Recently i have noticed a sudden jump in the number of people who call themselves SEO experts. Probe a little more then it comes out that most of these so called SEO 'experts' learned their stuff from articles, book and forums. Agreed, these resources help one to acquire the basic knowledge in optimization, but to claim to be 'experts' without having any kind of applied knowledge, dont you think its preposterous?
Yeah, ive seen aload of people setup seo blogs etc, when they dont actually know what there talking about I read articles etc, i understand seo and know how to do what i need to do, but i wouldnt call myself an expert
Well said Tez, like you we know our way round but to don the title expert, that accolade is usually saved for use by the 'know alls' who in fact 'know f**k all'
One tendency i have noticed in these "SEOs" is to draw conclusions from forum postings! Yes, its true that forum discussions provide you valuable insights into whats going on in the industry, but to actually draw conclusions from such discussions shows absence of practical knowledge and lack of depth in understanding SEO processes. One story i would like to recount is about such an SEO who was arguing with me over a certain topic. And to 'clinch' the debate he referred to a post made by a forum junkie in a SEO forum. It was ok that far...only that the post he was referring to was made by me in another name! LOL... such is the state of affairs !!
Almost equally disturbing to me, is a "professional" who has a program but knows nothing beyond what that one piece of software tells them; relying on a single source of information is quite unprofessional IMO.
Would that mean that although I know SFA about dogs, I can't have a blog about my favourite pet? Owning a blog about topic X has neverm eant per se that the owner claims to be an expert. They can just have a solid interest in that subject they want to channel their energy to and focus on. Results is all that matters in the end.
>>Results is all that matters in the end. Very true. >>Would that mean that although I know SFA about dogs, I can't have a blog about my favourite pet? Of course, you can. But then you would not be tomtoming youself as an 'expert' , would you ?
I agree with this statement. By creating blogs they are just showing their interest and they are sharing the things which they know.. This is a useful thing for most of other newbie webmasters. Edit: But at same time, they can't call them as an expert.
No. Being an expert implies consistency and a status of authority: http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=define:expert But I guess on such an accessible niche topic as SEO, it's easy to have a lot of experts, unlike applied econometrics for instance. Compared to someone who has never heard of SEO, 80% of DP members are probably SEO Experts. It depends what you compare it with and what standards you set. You can also argue no one can be an expert in a field where the playground changes every few months. That's the thing I was saying, those bloggers don't claim that. At least not in the proprtion terryuk implies with this sentence: With that sentence, he made it sound like you pretend to be an expert of topic X if you start a blog on topic X.
>>No. Being an expert implies consistency and a status of authority: Exactly. >>But I guess on such an accessible niche topic as SEO, it's easy to have a lot of experts True. But then 'expertise' any field is gained through applied knowledge IMO. Not just by reading some hundreds of articles in that topic..
Very true! Also: ... no one truly knows the SE algos ... the algos change almost daily ... few people stay with a particular "theory" long enough to form real tangible results and rarely test them across broad spectrums for a more accurate picture
@ Topicalone 1. You should start using proper quoting so we know who you are quoting 2. The dicionary definition of an expert seems to base it solely on acquired knowledge. So a purely academicaly experienced person without real life experience could be an expert. I disagree with that, like you I think you need to have shown you can pull it off in the real world. Expertise, Expert and Experience all stem from the same word so they must be related. EDIT we need an expert on the subject of expertise to tell us from experience what an expert is
SEO = Lawyer to the search engines.. None of us are degreed professionals in SEO, as there are no accredited colleges teaching a course on the subject. 20 years from now you may need an BA MS or MBA to earn the title SEO JD lol Sign me Not an expert
Degrees are definitely not a requirement to be an expert in any field IMO. Actually, not just IMO, it's a fact. All great inventors were experts at what they did and not many of them had a related degree.
Exactly the points you have raised above are protected by copyright TM etc etc so the algos are highly unlikely to be released into the public domain, and even if an algo was leaked, the algo would be replaced by a new algo, just as soon as the leaked algo was noticed. Then the above points that you have raised would be back to 'status quo'