SEO SUCKS At SES San

Day 2 at SES I thought I would spice it up a bit and wear my "Seo Sucks" t-shirt as a bit of a social experiment to see what kind of reaction it would get. Being at the largest and most respected SEO gathering/conference I was curious to the reaction. Every female who stopped me and asked about the shirt had a very positive reaction. They all thought it was pretty funny. Most asked me what booth was handing them out.... lol... On the Males it was a very mixed reaction. I got a lot of double takes and weird looks. Most of the people who know me just wrote me off for the dipshit that I am and knew what I was doing but those that did not were willing to take me to task and have a interesting conversation about SEO and its future. I do not think they were ready to be shown the light ;). I would say about 50-60 different people stopped me to ask me why I had a shirt that said "Seo Sucks". I razzed a few of them and said that I hated SEO and all SEO people just to get their reaction. Then I pretty much said the same thing to most - "No seriously are you telling me SEO has never sucked for you? Its kind of like having pocket aces in poker. For a very very short time you have the nuts (best hand possible) but as soon as the flop comes there is a good chance that goes a way." Anyway I really feel like with about anything that SEO does suck. Just consider this. 1 - It makes you stop trying to innovate. When people suddenly rank #1 for their keywords a lot of times they stop working on new things and settle. 2 - Its hard work. Its no joke SEO is hard work and its rules are constantly changing.. which means what you are doing today might not be acceptable tomorrow. While I feel there is no distant future of seo there is defiantly a ton more evolution. There are several other reasons why i feel SEO sucks at times but right now I am craving a omlette. Anyway the results might have been a little skewed being I was with some of the the oldest, most respected SEO people in the industry throughout the day. So what was their take? I think all were pretty much stunned at the people who came up to me and were offended. Some even looked at them and said "Do you make money for your clients or not? The proof is in the pudding." So probably the most interesting response I got was when one guy came up to me and said "I am with you brother fuck those spammers". Which was really funny because I was standing right next to David Naylor, Todd Friesen, Matt Cutts, and Greg Boser at the time. Geez I was going to write about the Google Dance last night too but I will save that for another post ;) Here are some day 2 Seo Sucks pictures: With SEO legends David Naylor and Todd Friesen Social Media and PR Master Chris Winfield SEO Lee Odin