1. Agree with the above, certainly made for a great show.

Posted at 8:02PM on Jun 21st 2007 by sean percival

2. Hmm, lots of huge chips on people's shoulders, and whilst I often clash with Jason on a number of issues, as I think is mutually agreed, we both do it in a professional manner.

"Crap-Hat SEO extordinaire" - wow, what an impressive, and descriptive (though inaccurate) title.

I could also be looked on as the strongest advocate of clear disclosure in the affiliate community, being one of the only bloggers who is even aware of CAN-SPAM and how most bloggers potentially break it, depending on interpretation.

Maybe it is that I am a critic of nofollow on blog comments that have been approved by a blog owner, and add to the conversation? Both Jason and me actually seem to agree on that.

Sean, you could remove nofollow from your comments, and at the same time stick nofollow on the junk links created by the Sociable plugin you use that leaks Google juice to useless forms on various social media sites. If that is too technical, I provide an already modified version of the plugin on my blog, along with a Stumbleupon fix and support for TwitThis.
http://andybeard.eu/wordpress-plugin-hacks

I am sure there are lots of other useless "Crap-Hat SEO" tips I could offer you.

Posted at 9:16PM on Jun 21st 2007 by Andy Beard

3. Jason, the enclosure URL does not work (audio RSS feed)

Posted at 2:02AM on Jun 22nd 2007 by Panayotis Vryonis

4. Great podcast! Very entertaining, so great job everyone...

Having said that, I do have a concern. I don't know any of the SEO guys featured here personally, so I have no idea if they're involved in the trend of pushing medicines onto people inappropriately (which many SEO people seem to be). So, I'm not meaning to suggest that these guys *are* doing this. However, *if* they are, I wouldn't agree with Jason that they're so much fun that I'd want to sit down and have a beer with them.

At they very *best*, such individuals are ripping people off by selling them fake drugs that don't work and just "do nothing". However, at *worst*, depending on what they're selling, they could cause people serious harm, including killing them.

There are good reasons why the pharmaceutical industry is government-regulated e.g. if quality of production is not controlled, people can die from taking medicines that should be safe. And there are good reasons why many drugs should be prescribed by a doctor that understands a patient's medical histroy and can give them a health check e.g. adverse side-effects can include death.

This is simply not an area any reasonable human being would want to be involved with; it doesn't get a whole lot worse than killing people for money...

Posted at 6:29AM on Jun 22nd 2007 by Simon Brocklehurst

5. Simon, don't be so prejudiced. You admit that you don't know anything about the people mentioned (and if you haven't heard of Gray you clearly know nothing about SEO or the people who work in it).

Sounds to me like you just have a chip on your shoulder and you're attack people regardless. How about you actually do some research on SEO first, by going over to SEOmoz, Cre8site, Search Engine Land and so on, before attacking something you know nothing about.

Nice interview J. Oh, and Andy? Your site is down atm. Might want to get that sorted :p

Posted at 9:53AM on Jun 22nd 2007 by Pete Wailes

6. Peter, why so defensive? Did you read what I wrote? There is no prejudice there that I can see. I specifically avoided making any allegations about, or attacking the people involved in the podcast.

You're right, though: perhaps I don't understand SEO properly in the context that you're talking about it. It would help my understanding if you could make your position clear. Answering the following will go a long way to doing that. Do you think it's acceptable to use SEO methods to sell a drug like Viagra on-line? If so, why? If not, why not?

Thanks in advance for your response.

Posted at 10:36AM on Jun 22nd 2007 by Simon Brocklehurst

7. Yes and no. Yes, if you're making it appear for the terms viagra/sexual impotency etc... No if you're making appear for anything that's not related. If it fits, it's fine.

It's like guns - there's nothing wrong with them, just what people do with them. SEO can be great - people like myself help keep the web clean and tidy and make sure that you can find what you want as fast as possible. On the other hand, there's people who'll take that knowledge and do not so ethical things with it.

In my experience, you know if what you're making something rank for is good or not.

Posted at 11:24AM on Jun 22nd 2007 by Pete Wailes

8. The only complaint I have about your podcasts is you don't do them enough! Keep up the great work... I really look forward to watching/listening to em'

Posted at 1:20PM on Jun 22nd 2007 by Dramatic Prairie Dog

9. Panayoti,

I spoke w/ Tyler re the RSS feed, it's getting looked at. It has something to do with the fact that the file has moved servers and blogsmith won't let him put a absolute URL in the file path field.

Andrew

Posted at 1:21PM on Jun 22nd 2007 by Andrew Wallwork

10. Thank you for this Pete. That was helpful. For what it's worth, by the way, the answer wasn't a good one (it totally missed the point - buying Viagra on-line without being prescribed it by a doctor is a bad idea); and it illustrates a key issue with SEO. The truth is - quality of information matters in search results.

Now, in the example I chose, getting the right information could be the difference between life and death; and SEO'ed results are masking out that good information. In general, of course, it's not as extreme as that; but I can't see how deliberately subverting search engine results so that low-quality information comes above high-quality information can *ever* be a good thing for consumers.

In the podcast, starting at around 6 minutes 30, I think it's Michael Gray that says that when someone searches for "Buy Viagra", the SEOs are doing a fine job because the consumer is actually getting what they want. He's mistaken. I suspect that almost no-one that wants to take some Viagra also wants to die as a result... just because they were given bad information from an SEO'ed Google search.

The top search result for "Buy Viagra" on any search engine should probably be good quality information about how to buy Viagra *safely*. It's clear that Google isn't doing a good job here - which is an opportunity for other search engines like Mahalo.

However, the SEO community cannot absolve themselves from responsibility here. It's not good enough to say, "We're just exploiting some characteristics of Google." It seems that the SEO people involved in optimizing Viagra searches cared only about taking the money. They did not seem to mind working with disreputable companies; or seem to care about the potential consequences of their actions, even if those consequences are that someone dies.

Posted at 1:36PM on Jun 22nd 2007 by Simon Brocklehurst

11. Wow, I can't believe you invited these guys on! I had always agreed with your assessment that they were slime. Andy Beard? Really? Crap-Hat SEO extordinaire. Amazing - keep your friends close and your enemies...

Posted at 2:51PM on Jun 22nd 2007 by David Millsaps

12. David Millsaps, I have to disagree with you--some of the best shows (tv, radio, podcasts) feature people who strongly disagree with each other. I totally applaud Jason for bringing on some of his toughest critics.

After all, would you really listen to or download a podcast that featured people who agreed with each other and just talked about boring stuff? Probably not.

Posted at 3:50PM on Jun 22nd 2007 by Bill Hartzer

13. it was an interesting conversation - I would have been interested to hear more about the SEOs opinion on the traffic the site will get from google, yahoo, msn.

Posted at 7:51AM on Jun 25th 2007 by Wholesale Tycoon

14. Hi Jason
The audio podcast feed is still broken. Will the live (no30) be released as a Podcast?
Best
Stephen

Posted at 2:42PM on Jul 1st 2007 by Irelandshope

15. Solemn article. It make me lost in thoughts.

Posted at 6:13AM on Sep 17th 2007 by Draven

16. May be due to their dislike.

Posted at 6:14AM on Sep 17th 2007 by Nathan