Tue 19 Jan 2010
Remember The Problem With SEO Theory Blogs, Like This One
Blurb by Shaun Anderson (Hobo)
HooRank is a modified polynomial distribution that is calculated every Thursday at 9am local time wherever the website is hosted, and applied to the ranking calculation the following Tuesday at 3pm CET. (http://seocockstars.com/)
Note – the reason I am posting this is I have some seo stuff I am going to publish shortly (including some seo analysis I dont think I see out there) which falls under seo theory so I thought I may as well get this out of the way before somebody pipes in later lol.
There’s many problems with seo theory blogs. Misinformation is an obvious one. Rarely are your results conclusive or observations 100% accurate. Even if you think a theory holds water on some level.
Take for instance a recent post I did about Google remembering all your pages on your site. While the theory may hold water for me, my analysis was slightly flawed, and my findings in retrospect have proven not to be 100% accurate. not 100% innacurate – or I would nuke the post entirely, or strikethrough the text at least.
There’s even a few pages on this site that I don’t think are 100% accurate, so I’ve added listtle disclaimers here and there, and created a main seo page to list some of the seo techniques that are more widely agreed upon.
I enjoy seo theory blogging and sometimes I wish I could blog more about theory, rather then fact, because this blog is after all a brain dump. I love discussion on it and the actual idea generation side of online marketing.
But your not exactly in a lab environment – why I think seo is more art that science – a lot more.
Sometimes it’s scary blogging about SEO, because nobody has all the answers. you can look stupid too.
What’s worse though is seeing a seo theory blog fail to theorise about anything other than diss other people’s ideas – I don’t want a blog like that.
Just remember everything you read about seo anywhere is THEORY and just like how many planets are in the solar system or what clour is water, ‘facts’ can change with a greater understanding over time or with a different perspective.
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My problem with many SEO blogs is conjecture stated as fact, in the old days where it was moderated that don’t see the light of day. The exact science of SEO can only be found in the Googleplex and other SE’s offices and a few Universities the rest is conjecture.
Shaun, IMO, you have license now to use all the conjecture you want. Out of habit I try to post using IMO and letting people know when “this is conjecture” so the reader can kinda’ take from it what is helpful and useful to them in developing their own style. IMO, the smartest out there started out with no tools and little data… just common sense, marketing and web development skills and an inquisitive nature! Hypothesis and conjecture are the result of an inquisitive nature… between conjecture and fact is potentially new knowledge… jussayin
You make good points Terry…
lol… I see Terry has already been here… Nice to see m’geeky brethren beating the trails.
Good post and as you know I am one that tends to qualify statements from the limited testing abilities available to us. Everytime we look at something it creates more and more questions. It is great to poke and prod the data to see what we can, but ultimately it will suffer from a lack of isolation in resources..
…but it is fun to play! Keep up the great work!
You know that SEOCockstars.com is a parody site right? I don’t know who writes it, but it’s hilarious that’s for sure.
By the way, I can’t wait to read what you have coming. I love SEO theory.
In reality with the exception of being privy to Google’s algorithm , Everything related to SEO is theory and conjecture. Which is why we need to test, test, test!