Comments on: Jason Calacanis of Mahalo on SEO Bulls#*t, Wasting Time and The Google Gods

By: Keith Cowing

Keith Cowing — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 18:39:16 +0000

Right now Jason Calacanis is trying to promote Mahalo as much as possible, and there’s no better way to get attention than to pi$$ people off, so I’m sure he had no qualms about dissing SEO. He also has a legitimate point that SEO as an industry is about gaming algorithms as opposed to making quality sites or content. There is a legitimate marketing aspect to it - just like there are experts who will help you design a billboard to attract more eyes, but there is also a shady aspect that bloats the web with fluff that nobody wants.

Mahalo itself looks fairly promising though. It’ll never be a Google because a “human-powered” search engine can’t scale in the same way, but it offers some useful pieces. Here are some thoughts about its benefits over Google:

http://hightechweekly.com/mahalo_vs_google_r1

By: Vikram

Vikram — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 18:50:17 +0000

Thanks! Aaron Wall @ SEO Book pointed out to me to get the post more balanced. Here is a post he did recently titled: Mahalo documents are considered spam according to Google’s internal documents. The page has moved on his blog but you can find it there.

By: Tin Pig

Tin Pig — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 17:17:22 +0000

Great Post.

I’ve been watching (and writing about) this debate myself and continue to be amazed at the reaction Jason is able to get. I think most of where this comes from is the truth behind a lot of what Jason says.

By: hamilton wallace

hamilton wallace — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 14:20:15 +0000

Most marketing sucks, on and off line. SEO included. Many mktg/adv/SEO agencies are more intersted in selling and growing than generating results for clients. Which is why most of what they do sucks. That doesn’t mean mktg or adv or SEO is inherently bad. But as practiced today, most blow. So, more accurately: lazy people suck; dishonest people suck; incompetent people suck; and selfish people suck.

By: Melanie

Melanie — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 19:28:24 +0000

I think what we are really arguing about is the designation “SEO.” I think this term has been seriously tainted by snake oil salesmen. In fact, this is something we warn clients about every day, so they know when they are comparing apples to oranges. We all have our own definitions of SEO. At our agency, SEO means relevant content, clean programming, and a few quality directory registrations. This is probably not too far from Jason’s approach, although he might take issue with the fact that we package these services as SEO because that’s what the market demands. I also take issue with the fact that we have to share this market with the 1000 Directories for $5.99 crowd, especially because they are the ones creating the web spam we hate.

By: Vikram

Vikram — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 19:15:14 +0000

Excellent point. But one URL should not take away all his credibility. Even if Mahalo is not perfect, we’re talking about a smart guy. We all know that our industry is far from perfect, and that is all he is pointing out.

By: Andy Beard

Andy Beard — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 19:07:16 +0000

I actually got someone to ask Jason during/after the presentation about why on things like http://mahalo.com/thisisjunk it doesn’t return a 404 error. It also has Adsense on a page with no content.

These are issues that Jason said were “overlooked”

They were issues first raised by Bill Hartzer over a year ago when Mahalo was first released.

This is the type of garbage site design that causes Jason’s arguments to lose any basis of credibility.

Note: I don’t do SEO consulting, and this is just basic stuff any “SEO Professional” will spot, and so should most web designers.

This is also the kind of thing a developer could have fixed before Jason got back to his office, but still isn’t.

By: shawno

shawno — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 18:48:06 +0000

I have a tendency to agree with Mr. Calacanis. A site with good content and good meta data will shine through, and score good search engine ranking without all of this silly SEO trickery.

By: Jay Francis Hunter

Jay Francis Hunter — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 18:44:15 +0000

I love it when people like Jason rattle the cages and remind people that the content is what really matters.

By: Greg Rollett

Greg Rollett — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 18:43:57 +0000

I’m neither for nor against Calacanis, though I would argue that he is getting the blame for an industry that can be very successful for businesses and also a cause of major concern for others. Where Spam has spiraled out of control, someone and or some search engine needs to step to the plate and give us, the users, the results we want and not of those that have spammed their way to be there.

You are right in saying that SEO is an industry in its infancy, and so are search engines, online advertising and social media. There is no 1 way to do anything anymore. Pleasing the user should be all that matters.