The class action noise about Google and the company who's rankings have dropped is a pure waste in my opinion. Google has no legal obligation to treat sites in any particular manner as far as I know. No one pays Google to be included, so is there really an obligation by Google to explain legally? Granted, it would be unfortunate to have one's site removed from Google, particularly since Google can mean the difference between being in or out of business. But a lawsuit? My It is a bit amusing for someone to call SEO, which is currently a $1 billion industry a "cottage" industry. There was $5 billion spent on SEO/SEM/PI overall in 2005, according to SEMPO. That's a lot of cottages! I know there are many folks calling themselves SEOs still practicing "dirty tricks". Journalists are prone to focus on the negative because it gets more readers and the continued use of these tactics give them the opportunity to make sweeping generalizations. Not all journalists are like this of course and there are a good number of articles that are balanaced. It's just the negative ones that get the most attention. Not all SEOs use dirty tricks either, in fact I'm pretty confident they're a small minority. I'm not talking about black hat tactics either. I mean short term, greedy, newbie SEO, stupid tactics. Well, maybe some of it is black hat. The funny thing is, Or how about this one: "With the stakes so high, little known companies are constantly trying to improve their reputation and credibility in the industry, and an entire cottage industry has formed surrounding public relations. Some companies resort to pitching journalists, hoping the contributed articles and interviews will fool consumers into believing the company is an expert in their industry." I'd do another on web design, interactive marketing, email marketing, etc, but you get the idea. The point is, this less than positive reference to SEO is trite and un-founded at best. You can chalk it up there along with the other paranoid articles about SEO focusing on overt manipulation rather than the value that is added by SEO firms from usability enhancements, keyword targeting, technical and content optimization, conversion and analytics reporting. The list goes on and on. [/end rant] h/t to comments thread on this topic over at Threadwatch. Lee Odden is President and Founder of Online Marketing Blog offering daily news, interviews and best practices.
Rant on Class Action Suit Against Google
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