The Curious Case of a SEO Expert Who Sees a Link Between Dining and DarkCyber
July 29, 2020
This is another “SEO Follies” write up by the DarkCyber research team. The essay falls into three parts: First, an explanation of why irrelevant backlinks are the rage among search engine optimization experts; second, how language becomes an irritant and a reflection on the search engine optimization company’s business methods; and, third, some reflections on the stupidity of some SEO or search engine optimization sales methods. I want to point out that SEO professionals mostly bilk unsuspecting customers by promising them that their Web page will be more findable in Google. If a company wants traffic, the company will either have to buy ads from Google or remain deep in a search results list.
The Quest for Backlinks
In my first Google monograph “The Google Legacy”, my research team and I compiled a list of publicly disclosed ranking factors. The list has been used by some universities in their information science courses (example: Syracuse University). The majority of these factors are recycled ideas from other search systems, research conducted by IBM Almaden (example: the CLEVER system), and common sense (example: the more links pointing to a Web page, the “better” that Web page is if one uses de Tocqueville’s concept of average as a way to determine what’s “good”).
The current rage for backlinks is little more than an effort to generate a false “good” score for a Web page. The present technique — practiced by charlatans like the Hustler who makes crazy videos and companies like the once prestigious Boston Consulting Group. Since The Google Legacy, two changes have taken place at Google. First, the company has expanded its grip on online advertising despite the best efforts of Amazon and Facebook. Second, the options for getting independent, objective search results from Google have decreased. The reality is that a business either buys traffic or pays a charlatan pitching search engine magic. Either way, a business has to pay for traffic. There are exceptions, but these are forced upon Google due to exogenous circumstances and most organizations cannot rely on an anomaly to publicize their existence.
The trend I have noticed is that requests for backlinks are coming more and more frequently. Here’s an example I received from a company in the UK authored by an SEO marketer delightfully named Izaak Crook. He wrote:
HI Sa,
How’s it going? I’m Izaak from AppInstitute.
I was browsing arnoldit.com and I noticed you’d covered Restaurant Technology before, linking to https://restauranttechnologynews.com/2019/07/online-food-delivery-fraud-increasing-can-tech-address-problem from http://arnoldit.com/wordpress/category/statistics/
I wondered if you’d be interested in checking out our post “7 Restaurant Technology Trends to Watch Out for in 2020”. We take a look at some of the key restaurant technologies to watch out for and how they’re going to change the industry.
If you deem it worthy of a link from arnoldit.com that would be a dream come true.
Either way, it’d be cool to discuss how we can collaborate in the future. Enjoy your Friday and speak soon!
Kind Regards,
Izaak
I had my team poke around and we learned that Mr. Crook (love that name, right?) works at a firm named AppInstitute. According the company’s Web site, the group develops “apps.” Why is an app development company wanting me to link to a story about restaurant fraud. Sure, DarkCyber covers cybercrime, but odd ball references just underline my point about SEO silliness and the belief among SEO experts that backlinks will get significant traction with the new, revenue hungry Google. (Sure, Google generates a great deal of money, but the company is smart enough to realize that the unregulated, anything world of the pre-Trump era is ending. Plus, Google costs are getting very difficult to control. Then Google has to consider the Amazon and Facebook advertising competitors. These companies are not Excite and Lycos.
The Language of the SEO World
In an email exchange with Mr. Crook (wonderful, evocative name, is it not?) he used this phrase:
Okay, Boomer.
I am a septuagenarian, 76 soon to be 77. I had to contact two members of my DarkCyber research team to get a read on the phrase “Okay, Boomer.” I was aware that a baby boomer described people born after World War II. From my team, I learned that it is:
- An age-biased slur when used to indicate that a person of age is out of touch with someone who is a thumbtyper, TikToker, and Facebook champion
- A derogatory term for a person who is older than a Gen X or Millennial
- An indicator that the person called a “boomer” is stupid, out of touch, irrelevant, a nuiscance, etc.
The team told me that if I were called a Boomer in a public setting, I could contact one of my attorneys and pursue the hate speech angle. Hate speech. Directed at a person soon to be 77. Over an overly familiar email asking for something for free.
The AppInstitute email is representative of the SEO junk I receive on a daily basis. I did not like the tone of the email and I was not happy to learn that boomer was a slur.
First, the familiarity of the “Hi” and the use of two of my initials indicates a certain casual mindset, a thought process incapable of understanding how familiarity is interpreted by someone like me as either careless or stupid. Call me old fashioned, but “Mr. Arnold” is what I prefer in business email.
Second, the reference to a Beyond Search/DarkCyber story about restaurants is amusing. I don’t write about restaurants; I eat at restaurants. Anyone who has looked at any of the more than 13,000 articles in this blog can figure out that feeding people is not one of my primary, secondary, or tertiary interests. I am not going to “check out” a frothy, probably substandard report about the restaurant industry. Apparently Izaak has not seen Yelp’s report about the state of the restaurant business. Here’s a story called “Nearly 16,000 Restaurants Have Closed Permanently Due to the Pandemic, Yelp Data Shows.” Read it, Izaak Crook. Yelp’s information obviates the need for a “report”.
Third, note the word choice. Izaak had a thesaurus handy I would wager or his prestigious employer provided him with a spam script and ready-to-roll bot:
One syllable fancy word: deem
Two syllable fancy word: worthy
Four syllable jargony word: collaborate
Then there were colloquial phrases like:
checking out
watch out for
going to change
dream come true
cool.
Izaak adds this thoughtful postscript: “Don’t want emails from us anymore? Reply to this email with the word “UNSUBSCRIBE” in the subject line.”
The entire email screams spam, carelessness, failure to know to whom one is writing, and arrogance. Am I going to do something for an unknown entity named Izaak Crook without sending a bill? Answer: Not a chance.
My research team told me that the Izaak Crook entity is a person. He is the head of marketing and he is a T shaped marketer, a growth hacker, and an “SaaS fanatic.” He’s spent 14 months performing search engine optimization and conversion rate optimization for the first class outfit AppInstitute. He was a digital communications apprentice for a company called Champions UK plc. Before that he was a social media manager. I love the “apprentice” role as part of an SEO’s work history.
Now Mr. Crook (an evocative name, is it not?) markets the App Institute. A quick reveals that this top drawer outfit is an “AppBuilder for busy small business owners.” The CEO is Ian Naylor who is a serial entrepreneur. I have been told my one of my researchers that the company is small and seems to do many things, not just apps. SEO is one of those many things.
Stepping Back
I have written a number of blog posts, articles, and essays about the loss of relevance in ad-supported Web search systems. The erosion of relevance, to summarize, my conclusions is the result of three factors:
- A need to generate revenue in order to pay for indexing, updating, and serving answers to users’ queries.
- A desire on the part of marketers and webmasters to get coverage in search result pages without having to pay Google for traffic
- The more recent imperative of the ad-supported Web search engines to extend their control over flows of user behavior data.
In this environment, clicks, psychological tells via clicks, and surveillance technology mean that comprehensive data collection are essential. Traffic results from feedback loops and intentional presentation of certain content. Free visibility is not part of the game plan.
SEO marketing is going to fail. Some tactics may spoof Mother Google and deliver a short term boost. However, Mother Google wants SEO to fail because it forces the SEO wizard to herd those desperate for traffic into the advertising kill pen.
Who knows this simple game plan? Maybe the SEO expert who also moonlights as an ad sales rep for Google does? I surmise that Google continues to cultivate SEO professionals as part of the company’s ad sales strategy.
Why write me? Certainly Mr. Crook cares not a whit for my blog and content. He wants a link. He wants to make a sale. He wants to get the client to buy more and more SEO and then AppInstitute will probably sell that customer Google advertising and get a commission.
No thanks, Mr. Crook. I want no part of your SEO scam. I don’t want to help out AppInstitute. However, I do hope that the upcoming Congressional hearings lead to meaningful regulation of certain large high technology firms.
But we live in Rona times, and I must admit, the odds of ethical, responsible behavior are long.
And the links Mr. Crook (tasty, evocative name) wants? Here they are:
Izaak Crook: izaak@appinstitute.co
AppInstitute: https://appinstitute.com/
It seems to some of the DarkCyber team that “Boomer” is hate speech.
Slick marketing method indeed.
Stephen E Arnold aka “Boomer”, July 29, 2020
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