Search
Engine Optimization, Submission
and Technologies Organization
SeoPros.org is an
organization of search engines, search engine optimization
consultants, internet marketers, and developers of remote
technology used by consultants and marketers to submit sites to search engines and
monitor their positions.
The organization was
founded by Terry Van Horne (aka Webmaster T) in April, 2001. Terry
has been an advocate of "best practices" since long before the creation
of the organization. His "Spamdexers Hall of Shame" was added to his
site, Webmaster T's World of Design, in 1996.
T quickly realized
that his efforts in identifying chronic and systematic abusers was
hindered by his image as a "Lone Ranger" with little or no
support from the industry. Before moving online, Terry was a direct
marketer, primarily in the telemarketing field. He saw that the SEO
industry was slowly becoming the "telemarketers of the net".
He believes the
reason for this is that a small element, just like in telemarketing,
carry on fraudulent and misleading business practices.
Telemarketers have an association which provide a means for
consumers to seek help in these matters. At the very least, the
public sees that the industry is aware of the "bad elements" within it and is trying to do something
about it.
Terry is also an
advocate of responsible use of remote technologies. Terry was a
successful reseller for one of the leading products used by SEOs
to monitor positions. When a new version came out, he saw the
potential for abuse and made his concerns known to the company and
its developers.
He saw the new
features as being exploitive of SE resources and tried in vain to
get them to change or at least put more controls into the
software. They didn't see it that way. T chose his only alternative,
which was to drop the product, though the company would say he was
removed from the program for the tone of the email exchanged
between them.
Terry believes that
if the industry doesn't get this under control, it will
be cut off from some of the marketing data which is key to a
search engine marketing campaign.
Google already has
blocked IP addresses from access to its search for these sorts of
activities. Terry believes this is just the beginning. He has
incorporated the responsible use of remote technologies into the
mandate of SeoPros.org for precisely these
reasons. That is also why developers of remote technologies have
been included in the organization.
A more structured
and orderly means of retrieving this data is needed. The current
willy-nilly approach is not sustainable, because it isn't
efficient and SEs bear the brunt of costs for supporting another
organization's software. Google has made this
abundantly clear in their terms of service and by their blocking of abusers
from the site.
Currently, the
developers of these products have shown no interest in either adding
controls that would enable their users to run the software responsibly, or supporting
the costs of providing the data. Both are doable, but at a price,
a cost they don't wish to pay. When one of their users is blocked, they just add a new
victim to the list of those who suffer for exploiting SE resources, whether they knew
they were doing it or not.
These software
developers have also propagated many SEO myths in their quest for
increased sales. They know that many of these techniques are contrary
to SE content guidelines. If they don't, they should! The doorway
strategies promoted by one are especially destructive, clogging
the indexing queues with millions of useless pages.
Terry doesn't see
the use of the product as being bad. Using non-compliant features and techniques the software touts are.
Marketing data (ranking reports) is needed, but one should not be abusive
with the number of keyword terms and frequency and times when the software is
used.
Terry has given a
great deal of thought to this and does have a plan of action. It
is the shared resource mentioned in the organization's mandate
under remote technology.
Article edited by Bob Gladstein,
SeoPros Webmaster
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