Oliver_Henniges - 7:26 pm on Aug 18, 2006 (gmt 0)

> Here is what we do to SEO when we build a new site.

I'd absolutely agree with your points, but I doubt the term "SEO" is really applicable to that activity. You cover the mentioned chapter one of SEF and then turn towards "Good old fashioned honest hard work" as Quadrille put it. Indeed "the most successful approach."

Technically, SEO is dead; what remains, is an empty marketing-concept. If it helps to get new customers for an existing company: pecunia non olet. But if SEO evokes illusions in young students they might manage to become a millionaire SEOing, instead of reading books, we should all send a big WARNING.

> why do still thousands of sites get away with the most blatant spamming techniques?

Because even google is not perfect. It's just a couple of human beings trying to make the world a little bit better, like most of us. Leave that part to the google engineers, and listen to the end of "The End" on Abbey Road.

> great point ride.

Indeed. Large sites have far more means to test and evaluate the fuzzy edges; and this is justified, because generally quite a lot of "Good old fashioned honest hard work" is necessary to establish a large site (or even whole network). And if you have invested such a lot of work, you normally act more careful, because you cannot risk to trap into the filters. As long as the site stays "inside" sufficiently, it will remain in the index. And this is OK, because sooner or later the makers of such large sites will realize the potential of conversion-rates and user-needs, so that even if begun as a grey-hat-project, the large site might once be of considerable value for the visitors.