Google's Patrick Keane Afraid of Search Engine Optimizers
I admit, sometimes I'll post something controversial on here. If it's about Google, you can bet that they are are on the phone to me to discuss their position and make sure that I am "educated". I have no problem at all with that. I like to think I, and our company, have a great relationship with Google.

However, don't you think the process should be a two-way thing? Let me get to my point...

Google's head of sales advertising, Patrick Keane, just finished a presentation here at AD:TECH. The usual stuff, with Google keeping to it's "quite period" by having some of its AdWords customers do the talking. However, Patrick Keane was asked about whether SEO companies can really help a company to get better positioning on Google and the search engines [tick...tick]. Waiting for Patrick's response, I felt confident that, despite my reservations about SEMPO, they had at least been able to educate the key figures at Google. A positive response about SEO was surely about to leave Patrick's "SEC regulated" lips. [tick...tick...tick...]

Oh, how I wish it had. [tick....] Patrick basically replied that there is no way to improve your rankings on Google and that any claims by a SEO company were false. [tick...tick] He suggested that a few simple "design changes" were all that could be done and that a SEO firm wasn't needed. [tick....BOOM!!!!]

Uh, hello? Isn't Google sponsoring SES in San Jose next month...the same SES that has dozens and dozens of sessions on SEO and how to improve your ranking. Are the 1300+ clients that WebSourced assists, and the many thousands more using other SEO companies, simply imagining the great results they are getting on Google, Yahoo and other search engines? If it were not for us SEO's there would be no hype about Google's IPO right now. Granted, paid search is the revenue generating aspect of search, but who do you think created the whole search engine buzz in the first place? Us SEO's that's who! And many of us are also commanding the paid search budgets of some of the world's largest companies.

Search engine optimization is real...it works...it can help you get to the top of Google. There may be some bad apples, who make totally ridiculous promises, but you get that with any industry. Please, please, someone, anyone at Google, take Mr. Keane aside and quietly remind him that search is not just about paid search and agencies. SEO may be the "red-headed step-child" as far as Google is concerned, but we are still family and deserve the respect!
Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |