NewsWeek Looks at Search Engine Optimization

* * Beatles-Beatles writes to tell us that Newsweeks is taking a quick look at search engine optimization. From the article: "If search-engine rankings are supposed to represent a kind of democracy--a reflection of what Internet users collectively think is most useful--then search-engine optimizers like Fishkin are the Web's lobbyists. High-priced and in some cases slyly unethical, SEOs try to manipulate the unpaid search results that help users navigate the Internet. Their goal is to boost their clients' (and in some cases their own) sites to the top of unpaid search-engine rankings--even if their true popularity doesn't warrant that elevated status."

Comments

Re:Different kinds of SEOs

[bobdotorg]

Before everyone jumps directly to the conclusion that SEOs are evil, let me tell you this. As the article states, there are 2 kinds of SEOs:

White hat SEOs, who help people redesign their websites to use robots.txt files, META tags, etc.
Black hat SEOs, who spam the Web with thousands of links, and generally abuse the technology.
Only the second kind is evil. Other SEOs out there actually do good things and truly make the Web a better place.

You omitted evil type the most evil type (to us non-linux folks)
Red Hat SEO: the Red Hat Slashdot Evangilizing Overlord

And I for one, do NOT...