There has been a fair amount of debate on what constitutes advanced SEO in the Search Marketing Blog'o'sphere mainly coming from a couple of comments reactions to SMX Advanced. For those of you who haven't heard of this event which is organised by Danny Sullivian and was a conference with all the normal faces saying, from what I can gather, all the normal things. From a couple of people who did attend (I did not so this is hearsay) the most advanced thing there were the Vending Machines.
It is no secret I have become deeply disillusioned with the search marketing bloggers recently, and tend not to pay attention to them as a whole. Then Quadzilla wandered in with the excellent Link Bait all advanced SEO is blackhat!
I don't believe in hats
I have the concept of lines in the sand, my line is somewhere beyond the Google Guidelines but even further away from a jail cell. So for me advanced SEO can't be blackhat as blackhat doesn't exist in my world. But this leaves a bigger question is there anything that is "Advanced SEO"?
Advanced SEO?
I want to reach a consensus of what Advanced is, so here is a list of our day to day techniques and activities, which is advanced if any?
- No Follow for page sculpting
- SERP Hijacking
- htaccess redirects
- REP
- Regex
- IP Content Delivery
- Link Mapping
- Link Analysis - Link Worth
- Crawl Spiders
They are some of the activities we do on a day to day basis, we build crawl spiders, develop IP content delivery systems and Map link data layers. Ok, maybe its the skills and knowledge needed that is advanced perhaps these could be where the "Advanced SEO" is?
- Programming - PHP, Python, C++
- Database programming
- Unix system programming
- Statistics gathering and analysis
- Discrete mathematics
- Numerical Analysis
Ok that some of the skills and knowledge we use but perhaps the "Advanced SEO" is the assumed knowledge, maybe it's the experience that makes a person an Advanced SEO?
I want to leave you with a question...
Does something exist if your not doing it?
Is the reason that some question the existence of different levels and skills required in SEO because they themselves have never achieved them. It's something to think about, how I help my clients is by bringing them the best information I can, through techniques that I think most people simply do not do but are they advanced? I don't think so but I wouldn't after all I do them everyday!
Two things, I think what you do on a daily basis would definitely be considered advanced SEO and I also think that the tactics you perform are done by a small minority in our industry. With that said and based off of the coverage of SMX Advanced, I wouldn’t categorically consider the material presented to be advanced. I’m unsure if SMX has had an advanced conference before but in my mind SMX is still rather new and I do believe they are trying to collect the best speakers they can for their conferences. There’s a small percentage of people who really really know their stuff, soup to nuts, head to toe. I would imagine that finding quality speakers is something of an ongoing challenge but I do believe that SMX does their best to achieve this goal.
Certainly this post wasn’t meant to be a “I should have been at SMX Advanced” post and I really hope it doesn’t come across as such and just to be open and up front I have never been asked by the guys at SMX to speak nor do I expect to
But everyone from Quadzilla through to Hobo have been questioning if Advanced SEO exists I guess what I’m saying is this is what I do is it advanced? Certainly at times its complex and requires assumed knowledge based on my very technical background but do those factors make it advanced?
Of course as a blatant plug I am available for conferences and private classes, I really do need to update my courses and training page
I would look on it that there are
1. Advanced SEOs based upon technical knowledge
2. Advanced SEOs based upon application of SEO strategies
3. Advanced SEOs based on the ability to conceptualize new strategies.
Advanced SEO to me is having the propensity to engage the algorithm on the level of the engineers, while having the simplicity to understand the emotional stimulus of the laymen (who are the ones actually conducting the searches).
All that falls in between is knowledge, experience and tactics which are subjectively based until proven by methods or heuristic conclusions.
The take away here is, is it effective and does it provide a competitive edge? or is is just more talk and theory.
You are well beyond where many SEO’s will ever be. Personally, aside from you, I don’t know many capable of creating their own search engine (just to test unique arrays of boolean data) to provide insight to how other search engines interpret data. Information architecture is a much larger part of the infrastructure than just on page or off page technique, what you are on to is the rails that most of the trains run on in this industry. Hats off Professor! You have my vote.
Let Tim speak! Let Tim speak!
Tim is so far advanced, he even knew that tonight’s episode of “The Big Bang Theory” in the UK included the reference to Schrodinger’s Cat and included it in today’s post!
Astounding!
That is getting into predictive SEO which is another advanced topic.
i think you’re way advanced in your knowledge. and in your case, i prefer listening to you and the likes of michael martinez than the top SEO bloggers, which makes you an advanced SEO. that’s in my books. and my book is small. sorry tim.
that being said, i think quality of content is more important than how advanced your SEO skills are. oh boy. i’m creating a catch 22 situation here. a vicious circle.
well, lemme put it this way, simpli…
you know what? even a fool when he keeps quiet, is considered wise. somewhere in proverbs.
i’ll keep quiet for now.
Don’t be sorry all opinions wanted
actually you bring up an interesting question is “Advanced” just different by that I mean are the people who simply talk about different aspects of the subject the ones that appear to be advanced because they are talking about an unknown subject to the majority.
Or another potential theory is Advanced simply a state of mind have the likes of myself and Michael simply triggered in the language we use a belief we discuss things which are advanced because ultimately it sounds good?
food for thought, my random rant has gone from quantum via metaphysical and now is getting philosophical
Take it one stage further
The advanced SEOs might be writing newbie tutorials because they know they will get more links that way, and no one is going to pull them up on it if they make a mistake, because if a site gets tons of links, they are also a good link and traffic source.
This thus perpetuates a vicious circle of crap SEO articles, and a downward spiral in the value people place on more advanced SEO articles.
Or taking it the other way, the “Advanced SEOs” have all taken Brent Csutoras words of advice on board and simply don’t talk about the “advanced stuff” to prevent it descending into downward spiral.
I do vaguely remember a Blogger and Niche Marketer who I deeply respect saying he doesn’t do Beginners Guides preferring to leave them to the “experts” a sentiment that I whole heartedly agree with, but perhaps some of the experts are indeed the hidden “advanced SEOs” after all!
Interesting post, Tim, I liked it a lot! To me, advanced SEO is the ability to create new marketing strategies to better promote your website without getting banned.
I’m with you and Eric Lander about not needing hats. I think it is about time we all step down from the pedestal and get back to work.
you lost me at ‘all’ in your reply. i’m a simpleton. i had lunch with one of my best buds this afternoon, and it came up that i have a job because people forget simplicity. because people get too technical.
so, what i guess i’m saying is, please, rand, danny, whomever else, talk. people listen, build bad sites (not because of bad advice per se, but because a thing said is often taken WAY out of context [think XHTML vs HTML]), and i come along and tell them why it’s bad. that’s my job. and i love it.
i’m reading a book by mr alexander elder, and in it he mentions a conversation he had with a guy who was eventually caught out and is now sharing a room with bubba. but this guy’s modus operandi was to confuse people at his seminars, so that it would make him look like he knew something they didn’t. needless to say the farce didn’t last long.
i think the absolute golden key to SEO (and thus far it’s worked for me), is common sense and simplicity, coupled with good old elbow grease. and don’t be afraid to link to a resouce if it’s good. and don’t nofollow all your flipping links.
flip man i’m getting worked up here.
hurray gonzo!!! i’m with you. all the noise keeps one from working! get it out of your system! don’t listen to everyone who has something to say. choose widely whom you follow.
There is nothing advanced in your list of daily activities.
Quadzilla’s opinion of what constitutes advanced SEO isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.
Quadzilla’s opinion is worth exactly the same as yours until someone brings evidence to support either view. I could have just written a title called “I am an advanced SEO” opened the first paragraph with the math related to the Markov chain for determining entry points of giddy are search crawler when doing a domain search from the domains own inbound links and let my ego inflate.
I didn’t do that because I genuinely wanted to challenge the question is there advanced SEO I don’t think what 90% of the work I do is even touching the realm of SEO at least not the way search marketers see it but that is almost another post but not for this blog.
The question stands if my daily list is not advanced and I don’t think it is, what is in your opinions (though reasons might make them more valid) “advanced SEO”?
Us SEO types all forget one thing: our customers evaluate us on results. What makes you advanced is the results you get, not the techniquest you employ. At the end of the day, we all succeed or fail at the fiat of Yahoo, MSN and Google anyhow. Don’t get too caught up in trying to know the most or be smarter than the others… simply outperform, charge a fair price, and have happy customers because you get results.
— Mike
probably the most advanced advice i’ve heard in a long while. excellent point!
I don’t think trying to optimize using advanced SEO techniques without quality compelling content will work.
Thanks for sharing.
Nice way of putting things, makes me understand how it works much easier. Thanks.
Certainly advanced SEO exists. If you’re able to achieve results in a highly competitive niche (poker, viagra, online dating…) then you must be an advanced SEO. If you’re using techniques that will cause your bridges to burn when they’re discovered, then you’re a “black hat” SEO.
However I would posit that the vast amount of SEO work is not advanced or black hat. Like most industries the day to day is largely just plugging away at the basics.
Interesting post, its something that I have thought about on multiple occasions how do you determine who is really good at SEO. All we really hear about are those names that are in the limelight, those that choose to present themselves to the world. i would assume that there are many Search Engineers that just go about there business behind the scenes. Enjoyed the read Tim, thanks have an abSEOllutely ExSEOllent 2008
I’m fairly new to this SEO stuff but this website makes the most sense of the mani I have read. I’m not sure what advanced SEO is but certainly what I’m looking for is new approaches that achieve great resukts quickly and are perhaps ahead of what the people sitting in ‘Google Towers’ etc haven’t thought about yet and haven’t considered trying to prevent.
Great writing, cheers, always learing…
Steve
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