This post has been a long time coming but today I am finally mad enough to write it. Today I woke to another SEO email in my inbox-
“Hello,
I am really satisfied with your blog content, your posts are really good and you are keeping it well. I would like to publish my post on your blog (as guest post) with my website link……”
It is a common tactic for SEOers (Search Engine Optimization) to try and do guest posts on other people’s blogs. When they do a guest post they will link to their or their employers websites. The reason they do this is because your website or blog will have high quality content and be ranked higher by Google because of that. By association, through the link, they get a little bit of your ‘ranking juice’ and improve their chances of getting ranked higher in search results by Google.
This was clearly a very poor attempt at trying to get a guest post. I am guessing English is not this persons first language e.g. no native speaker would ever start with, “I am really satisfied with your blog content”. However, there are better SEOers out there. A few weeks ago I was contacted by an “amateur archaeologists” wanting to try out blogging and was wondering if he could guest post on my blog. I had a feeling it was SEO but I asked him to send me a post and that confirmed it. It was a horrible post, I say horrible in the sense that it had a lot of words but said very little, typical SEO. For example it had phrases like, “archaeologists use trowels to dig” and that was about the depth of the post. It had a grand total of two links one to Wikipedia and one to a JCB company who had hired the SEO. His goal was to get the JCB company ranked higher in Google by using my blog.
The Internet is now flooded with this fluff work trying to vie for higher search engine rankings. You might be thinking that archaeology is such a low profit activity that it would not be swept up in this problem of trying to rank websites but alas we are not immune. I did a quick search for the phrase “how to write an archaeology cv” in Google with personalized results turned off. I was happy I came in first but number two was SEO crap. It was ranked higher than Chiz’s excellent post on an Archaeologists CV. It was higher than Bill’s book on how to write an Archaeology CV. Of course I am not going to link to this webpage because that would only help them out.
However, I will share some gems from it.
- About the author- “…is a technical writing professor specializing in medical writing localization and food writing.” So not an archaeologists and probably has never been one.
- It has some blindingly obvious statements that aren’t very helpful, “An archaeologist’s curriculum vitae might include digs he has worked on.”
- It is chalked full of bad advice. Here is the advice it gives about applying for academic jobs in archaeology, “…you should arrange your CV to place your field experience prominently, such as on the first page directly after your education section. This arrangement shows the professor in charge of the search committee that you have the qualifications they are looking for.” If you are applying for an Academic position publications would be the most prominent, not field experience.
It is not just that SEO is flooding the internet with fluff, it is that they are flooding it with bad advice, misinformation, and crap. If a student was to follow the advice on that webpage they would have a hell of a time getting a job in archaeology.
Moreover, SEO pushes good content onto the second, third, 10th page of google results, which means no one reads it. I did a search of Stonehenge and the first two results were English Heritage and Wikipedia but after that it was tour companies. Which is fair enough as I am sure many people Googling Stonehenge are looking to visit it. However, if you were looking to find out more about Stonehenge you are stuck with Wikipedia, which is not a bad thing as the Wiki article is excellent. That does mean that because of SEO mega sites, like Wikipedia, dominate searches and websites run by archaeologists almost are never discovered through search engines. Which means archaeologists should be paying more attention to Wikipedia and how to get involved in it.
I also think we should start to have a serious discussion about how people find out information about archaeology. In a world were ‘just google it’ is fast becoming the main method of finding facts and information quickly we are getting swamped with SEO crap that is taking over the internet. We are quickly loosing the ability to communicate with the public through the Internet.
Doug's Archaeology 
Andy Ocock
March 19, 2014
This will be a auto email that has been sent to lots and lots of blog owners i expect.
Blogging for links (even though Mr Cutts said it was dead recently) is still something 1000’s of SEO agencies do everyday for 10,000’s of clients, they do it becuase links still work.
They maybe building small time bombs in link profiles but enough people still don’t care where they get their links from.
Had the email you recieved said something like:
“i’m really interested in connecting with your followers and i have an interesting idea for a blogging concept that i’d like to discuss with you”
This would’ve been worth following up.
There has been a knock on effect to the “death of guest blogging” that has meant that real owners of real blogs with a genuine interest in connecting with other people, have suddenly found it difficult to get hold of decent content.
I see blogs everyday being devalued by Google and for every one that vanishes, 5 new ones popup the next day. Each of them looko real, but in reality that only exist to create back links.
Seo isn’t killing the internet, bad SEO is killing the internet.
Bad SEO tends to be done by people looking for a quick win and the web is full of them.
One of Hummingbirds aims is to better understand the different between good and bad content, so throughout 2014 you should see good content being more regularly displayed on page one.
Great post Doug!
Cheers,
Andy
Doug Rocks-Macqueen
March 19, 2014
“Seo isn’t killing the internet, bad SEO is killing the internet.”
I like that statement.
I am going to have to disagree slightly with your statement- ”
Had the email you recieved said something like:
“i’m really interested in connecting with your followers and i have an interesting idea for a blogging concept that i’d like to discuss with you”
This would’ve been worth following up.”
In my experience, unless the person is an archaeologists chances are all they are going to do is give me some fluff piece. SEOs just don’t have the depth to provide interesting content in subjects they know nothing about. Yes, basic posts but really not what I am looking for.
These Bones Of Mine
March 19, 2014
Great post, I have, in my naive days, ran a fluff SEO piece in the guest blog series, but no more! Well done for highlighting something like this and fully agree about the effects of it pushing the arch bloggers further down the chain.
Doug Rocks-Macqueen
March 19, 2014
When was that? I love your guest blog series. I don’t remember any fluff.
These Bones Of Mine
March 20, 2014
It was about the medical record update (international recording standards I think), it seemed legit at the time but I think the writer was just doing SEO stuff. Still I managed to add my twist on it!
Thank you! I really hope it gives a range of different voices in archaeology and related fields. Also started doing more interviews as I think they can be pretty interesting.
SuccinctBill (@SuccinctBill)
March 19, 2014
Damn, Doug. There goes my chance to guest blog for you.
Seriously, SEO will always be out there for a number of reasons. It is a great way to divert the herd to a place where a small percentage of them will buy a product. The bad thing is: it also diverts people that are really looking for information.
I’ve always been of the mindset that the people I want to connect with can recognize disinformation. They can also see when a blogger had no idea what they’re talking about. Hopefully, they can also tell when a blogger knows their topic.
As for the bloggers that accept those whack, SEO troll articles: Garbage in, garbage out. Your blog will be worse off by accepting an article from a SEO writer. We can tell. A 500-word link buffet on a blog that typically posts 1000-2000 word articles… That’s a huge sign of laziness.
There’s nothing wrong with a single backlink in an author’s bio, but cramming the text with link bait is bad blogging (Except for certain instances. Ultimate lists for example). I don’t think guest blogging is dead, but a guest blogger should always include the text of their guest post in the email. The blog owner can accept or deny your request. They can also remove all the links and make your effort for naught.
Doug Rocks-Macqueen
March 19, 2014
lol, you should have got in sooner.
I should clarify, I am a huge fan of the guest post. I have seen many excellent one off posts. And yes, they should get a backlink. Heck it is just common sense to include a link to a website or profile (academia, LinkedIn, etc) so that people can follow their work.
What I dislike is form emails, they did not even use my name. What I am also against is a lack of honesty. All requests for guest blogging I have received to date are not very honest about what they want. If you were to say, “hey Doug, I want to boost the viewership on my blog and was wondering if I could do a guest post on your blog”. I would say sure, as long as it is quality (again, no SEO post has been quality to date) and we are honest with my readers e.g. hey everyone this is Bill he is looking for more viewers, you should check out his work at …. .
Katy
March 19, 2014
Hi Doug, have you read Mike Pitts’ blogpost from late December 2013 (post called “Talking Archaeology”, blog called “Digging Deeper”, I’d do a link but I’m better with an axe than my tablet, still learning the technology…)? He also encourages archaeologists to embrace Wikipedia. I wonder if there’s a project there, maybe arranging for members of the special interest groups like the Prehistoric Society, to run those mass wiki days and post good, new, content?
Katy
Doug Rocks-Macqueen
March 19, 2014
A wikithon is an excellent idea. I know someone at SAS who would be receptive to the idea. Have you ever done one?
Katy
March 19, 2014
No I haven’t – only heard about them – I think there was one recently at the Natural History Museum and maybe one focused on women in science – they might have been one and the same in fact. It would be very interesting to see how responsive different groups would be to the idea. It’s not just about education – it’s also a means of advocacy (for the historic environment, for the specialist interest area, for the site or monument…).
emmajaneoriordan
March 24, 2014
The Dig It! 2015 project is thinking of doing just that (mass wiki edit by archaeologists) in the next year, we just haven’t decided exactly how yet. http://www.digit2015.com
timberbookshelves
March 19, 2014
Perhaps third level colleges could include patrolling relevant pages as part of their curriculum – good approach for student and staff alike. Just no fighting over who looks after which page. Possibly too much to ask for in archaeology.
Kelly M
March 23, 2014
It’s funny you should mention this as I just received an email from someone asking if he can write a general education post for my blog (I guess he never read my guest blogging terms and conditions).
On the subject of SEO, I think you can use some SEO techniques to your advantage. Internal links (i.e. links to your other blog posts) with useful anchor text can help Google index your site more efficiently and I’ve read that Google is shifting away from keywords and will reward “quality content”. Which isn’t a bad thing…but I have the feeling that Google will always put profit before all else (think AdWords and other pay-per-click advertising services).
Doug Rocks-Macqueen
March 25, 2014
Aye, I do not trust Google. Read somewhere in the last few months that now more of their “search” results are taken up by paid results than organic. At least for high profit searches e.g. flights, cars, etc.
Kelly M
March 25, 2014
Google’s a company first and foremost. If it can monetize something, I’m sure it will. This is why I think social media is a useful tool as it bypasses the need to optimize articles for search engines. Having said that, most of my blog traffic comes via search engines so social media does have its limitations…
dover1952
March 27, 2014
I appreciate your concerns Doug. It was not clear to me that this sort of thing was happening because I have my head buried in other things all of the time. I will be on the lookout for it. Thanks!!!