Recent events have reiterated how a lot of the SEO profession—I’d say almost all of it, except for a tiny sliver of people who really know what they are doing—is a crock.
The good news is you can confirm which ones are the crooks by seeing who had posted lies about me. Usually they write terribly as well, which should be a massive giveaway. Only a tiny percentage got their facts right during this whole Google keyword-stuffing mess.
There are a couple more that deserve special mention.
One chap, called Danial, did respond to a critical comment on his blog after he had posted the usual BS about my involvement in Google and SEO. He said he would not remove the piece unless he received an email from me from the jackyan.com domain.
I didn’t think he was in any position to demand anything considering he knew he lied, and could not point to any credible source for his lies.
I responded, ‘Fine, have it your way,’ and sent him the email he requested from a barely used jackyan.com email address I have.
Nothing was done. His BS posts remain up, so he can’t even play his own game. He’s since deleted our comments and locked the post to any more.
Therefore, avoid 360 E-Market, for a start. Thoroughly dishonest.
The second one is Nexorank, who posted on Linkedin. Linkedin’s been pretty good at removing spam and misinformation, so I will give them that.
Nexorank said on Linkedin that they are ‘thrilled to announce our partnership with SEO expert Jack Yan,’ linking to another BS post about this so-called algorithm.
I commented, ‘If you have a partnership with me, how come I know nothing about it?’
The cheeky buggers have deleted the comment so I’ve reported their post for spam and misinformation. Unfortunately, if you see the following screen, it might not mean that Linkedin had deleted the post. It just means it’s been hidden from you.
Another company to stay well clear of.
Most of these SEO people haven’t altered their posts. Only one has, when confronted with the facts, and apologized, so I took him to be an honest player. A few others have got it right without my prompting them. One deleted their post without any apology after I commented. So we’re talking about six people with a conscience versus dozens (hundreds?) of others without. The latest one even linked here and still managed to post BS (in three separate posts), though to their credit, they left my comments up, unless they can’t read any of it and the entire operation is bot-driven.
While you’re here, Jeff Ferguson’s ‘10 top SEO scams and cons (plus how to avoid them)’ is instructive, if you ever wonder about this shady profession. It should help narrow down who you could hire—and certainly don’t respond to any who come to you unsolicited, as I’ve seen most of the scams Jeff’s written about over emails for the last 25-plus years, even before Google.
Incidentally, I’m not the only one who has noticed the decline of Quora. Slate ran a piece called ‘How Quora died’ in February. Others noticed, before me, how Quora is plagued by bot-written nonsense. Which, of course, Google rewards:
There really is only one outcome when spam gets the better of a site.
If the Mastodon script ever fails, the important part is: ‘As Iʼve said before, if youʼve lost the fight against spam this badly, then your website is headed for the scrapheap. Seen it happen before, and this lot wonʼt be immune unless they really sort it out.’
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