The inconvenient truth about SEO

Merry Christmas to all … no. Hold on a second … this is not a very good title to start wishing a Merry Christmas, and that’s, in fact the reason I got so upset when a friend of mine pointed me out on this article after I wished him the same.

I will cut a long story very short as I don’t want to blame too much. After all today is still the Christmas day.

However, I am really wondering what damn Mr. Boag was thinking when he wrote his article on Smashing Magazine on the December the 11th. I’ve been reading Smashing Magazine for years, and I’ve always found it an invaluable source of inspiration and a good source of new technologies, but this time, I am very surprised they decided to publish such a article without a proper editorial review (consider the inaccuracies it contains).

If I should use two words to describe this article - though I’m very late - I would probably use: absolute non-sense! And that’s not because I’m defending myself, my job or the category, but because there is clearly very much few understanding of what SEO is.

At a certain point of the article Paul said … “Yes, there are some technical considerations when it comes to search engines.”

And that’s just the beginning. People, companies, front end web designers or webmasters more often than not have a limited understanding of what are the technical implication of a very good SEO. I personally have to fight daily with various blue-chip companies to let them understand the value of the SEO that doesn’t lie only beneath simple earnings and with their appointed IT structure to explain how - for instance - a trailing slash can harm their site if not managed properly.

And you know what is the result? A challenge!

Those people think holistically but limited to their discipline. They don’t care what is outside their box and the result is a site that may, for instance, work from a technical perspective but loose opportunities somewhere else. When it comes to the content, the editorial team challenge again the SEO because they can’t understand how important is a structured yet useful strategy behind to make sure a site to engage with users as Google suggests.

For sure, there is no hidden secret behind SEO rather than professionalism to be dispensed from SEOers to make sure all the wheels of this complex gear are oiled.

So I hope that the answer given some days later from some of the most world-wide known SEO get this clarified, and the article won’t generate more skepticism than necessary.

And that everything for today … so now have a

MERRY CHRISTMAS