Jason Calacanis is no stranger to controversy or success.
Read about him and his latest project Mahalo, and you can see how well the man has done for himself. Mahalo seems to be going steady with its ambitious “Human Powered Search” approach. At Mahalo, your seach results are hand picked by editors instead of a seach algorithm.
Now let’s talk about the heated controversy he has generated at search engine marketing conferences with the following comments about SEO:
SMX Social 2008, Long Beach, CA: “SEO is a wasted industry. You’re wasting your time fighting off ranking problems instead of creating great content. You’re just spinning your wheels hoping the Google gods won’t kick you out. It’s a bad way to live your life. Using a human service is a better way to go about it.”
SES 2006, Chicago: “SEO is bulls#*t…90% of the SEO market is made up of snake oil salesmen.”
The search marketing industry got all worked up about the comments. SEOs called for banning him from future conferences.The man must be a genius if he twice rattled all the SEO “professionals” to the extent that they wanted to keep him quiet.
Hey, don’t we have this freedom of speech in this country? In this industry? When did Jason Calacanis become a leader of a hate group that should be banned from speaking? The answer is: Never!
The truth is: what he said wasn’t anything I don’t think about myself, though not in exactly the same way. Here are my thoughts.
“SEO is bulls#*t.”
Is that true? Not always, but sometimes it is. Bulls#*t SEO is practiced by more people than you can imagine. Here is some SEO bulls#*t for you to consider:
- Agencies based out of nowhere and everywhere “Guaranteeing #1 placement” on Google for something like $299 per month
- Agencies advertising that they will submit your site to “300+ search engines for $2.39” or provide “100 guaranteed live directory one-way links in 4-5 days for just $25”
- Link farms & shady link building — the # 1 source of web spam now available to everyone with a website (Viagra, Cialis, Britney Spears, Male Enhancement anyone??)
- Agencies claiming to have “cracked,” or worse, to “own” the Google algorithm. Hear this, there is one company claiming to have the Pay Per Click Algorithm! This one just cracks me up. The sins people do in the name of the algorithm.
Why do these businesses even have any cash to market themselves? Simple: lack of education fuels the fire of ignorance! Google has made the rankings algorithm so mysterious and complicated that it is almost too easy to take advantage of all those website owners who have no idea what we’re talking about. In a situation like this, there is always a snake oil salesman ready to make a few dollars.
“SEO is a wasted industry. You’re wasting your time fighting off ranking problems instead of creating great content. You’re just spinning your wheels hoping the Google gods won’t kick you out. It’s a bad way to live your life. Using a human service is a better way to go about it.”
Let’s take a closer look.
- Waste of time — well, yeah! Look at the time and energy it takes to build links (spam & non-spam). What would happen if that time was spent creating more meaningful content instead? A cleaner worldwide web.
- The Google Gods — There is hardly any transparency when it comes to the unicorn named The Google Algorithm. We all (black, white and grey hats) put in a lot of energy to please the algorithm and generate rankings for our clients. Yet nothing can ever be guaranteed. You never know when you or your client may disappear from the front page of Google. Such volatility results in worshipping what Jason aptly called The Google Gods.
- Stress for everyone — The search industry is very stressful due to the SEO element. Sponsored listings are different: all agencies have an account manager in Google who we can call to discuss Pay Per Click. A lot more transparency here allows us to focus on improving clients’ ad groups, ad content, and keyword selection to reduce cost per acquisition. SEO, on the other hand, guarantees nothing. So all you have is a worried client, a worried SEO agency, and the constant fear of losing your ranking to some competitor who might use the back door (black hat) to sabotage your rankings. Fear= Stress = “Bad way to live your life!”
I am not a utopian that believes human powered search will clean up the web. Every great idea gets gamed in its lifetime; human powered search will have its issues once it reaches critical mass. A lot of factors are in play that make a very strong case for it, but only time will reveal the scalability of human powered search.
If we think the search marketing industry has it rough when Jason Calacanis says a few controversial lines, think of the medical industry that is thrown under the bus every day! Do the highly publicized medical errors and scams make us believe that all doctors are evil? No. Because the good ones continue to do practice the right way, irrespective of what people have to say about their industry.
Search engine marketing is a relatively new and little understood industry (at least in the “mainstream”), and obviously is very sensitive to comments from Jason. Banning anyone who speaks his mind is not a good idea. I do want to add a disclaimer that I am not a personal friend of Jason. I have never met the guy, so this is a voluntary moment of support for him. I guess I can consider this my Jerry Maguire memo moment, where I have said things a lot of us think about but don’t say out loud.
I hope I don’t get banned — I’ve already bought my ticket for SMX Seattle.
