One of the biggest things that annoys me about SEOs is how so many of them make generalisations. For example, a recent poll conducted by Search Roundtable asked SEOs and webmasters, “do you like blog links?” The poll was sparked off by suggestions by some SEOs that Google had started to de-value links from blogs.
My bug bear with this is that a link, whether from a blog or not, has value based on it’s relevance, not on whether the site it appears on is a blog. In fact, a link from a blog is more likely to be relevant because of the nature of blogging. You’re more likely to get a good quality, contextual link from a blog (or a social site) than a normal information or commercial site.
This is a typical example of how SEO can adversely affect your on line marketing. Those SEOs (not all SEOs!) who generalise like this are often chasing the algorithm all the time, making big changes and doing u-turns because of the latest ‘filter’ or penalty. The result is a compromise between quality and the pursuit of rankings (which may not prove fruitful).
The truth is, if you build a quality site in an ethical and common sense way you hardly even need to think about search engines. Your time will be focused almost entirely on achieving your business goals and meeting those all important targets.
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