Search engine optimization received no love from the credit card issuer's small business guide, which published some oddly contradictory advice about being found in places like Google or Yahoo.
American Express promotes a small business program called OPEN as part of its Business Gold Rewards Card program. The company also sponsors small business Meetups in several cities.
As Search Engine Watch noted, American Express published views on search engine optimization. The opinion in question comes from a PDF called OPEN Book, which AmEx calls "A practical guide for business growth," available for download from that Meetups page.
Here is the paragraph from the guide that's like to ruffle some feathers in the SEO community (spacing added):
Search engines, like Yahoo! and Google, are usually the first place people will look for you. Make it easier for them to find you. Yahoo! and Google offer tools to let them know the site map structure of your Web site.
Also, using clean U.R.L.’s like yourdomain.com/store/widgets instead of yourdomain.com/store.php?id=42&categoryID= widgets will increase your chances of getting indexed in a search engine.
Finally, don’t waste money on so-called Search Engine Optimization (S.E.O.) specialists. Search engines are very quick to penalize sites that try to trick their filtering techniques, and once your site has been put on Google’s blacklist, it will take forever to get off.
The advice appears as part of a broader story on building a web presence credited to design group Cuban Council. This is the San Francisco firm that developed the Facebook logo.
Another document also hosted on the OPEN Meetups page promotes the idea of search engine marketing. This document advocates SEO and gives advice on what to do (Use the right keywords. Beware of "Black Hat" optimizers and their tricks) and provides a brief primer on SEM.
Our advice for small business owners: be wary of companies that promote two different ideas to their customers and don't seem to know they are doing so.
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wooooow
wooooow
Interesting
WOW.
Amex Knows Best?
"I wonder what is behind this? Perhaps there was an inordinate amount of money charged back regarding seo companies."
Yamir, that's a good point.
This is also coming from a giant company with name/brand recognition long before the internet mattered. Companies like this have never had to 'work' at it.
SEO is NOT Waste
Why they said? I cut off my amex card.
I wonder what is behind
I wonder what is behind this? Perhaps there was an inordinate amount of money charged back regarding seo companies.
Great article
Great article, I just cut up my AMEX card
What
Damn... thats a pretty harsh statement.
SEO a "Waste"?
I guess one could say the same thing for AMEX as well. The power of SEO cannot be denied. How else can one take a website from obsurity to be profitable doing nothing else other than SEO?
Get with the program there AMEX
Internet Marketing Website SEO
SEO is good
To me, SEO is a way for the search engines to find your sites and filter through all of the crap that the search engine tricksters flood Google and other search engines with. You can be blinded by the truth and think that, "Hey, if we build it and follow rules, they'll come." Soon after, you'll have a rude awakening.
SEO
In my opinion, SEO is dead! You need to optimize your site for the visitors: it's called VEO or Visitor Experience Optimization. The idea is to build a website your visitors will absolutely love. Provide useful information and provide links to other sites related to yours. If you build a quality site other webmasters will link to it to enrich their own visitors' experience and your site's popularity will rise.
SEOs are not a waste
its not a waste, they are just mad that they are getting owned by SEOs
SEO - Results
The only thing about SEO that matters are the results.
What's interesting is the number of companies stating that they are the SEO "Experts." It is far easier to tell people you are an expert, than to actually deliver any meaningful results. Anyone can put up a web-site claiming to help your site gain more audience. After 6 months if nothing happens they can say, "Well.... Google changed their algorithm on us. Let's try for another 3 months and see what happens."
AMEX may have been alluding to this fact, though the way they said it could lead one to believe that all SEO is a waste of resources.
SEO of course does have a place as long as it does what it is supposed to do. The tough part is determing which company will actually make good on their promises.
http://www.mbridge.com
Someone sounds like they were banned before...
Apparently, some BlackHat seo convinced one of the big bosses at their headquarters to spend thousands of dollars on search engine "tricks and gimmicks", and probably got their site pimp slapped by Google's PHD developers' algorithm.
It sounds like it is an angry cry for help, in which case, what they really mean is: "Can someone please show us the right way to rank our sites without ripping us off, and having our sites banned and competitors snagging most of our potential profit."
To me, SEO is a way for the search engines to find your sites and filter through all of the crap that the search engine tricksters flood Google and other search engines with. You can be blinded by the truth and think that, "Hey, if we build it and follow rules, they'll come." Soon after, you'll have a rude awakening.
I understand their view about watching out for people looking to charge you money only to get your site banned, but the truth is, if you are into quality SEO it likely won't happen in the first place.
there are always...
good and bad, honest and scammers in every industry out there. Is like calling all the casino and adult webmaster spammers, just because these industries are generally associated with spam and black hat techinques.
Bollocks
What a load of bollocks.
Anyhow that statement Amex made is really uncalled for. It's more of an opinion than a fact. Opinions published in that fashion is a really daft move. What Amex said will surely draw wary attention of prospective clients for SEO's but there will be a heavier weight of the SEO community who will draw negative comments toward Amex.
Amex really shouldnt forget that dishing uncalled for or unsubstantiated comments like that can damage their online reputation - Especially when youre dealing with SEO's ; ) .
Oh well, it really seems to me the person who wrote the article has had a bad experience and developed a hatred toward SEO services.
Sorry form him
Sorry form him for he doesn't know the difference between SEO and SEO spam.
he sure doesnt people like
he sure doesnt people like that give us a bad name
Sounds Like They Had A Bad Experience
It seems odd that they would make a statment like that. It sounds like they had a bad experience with an SEO company or someone feed them a bunch of false information. They were quick to add in that black propaganda which is not really about SEO specialists to begin with ("Search engines are very quick to penalize sites..."). Besides AmEx is not an authority on the Internet or search engines.
-Sean
wow
That’s crazy because there was just an article on SEO moz that said that SEO is one of the only thriving businesses while in this recession.
SEO is deffinately not a
SEO is deffinately not a waste. It could be the difference in 50 views a day & 1000 views a day.
AMEX doublespeak
document also hosted on the OPEN Meetups page promotes the idea of search engine marketing
link please
Unethical SEOs
Although I disagree with AMEX stating that SEO isn't valuable, from personal experience I would guess that 80-90% of the SEO companies are useless or only good for a quick boost in traffic (yes, with danger of being blacklisted).
Working as a "web administrator" for a large company I had several of these companies contact me and make outrageous claims. I truly felt that I had better experiences with used car salesmen.
Yes, SEO is valuable and there are companies that do it well, but it probably is more useful for companies to focus on good content delivery before dumping 10s of thousands of dollars into the SEO bucket.
Completely Agree
Over the last year I have been getting on an average 3 calls a dayfrom SEO Cos. That is hundreds of them. Not quick to sign up. All wanted money first and results later with a guarantee. Did not sign up with any one and finally decided to do it on ly own (I am strickly not techie) but found a lot of information about seo, wrote a plan to avoid pitfalls and black hat trick.In two months now have same traffic without PPC and very high close ratio 80+% as opposed to 3%.0 Google ppc cost and lot less busy work by taking in sales to pay Google. All in all, for a small e commerce business, Google PPC is feeding tube that should be removed as soon as possible.
Proud of it
Transparency is the thing for me
Given the complexity potential attached to SEO, we need more transparency in service processes, and a straightforward accounting of what SEO professionals really know about SE algorithms, what they have come to understand on their own, what they have tried and proved, and what they think might work, etc..
Yet Another...
Yet another self-appointed expert/corporate busybody - probably a whole committee of corporate busybodies - doesn't know the difference between SEO and SEO spam.
Definitely a committee. The stupidity of one person wouldn't have sufficed.
(The snipping noise you hear involves a scissors and my American Express card.)
Sam
Top 5 Ways AMEX is Losing Money on SEO
This inspired me to do a review of their site and list the top 5 worst SEO mistakes that they are making in my blog at www.catfish.cc.
AMEX, Chargebacks and cutting into their profits
I too am an SEO specialist and am going to be certified by Yahoo and Google as such. I always tell my clients "don't take my word for it" and provide them will screen shots of their websites with page 1 and 2 rankings for their particular keywords and key phrases. Pay per click has its use but its usually the haves vs. the have nots; so that natural search positioning is not only useful be levels the playing field. Perhaps I will optimize for "American Express", "AMEX" and "credit card fraud" and achieve page 1 rankings for that without using any black hat techniques. I wonder what AMEX's clients will feel when "AMEX credit card fraud" is attached to their name on page 1 of this returned search result.
American Express and SEO
I think they are against SEO because many SEO companies just do not want to take American Express cards for payments because Amex charges to much in fees. Behind closed doors they realize how important it is, how affordable it really can be and how it can help a web site profit and do better, and hense, they are losing residual income from SEO companies not taking the American Express Card. But they pickd on the wrong industry...do they not understand that their little comments just geared us up for a wonderful social networking link exchange attached to their wonderful name:-) Whoo Hoo Amex!
Bonnie
True SEO
This is a very interesting article and I believe the skewed views comes from people still having the wrong idea of what SEO truly is and what "successful" SEO should accomplish.
I am the SEM manager here at my company and recently I've stressed to our business owners that true SEO is not all about getting 1st position in SERPs or even getting traffic. True SEO will can get you that 1st, 2nd position but to me successful SEO will get you "quality" traffic and conversions.
SEO=relevant content, which in turn =qualty traffic + conversions. This is why SEO is important. Internet users that find your content irrelevant or lacking will leave and never return. When internet users search Google, do they not read the blue (with bolded keywords) titles, the descriptions? Aren't title tags and descriptions part of SEO? Yes.
SEO is about making you content (title, description, text on pages) highly relevant. That is the start of truly successful SEO. From there, a link building campaign can start but thats a whole other topic.
AMEX's Statement on SEO
I am an SEO specialist for one of the most reputable legal research companies in the world. I'm not saying this to toot my horn, but to make a point.
One of the many services we offer is SEO for our clients. We use only the best practices of the SEM/SEO industry, and don't engage in "black hat" techniques.
However, in the minds of some, SEO equals illegal or at best unethical "tricks" to try to get search engine rankings. I think what AMEX s is referring to. AMEX, like most uninformed companies commenting on SEO, has really no clue what true SEO work entails.
Unfortunately, the public will see this as an affront against an emerging industry that is, in the best traditions, quite scientific in nature. It's unfortunate and upsetting to me, as an SEO consultant, to hear such damaging and potentially libelous statements about one of the most service-oriented and necessary industries to come along in a long time.
...and we won't even talk about how AMEX and other credit card companies practice a modern form of usury - a practice, which by the way, is illegal unethical, ruinous; and, according to American religious and cultural tradition, immoral.
Looks to me like the proverbial pot is calling the kettle black?
Eric Bryant, CEO
Gnosis Arts Multimedia COmmunications
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