed a disturbing trend. Some respected experts are advocating launching social media marketing programs solely for the purpose of influencing search engines, rather than with the intent of fostering collaboration and genuine communication.

This represents a clear and present danger to the fabric of the community. If you care about the social web, then you should be alarmed.

Search engine optimization (SEO) professionals of late seem poised to take over blogs, digg, StumbleUpon and other sites with a range of tactics, some legit, others more questionable with the intent of building Google Juice and nothing more. Read these blogs and you'll see it's often all they're talking about. I am not the only one out there who feels this way.

Consider some of the following blog posts that I found in my Google Reader database...

Boost Organic Results. Link Build with Social Media (Search Engine Watch)

The Inconvienent Truth About Social Media Marketing (Search Engine Land)

Building a Company With Social Media (Search Engine Land)

Realizing SEO benefits through blogging (HitTail)

How to Use Blogs, Podcasts, Wikis and Other Social Media Tools to Find New Clients, Make Money and Create the Lifestyle of Your Dreams (Conference)

To be clear, I do not object to the way that blogs, digg links and Wikipedia rank highly in search results. What does get me hot and bothered is when consultants and bloggers propose launching such an initiatives solely for influencing search. SEO, like word of mouth, should be a byproduct outcome, not a primary objective. Any brand that plays in this space should be aiming to create value. Do that and the other stuff will follow.

But the SEO shenanigans for the sake of SEO has to stop. If you're going to play in our sandbox, follow the community's (unwritten) rules.

Comments

[ohnopirates]

That's a nice high horse you're on up there, be careful that you don't fall off.
What's that you say? A fake Wal-Mart Blog to promote the company would be unethical and a threat to our "genuine communication?"

Well good thing you didn't have anything...
Oh wait.
You did.

Yes, affiliate marketers cluttering up SEO search results with essential land pages turned blogs is annoying.
At the same time, I really hate to break this to you, but blogging isn't the new, amazing, far out experience of transcendental unity you seem to think it is.

It's a medium of communication, one that can fairly easily be monetized.

Since we live in a capitalist society, it will be monetized, just because there are all these folks out there who can game the system without BusinessWeek writing an article about how unethical they are doesn't mean you should get upset.

To put it bluntly, your entire post comes off as someone who doesn't like that there are people out there who are better at what he's supposed to do than he is. If you actually had issue with the monetization of "social media," you wouldn't have joined a marketing firm *specifically* to work on how to use social media in advertising campaigns.

[Nathan Ketsdever]

>>>Good social media optimization adds value to the readers, too. Otherwise the community buries them.

This is a myth. The notion that the community is "fair" is not true. Its like saying the SAT is fair because it statistically works out more times than it doesn't--even though injustices may abound. The cult of personality in social media is rather large. Particularly on digg & stumbleupon, but also on Twitter and in the blogosphere.

Very similar stories will get 20 vs. 2000 votes on Digg--this wouldn't happen if social media voting was "objective" or "fair" One article about Obama submitted by one source vs. another has more impact than the actual content of the post.

The number of repetitive social media articles that make it to the top of Sphinn proves than cult of personality and submitter has more impact than actual content.

The myth of "fairness" is like the myth that all colleges are created equal on your diploma. This myth must be confronted and broken down.

[Giovanni Gallucci]

Hey Steve,

I just came over to get my bucket and shovel back...

-giovanni

[Jack Humphrey]

To assume that any of them are skilled enough to ruin social media is giving them too much credit. The users police the social sites just fine.

I can't understand why that point hasn't been made other than a lot of people are talking about social media and few are actually using it like the die hard news and social junkies (and yes, us marketers).

Crap cannot survive in a thriving social community. It is a perfect ecosystem with enough human computing power and bullshit detection going on that, if anything, stops legitimate information from sometimes rising to the top.

Crap never does. At least not for long. A large SEO firm can have every employee in the company digg a story and once it gets into the stream it can and will be destroyed if bullshit is detected.

Truly, social media is the only application that has ever been able to handle the spammers and it is precisely because social sites don't leave the important stuff up to algorithms.

If you love social media, the worst thing you could ever do is call out for controls and restrictions beyond the basics of millions of real people self policing their own communities.

SEOs don't have the kind of power everyone attributes to them. At the end of the day you must be liked to prosper in social media and manipulative junkvertising doesn't win many friends in healthy, active communities.

[Web Design Critic]

The problem with this arguement is that the human component of social media is its own filter. Bad stories get buried by the users.

[Paul Chaney]

I agree that using blogs and social media solely for the purpose of influencing search results is disingenuous and not the best and highest use of the medium. However, I can "feel their pain." Clients place great emphasis on the need to rank higher in SERPs and the burden of that falls in the lap of the SEO specialist.

Having the spent the last couple of years introducing blogs to the real estate industry I can tell you the one thing I heard over and over again was, "Will it help me rank higher in Google?" That was the only benefit many were interested in.

Truth is, blogs especially are great SEO tools. Writing frequently-updated, keyword-optimized, thematically-relevant posts will very likely vault one to the top of the rankings. I've experienced that on numerous occasions.

From what you're saying, the desire to exploit that benefit has become as tempting to SEOs as "Turkish Delight" was to Edmund in the Chronicles of Narnia. If that is indeed the case, let me encourage a return to a healthy balance of value-added conversation combined with an emphasis on and awareness of the SEO benefit of blogs and other forms of social media. It needed be one or the other when it can just as easily be both/and.

[Richard Stacy]

You are never going to stop the gamers - you just have to stay one step ahead. As search becomes more social, and less algorithmic,this will help. Its the mediation / curating thing you mentioned. Its much harder to "game" a curator than it is an algorithm.

[Catfish SEO]

Characterizing all SEO professionals in this light shows a lack of knowledge on the subject. At best, your article comes off as arrogant. There are just as many "social media optimizers" as there are "search engine optimizers" that abuse social media to exploit loopholes. SEO professionals understand the value of social media from a search perspective. Campaigns that are designed to engage customers in the real spirit of social media can still realize search benefit. But many times it takes a creative professional understand the intersection. There are many of these kinds of SEOs in the world. Unfortunately there are more search engine spammers who claim to be SEOs. But for you to equate the two is irresponsible as a professional in this industry.

[Jaan Kanellis]

So making sure your content is getting syndicated is now a bad thing? Doubt it. This post baity to me.

[Shane]

It is a sad that people are ruining the intended experience of social networking. But hey once something new and that is so profound in it's reach, there is always going to be a small minority who will exploit it for their own means. These gray/black hats don't have any vested interest in the respective communities except to pimp their wares.

Here's what I wrote awhile back in one of my tweets, "Tired of ppl pimping worthless tweets - link bait crap from SEO crack addicts? Add value B. Too late you've been REMOVED :)"

Some may argue that "SEO Shenanigans" is a subset of Social Attention :( But should it?

[Bruce]

Seems like a big ado about nothing. SEO is as valid a subject for social media as any other subject.

Just because some SEO experts are advocating using this media to boost ratings, I can't see that it represents a "clear and present danger". It's not like the world will end because of it.

If the author doesn't like it then switch the channel.

[Michael Joseph]

The fear and alarm are initially understandable, BUT upon further thought...

IF social media is started with the intent of serving search engines, AND if it is done correctly, THEN people will find the social media product through the search engines (as anything else is typically found) and people will be served by that same social media/Web 2.0/(call it what ever you'd like to call it Steve Rubel) tool.

So, if the original social media effort is done poorly, then search engines do not get the word out to people about it...and it fizzles and fails. BUT, if the social media tool is created well, and is updated often enough to please the mighty search engine algorithm gods, then the outcome is that people are served, no matter what the starting intent is. That, folks, is what we call a "win-win."

That's what I call Social Media Math 2.0.

We need to remember that today's search engines, at least the majors, are smart enough to reward efforts which are well done, and punish (or at least not reward) those which are not. There are always exceptions, but, for the most part, the search engines themselves ease any necessary fear of social media for SEO's sake.

So, who's gonna tell me this isn't true?

[peter]

Stumbleupon uses rel="nofollow" on all its outbound links. No SEO benefits are obtained from Stumbleupon links.

[Michael Joseph]

That's the best reason not to use StumbleUpon for SEO-related Social Media projects.

[Nick]

It is kind of funny how people blaming you, Steve in this post for the fake WalMart blog (and that was so long ago). I know there are a lot of people at Edelman, and you were not involved in that project. But to most people in the SEO/social media/web2.0/geek/pr2.0 space, you are THE social media guy at Edelman. When I first heard about that I thought "how could Steve let that happen," only to find out later that you had nothing to do with it. Perception is reality, and now you are put in the position to defend your personal brand by making sure that Edelman never does anything dumb in the social media space. I just wanted to defend you Steve, and let everyone know that Edelman is a freaking huge company, and Steve is just one guy who is not alwasy able to call BS on someone from a far-flung corner of his company is doing behaving badly.

[SEO Emanuele Tolomei]

Very good informations! Thank u my friend