If you don’t know what I do for work, it’s called SEO (search engine optimization) and it involves setting up websites so they show up higher on Google.
If that sounds confusing, it’s because it is. You might even call it rocket science.
I’m going to throw my thoughts into the ring on this SEO is or isn’t rocket science debate because I have a unique perspective on it that might conjure up some magical moments.
My unique perspective is that I am a fucking rocket scientist.
INNOVATION
There is one and only one way SEO techniques and technology are improved. It’s commonly called the “Throw shit at a wall and see what sticks” method. From the whitest of PPC auditing to 302 hijacking, someone figured that stuff out by giving it a shot. Here are some links to see more of that in action:
Woops! I didn’t link to the Throw Shit At a Wall technique in SEO at all! I linked to the colossal failures of that very same technique in the field of rocket science. If rockets and rocket science look like anything more than dudes and dudettes in lab coats throwing multi-stage liquid Oxygen controlled atomic explosive shit at the wall and seeing what sticks, it’s only because rocket science has been around about 30 times longer than SEO. (300 vs. 10 years?)
DIFFICULTY AND COMPLEXITY
Go get a two liter bottle of Diet Coke and a pack of Mentos. Congratulations, you’re a rocket scientist! You know what would make that better though is if you got some PVC pipe the same size as the bottle to feed those Mentos in lickety split. Yea, now we’re talking. Okay, but instead of Diet Coke, fill it with a solid brick of ammonium perchlorate, aluminum and hell why not throw in a bit of iron as a catalyst. And obviously instead of Mentos, use a flare gun.
If you’re comparing the difficulty of SEO and the difficulty of rocket science, then you might as well go straight to the top because even the worst SEOs are doing more than dropping Mentos in Diet Coke.
That doesn’t mean Danny Sullivan or Greg Boser, or shit even Dave Naylor vs NASA either. That means Google vs. NASA. Google is the ultimate SEO.
NASA and Google partner it up.
SEO, at the level to which Google has taken it, which is exactly putting sites in front of more human eyeballs than anyone else in the world, requires an amount of computer processing and data storage and handling that not even NASA can match.
“While our joint efforts will benefit both organizations, the real winner will be the American public,” said NASA Ames Center Director G. Scott Hubbard.
That means if you think SEO isn’t rocket science, you hate America.
OFF BY A MILLIMETER
Rocket science is plagued by minuscule cock-ups that shoot multi-million-dollar satellites into deep space instead of landing them gracefully on Mars because some jackass forgot to convert meters to feet.
If you’ve ever done THIS
“DELETE FROM proxy_db WHERE prox_host LIKE ‘%.%’
instead of THIS
“DELETE FROM proxy_db WHERE prox_host LIKE ‘%.edu%’
Then you know exactly what that feels like. Wait, here’s another doozy:
if(is_googlebot())
header(”Location: http://www.fuckoff.com”);
else
show_cloaked_pages();
Here’s a hint on that one. It’s backwards!
SEO is rocket science.
PS. This is not link bait. Please god don’t call it that. Don’t even link to it. It’s just for fun. Actually, no one is allowed to link to it.
9 responses so far ↓
1 Phantombookman // Jan 25, 2007 at 3:06 pm
Dax
this is boring and low-level but affects lots of people I come across
it’s called SEO (search engine optimization) and it involves setting up websites so they show up higher on Google
As you know, SEO is now not just about manipulating SEs, you need to know some SEO if you have, or build, a site if only to stop it or internal pages being dumped by Google.
I see plenty of sites in my areas built by programmers with no SEO knowledge go supplemental city.
Google’s mantra of build sites for visitors not search engines is now misleading to say the least.
Best
Rod
PS. Touching on the above and in re a name you mention, why are all the title tags for the TickMe member profiles the same?
2 hammer // Jan 25, 2007 at 3:42 pm
That’s definitely true. I guess that’s step #1 in SEO:
1. Make sure you’re in Google at all.
3 monks // Jan 29, 2007 at 9:53 pm
SEO is Rocket Science.
It was very obvious to me that i would use a flare gun instead of mentos. duh…
Great to hear someone else rant like me…i enjoyed the read.
4 Phantombookman // Feb 17, 2007 at 9:18 am
Boring follow up
Touching on the above and in re a name you mention, why are all the title tags for the TickMe member profiles the same
I see this has now been changed, interestingly well ish, mine now ranks well as the title has changed in the index, yours has also been changed but not picked up in Google’s index, presumably as you’re supplemental they have not recrawled.
I linked to my page to see what would happen in re duplicate content etc as most people’s pages are very similar, also to see what G thinks to the strength of the site.
Presumably this kept it out of the supplemental index, it also ranks for my real name despite it not appearing on the page as I used it once in the anchor text.
Boring I know but may be of interest to some of your visitors
5 rcjordan // Feb 24, 2007 at 10:28 am
Dax as Slim Pickins, eh? Now, THAT is a bizarre thought.
Slightly on-topic, since you used the pix and I plan to use a quote when I next see that collateral damage crybaby Boser who’s blubbering over some chef in NYC….
Dr Strangelove > George C. Scott > General Buck Turgidson >
“I’m not saying we wouldn’t get our hair mussed, but I do say no more than 10-20 million killed, tops!”
6 Michael // Feb 25, 2007 at 12:08 am
Its not a rocket science. All you’ve to do is to know how search engines work and plan your seo according to that.
7 hammer // Feb 25, 2007 at 12:15 pm
All you have to do is understand how rocket propulsion works and you design your craft according to that.
“Have they got a chance!? Well hell yes, Mr President, they’ve got a — oh er…”
8 LZZR // May 23, 2007 at 5:21 am
Is Google AdSense actually a Pay Per Impression Network?…
Google AdSense continues to surprise and since my last post on this subject I happened to bump into yet another Ad sense thing that bothers me so much that I just can’t help sharing it with you.
If you are like me do most of your Pay Per Click mone…
9 shit seo // Jun 23, 2008 at 2:55 pm
S.E.O is a blackart sometimes and because on SERP’s changes things can not always goto plan, especially with the semantic searches and WEB 2.0 networks that can alter things on a daily timescale as opposed to years ago when things were far slower.
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