OMG. RAND IS ATTACKED! (in a blog post)

[RobertFisher]

AWCthreads

I hate these kinds of discussions ... because I just have to respond. Its as if I have the angel on one side and the devil on the other - move on dude, no, no, say something (you know you have a perfect opinion)... etc.

But, what I find interesting about the post of VC is that it is only meant for one thing: to sell him and his stuff. The "I only did this because my 0 page rank two page sites were outranking my ..." etc.

When he talks about the 6 clients he has with 50 websites, and he says to people like me:  "I’m a huge fan, but what Rand recently advocated on his blog is just…totally misguided the total opposite to what is really working right now." and

"While I can understand that preaching “build good content, focus on growing your brand’ sounds great and it’s what people want to hear, for a HUGE percentage of search phrases, this is just no longer relevant. I just can’t take anyone seriously who mentions these things anymore in 2013"

Really? You can't? What do you take seriously? I have copywriters on staff so you can guess where I fall in the content debate (I did not realize there was one). At the end of the day, any site, any page is subject to one thing that rules the day no matter how super clever you are with SEO: If you answer a query in the meta description and then you give the person who clicked on it exactly what they wanted, you are going to do just fine with ranking at some point and probably some point soon. 
People make statements like this guy does to drive traffic. That is what he is doing. He mentions not using Rand's surname as if he is a stand up guy, but do a non personalized search on Rand and tell me what you come up with. Then do Rand, SEO and tell me. There are so many Rand's in the world...not.

So, let the guy have his few seconds to sell him and his knowledge. The easiest way to sell knowledge is to tear down others. Someone will always listen. So, quit listening to the dummies who say things from the Franklin mint will not appreciate, go by that coin set they just made - you are gonna be rich!!!!

Best

[jesse-landry]

• 1 -- well put.

[ViperChill]

Hi EGOL,

Nice to see you here. I remember reading your comments / forum posts as far back as 2006/7 when I used to be a member of Web Workshop.

I find it interesting that you would simply say 'the rest of the post makes no sense to me' without really backing anything up. That doesn't seem to be your style at all.

If you could clarify anything I would love to take it on board. I know I can't please everyone but I'm always happy to improve

[ViperChill]

Thanks Jesse,

Your photo is so alpha that I unfortunately can't make a single negative comment about it. Nice to see where your priorities lie when it comes to discussing SEO information though (did a dude or a chick write it? what do they look like?)

I never missed that at all. It has been a nice message everyone preaches for years. If you think it's as relevant as it used to be for search results then I urge you to use Google more often.

I have never said that building a brand is bad and I still highly advocate writing good content (I even mentioned it in my latest post and in the comments after someone wrote "Fuck Rand and Moz"). They work great and I try to follow this as much as I can, but it's not really helping my marketing right now when it comes to search traffic.

Anyway

Silliness

[ViperChill]

I hardly think that I tore down anyone else.

I tried reading your comment but it seems like you just went off on your own tangent that doesn't really seem to have anything to do with me or the post. I have writers too - I'm not relying on them to get me top rankings with their amazing link baiting skills.

If you think I'm going to rank for 'Rand' (who would even search for that?) then I have some handsome pills to sell you.

I shouldn't be surprised that the argument is very one-sided here. No matter what I reply it will be nit-picked apart in defense of Rand. After all, this is his website. The same thing would happen if you were to comment on mine; you would be nit-picked and 'proven' to have no idea what you're talking about.

It's a shame you read the first 10% of an article and went on this mini-rant. However, I have to thank you for allowing me to have my few seconds. It was nice to have readers for the first time in my life

P.S. Just to make you dislike me even more I'll be the bearer of bad news; Your website is down.

[jennita]

Wow, that's quite the headline! I'm not going to dive into that post itself, but I would like to make the point that people counter what Rand says all the time. It's nothing to get too shocked or worried about, it's quite commonplace. Believe me this post is quite soft on Rand.

[jennita]

I'd like to comment here that while I have no idea if Robert read the entire post or not, I can say that that does happen often on our blog. I can't tell you how often someone comments on the blog and they clearly haven't actually read the post. Drives me batty.

[jennita]

Hey Jesse, let's keep appearance out of the conversation. That shouldn't have anything to do with anything.

Thanks!

[artdivision]

"If you answer a query in the meta description and then you give the person who clicked on it exactly what they wanted, you are going to do just fine with ranking at some point and probably some point soon."

Plus one and thumbs up!

[artdivision]

Dont put me on the same line with this guy cause I mentioned I have seen examples. You can find my blog by googling my name and find posts proving bad techniques that rank on page one (with screenshots etc) for more than a month, its not that hard. Also I did not say that I CAN SHOW YOU THOUSANDS of examples of successful business rankings. I said in pure copy paste " But that does not cancel million cases where there is simply not a reason for someone to rank". I also say And yes I know google will ban them/penalise them one day, someday, so again your "long-haul" claim (which you claim, i didnt) does not put me to a different direction to what I truly believe or what most people say in this post. Thanks

In regards to branding, ofcourse black hat will never work. To me black hat is a popular practised to micro niche small web sites that makes revenue from adsense and amazon for keywords that are low competitive and the owner is lucky enough to own an EMD or do good SEO because he actually cares. But even in this case in the long-haul as you say I am pretty sure they will be beaten.

Hope you find these clarifications useful.

[AWCthreads]

Hi Jen,

I've not been receiving any email updates for responses submitted. Was that feature turned off for this post or is something amiss in my settings?

[Highland]

At the bottom of this post there's a button that says Email Updates. If there's no check in that button, you won't get any updates about your thread.

[AWCthreads]

As the poster, I should be getting emails (yes there is a check).

This is the first time I've not gotten emails on a post I generated and since the staff edited the title for clarity, I was wondering if anything else was tweaked.

[AWCthreads]

First off, thank you members for your input. Since the dust appears to be settling I want to share my thoughts since I solicited yours.

1. Why the post: Because I believe it matters. We should always be improving our filters to see through the smoke and fog. Consider the audience. People are developing their knowledge and sharpening their skills at something that is difficult to learn and lends itself to shortcuts and gaming. Here's an example this morning of a member trying to tune the quality of his filter.

2. Why the headline: To get eyes on post (see above). In my opinion Rand's credibility was attacked as well as the principles he promotes. Add Edit - it is the first time I've ever seen Rand countered, called out of touch an considered irrelevant. I thought he was a Unicorn.

3. My allegiances: I have none. I don't know VC and I don't know Rand. Aside from his freshness post, I've never read VC's work. My only brush with Rand was a Moz forum smack-down for being unkind to jennita regarding the use of H1's.

4. Regarding VC's post: It lacked focus (it tore down without building up), wreaked of anti-establishment sentiment, smacked of an-axe-to-grind and winked at gaming the system.

5. Regarding best practices: I try to use and promote them and will always lean-in to those who do the same.

Thanks again.

[EGOL]

I didn't get any updates until a few minutes ago.

[AWCthreads]

I got one a few minutes ago from a different thread.

We'll see if I get your post.

One of the staffers must have logged me out because after I logged back in is when I received the email from the other thread.

[KeriMorgret]

We didn't log anyone out. There has been a delay in email notifications systemwide, not just in this thread. We're investigating that right now.

[AWCthreads]

Okay. I thought maybe it was a system refresh.

My inbox is filling up with posts from this and other threads right now.

[KeriMorgret]

Only the title was tweaked, making it apparent that there was no physical attack.

[AWCthreads]

And that was a good call. Implemented well too.