SEO is Dead: It's a Linkless, SEOless World...

It’s a Linkless,
SEOless World...

And many marketers have
their knickers tied up in a
twist over it...

WHO:
•Eric Ward: Link Moses, writes for Link Week column at
SearchEngineLand.com

•Rae Hoﬀman: CEO of PushFire, author of the often
controversial Sugarrae blog.

WHAT:
•Eric Ward: 11 Reasons Link Building Is A Futile Waste Of
Time — And One Big Reason It Isn’t

•Rae Hoﬀman: Google Propaganda, SEO and Why
Marketers Need to Wake up

WHERE:
•Eric Ward: at SearchEngineLand.com
•Rae Hoﬀman: at SugarRae.com

“A lot of people who think “SEO is dead” in my
opinion, do so because they were “one trick ponies” so
to speak - had one ranking tactic in their arsenal that
they confused with a strategy – build keyword based
links.”

~ Rae Hoffman

“It’s been made clear by everyone that link
building is now dead, the last nail in the coﬃn
being the guest blog post, hammered in by my
friend, colleague, and occasional co-panelist,
Matt Cutts, who takes way more grief than he
deserves.”
~ Eric Ward

Speaking of Matt Cutts,
we DO like the guy:

“To be clear, I’m not picking on Matt personally here,
even though his post was partially responsible for
spurring this post. Google is a huge company and Matt
doesn’t run it. I’m sure when Matt is met with examples
of the above, he’s sometimes like…”
~ Rae Hoffman

“You now have one single solitary content mission:
Be awesome. Be awesome and the world will ﬁnd and
share that awesomeness — this is the 2014 social version
of 1994 s ‘build it and they will come’ approach, or the
2010 version of ‘just make it an app and they will
download it.’ ”
~ Eric Ward

“Somehow, someway, the web has
evolved into this absolutely amazing
collection of utterly brilliant content that
builds its own links or downloads itself
onto your handheld. ”
~ Eric Ward

“We’re told to “create good content” and our
Google rankings will be ﬁne.
I’m sorry, but I live in reality. In reality,
creating good content guarantees you nothing.
There’s no guarantee good content will
magically be shared.”
~ Rae Hoffman

•If good content does get shared, and gets shared so much that a

larger site republishes it, it could screw me.
•If people like it, and link to it with too much anchor, it could
screw me.
•If not enough quality sites link to it in proportion to the overall
inbound links, it could screw me.
•If multiple bloggers with a good audience who can give me good
exposure, but that also blatantly sell links or publish a lot of guest
posts links to it, it could screw me.
•If I include a nifty graphic in it and enough people repost that
graphic and give me a link credit for being the source, it could
screw me.

~ Rae Hoffman

“In short, I’m supposed to publish awesome content,
not actively promote it and hope that the right ratios of
the right type of people (sites) like it and link to it. Oh,
and then I’m supposed to cross my ﬁngers and hope
that my competitors don’t actively try to f*** with my
‘create good content’ stars aligning.” ~ Rae Hoffman

Link Building:
it must be dead

“I don’t have to build links anymore, and I have never
felt so liberated. So free. All the years I spent endless
hours trying to help content get discovered — and I
didn’t realize I didn’t have to do any of it. Those 163
conference gigs? Waste of time. 300+ articles, columns
and posts? Digital litter. The massive project I just
wrapped up for the Sochi Olympics? I’m sending their
check back.”

~ Eric Ward

There are over 5,300 articles that have the words “link
building is dead” in their title. There is no possible way
they can all be wrong — at least one out of 5,300 has to
have some truth to it, am I right?
~ Eric Ward

“Google says that anything that manipulates the
natural link ecosystem of the web is bad. But the largest
manipulator of the linking ecosystem today (and has
been for a long time) is Google themselves. They created
a currency around links, then failed to control it, then
issued mandates to alter it to compensate for their
failings for their own beneﬁt.”
~ Rae Hoffman

“Over the last two years, the number of don’ts is
increasing as quickly as Miley Cyrus’s sluttiness while
the number of “dos” continues to dwindle.”
~ Rae Hoffman

Link Building:
do’s or don’ts?

“Press Releases Don’t Work. (Not true. Press releases
about nothing and ﬁlled with keyword anchors don’t
work. Press releases about something that is actually
worth announcing might just get you written about [and
linked to] by someone that has credibility. Big
diﬀerence.)”
~ Eric Ward

“Google says you’re not supposed to add any anchor
rich links to your press releases without a nofollow or
risk a negative impact on your search results. Yet, when
they announced Calico, they put two links within the
press release to their own properties using anchor text –
without using a nofollow. This of course resulted in
straight links from folks who scraped the release. This
doesn’t appear to have had any eﬀect on that rank of
the page they linked to in the release in regards to
ranking on the anchor used.”
~ Rae Hoffman

“Widgets Don’t Work. (Not true. Widgets that embed
and/or require inclusion of source code containing links
don’t work. Not all widgets are like this.)”
~ Eric Ward

“Google says embedding links within widgets without a
nofollow is not only bad, but cause for penalization
within their search results. However, it appears Google
Maps is exempt from feeling any wrath.”
~ Rae Hoffman

“Guest Posts Don’t Work. (Not true. Isn’t this column
[at SearchEngineLand.com] technically a “guest post”? Aren’t
you reading it right now?)”
~ Eric Ward

“And now, we’ve added sites who allow guest posts to
the chopping block.”
~ Rae Hoffman

“Directories Don’t Work. (Not true. Directories with
no actual purpose don’t work. Topical, vertical, niche,
and highly curated directories are a solid source of traﬃc
and credibility.)”
~ Eric Ward

“Anchor Text Doesn’t Work. (Not true. If the website
that contains the anchor text has produced historical
signals that indicate it has been a highly credible source
for a long time, then anchor text originating from that
source is likely to be quite helpful — and you won’t be
able to control it because that’s what made it credible in
the ﬁrst place.)”
~ Eric Ward

“Link Networks Don’t Work. (Not true. It all depends
on how you are deﬁning the term “link network.” Isn’t
a nationwide collection of state chapter websites of any
national organization a link network? Yes, it is. And if
you are a new chapter of that national organization,
launch a site, and get your link like all the others have,
aren’t you now a part of a link network? Yes, you are —
as you should be.)”
~ Eric Ward

“Paid Links Will Get You BUSTed. (Not true. Nothing
more to say on this one.)”
~ Eric Ward

“‘We’ are not allowed to give away products to
bloggers to review unless we demand a nofollow on the
post. But, Google can give away thousands of Android
phones in 2009 resulting in thousands of links without
any issue or slap from Google’s search division.”
~ Rae Hoffman

“Infographics Don’t Work. (Not true. Have we reached
the point where every single complex, statistic-driven fact
and ﬁnding has now been made perfectly clear by
infographic artists? No. But we have reached the point
where 7,500 charts showing why e-cigarettes are good
for you is not helpful.)”
~ Eric Ward

“All of what you’ve read so far is both true and false at
the same time. How does that help to clear up matters?”
~ Eric Ward

“In today’s linking environment, everything is a matter
of nuance. Everything works and nothing works,
depending on a variety of variables and intentions.”
~ Eric Ward

“For every tactic you tell me is good, I can show you
how it could be bad. For every tactic you tell me is
wrong, I can ﬁnd a scenario where it could be right.”

~ Eric Ward

“And this isn’t news. It’s always been this way. There
has never been a shortage of link builders, but there has
always been a shortage of content linking strategists who
recognize search is just one piece of the linking puzzle
and know what to do about it.”
~ Eric Ward

Don’t like it?
You don’t have to...
(or do you?)

“Of course, Google (and their fanboys) will tell you
that you’re free to do whatever you want, and simply
accept that you might not appear (well) in Google as a
result.
But let’s face it…”

“That’s some ﬁnancially devastating bullshit – even to
the largest of brands. Just like a tyrannical leader can
tell his citizens if they don’t like it, they can move – he
knows that the large majority of those citizens have no
realistic, viable choice but to endure – and obey – the
tyranny.”
~ Rae Hoffman

1. Google’s primary concern is not “the web” or “you” – it’s
Google
2. Penguin is not always fair – Google knows it but… see #1
3. Panda is not always fair – Google knows it but… see #1
4. Google talks the talk, but does not walk the walk and there’s
nothing we can do about it
5. “Creating good content” guarantees you JACK SHIT when it
comes to ranking
6. SEO is as alive now as it was a decade ago
7. SEO has evolved to become the result of an actual marketing
strategy versus marketing tactics
8. Your pony is dead.

~ Rae Hoffman

No wonder our knickers
are in a twist...

Wherever shall we go?
Whatever shall we do?

“From here on out, you work on generating traﬃc.
From here on out, you work on generating branding.
From here on out, you work on obtaining customers.
From here on out, you work on making your product
or service or “value provide” (for bloggers) f** epic.
Not just epic – F** EPIC.”

~ Rae Hoffman

“I’m not saying the new SEO is not to do SEO. I’m
saying that you need to do things in the most search
optimized way as possible, but never losing site of the
fact that what you’re supposed to be doing is building a
business and not merely building search engine
~ Rae Hoffman
rankings.”

“By doing so, you’re doing the most defensible thing
you can for your business. And, you’ll end up doing the
very thing that Google is looking to reward in their
algorithm. Google doesn’t want to make websites
popular, they want to rank popular websites. If you
don’t understand the diﬀerence, you’re in for one hell of
an uphill climb.”
~ Rae Hoffman

“And if Google still screws you at the end of the day –
despite you trying your best to “do things right” –
doing so is your only chance to survive – and thrive.”
~ Rae Hoffman

“Please ignore this column and
accept my apologies. I have to
get back to work after all.”
~ Eric Ward

So don’t get your knickers
in a knot; it solves nothing
and makes you walk funny.

build your business.
then build search engine rankings.

here’s how:
tgcafe.it/seo-guide-2014

here’s how:
tgcafe.it/seo-guide-2014
Click on the link now

SEO is Dead: It's a Linkless, SEOless World...

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