RP_Joe - 5:51 am on Aug 29, 2010 (gmt 0)

I agree with you Tedster. I think research sites are very important to a SEO consultant.
However this is unlike any other business I have seen.
1) Many (if not all) important information needed is shrouded in secrecy.
2) One company dominates the world, making it harder to get a foothold if you are a small website.
3) Rules (backlinking) are not evenly enforced.
4) The main company is changing daily. This is crazy. What if you were a C# programmer and MS changed the compiler daily? People would go insane!
5) I see a rabid psychology towards other SEO's. Not pointing fingers at you Tedster, but some other sites attack these people like wolves. I am not trying to pick sides here or attack any country, but I have seen in the small business market, just as many websites damaged by cheap programmers form _____ (country). Maybe more. And most of the very bad SEO I have seen comes from the cheap SEO "experts" from that same country.

6) It is my personal opinion as an American now living outside America, that there is some built in bias against SEO's in third world countries. The prices for premium services like software, SAS websites, Information websites ($300.00 per MO.) are based on American or first world customers. This effectively shuts out third world people from these tools. I am not saying its intentional, just an observation.

So considering all of this, it does not surprise me that there are people out there giving bad advice.
What I find far more troubling in my experience with small business owners, is website owners who have read some advice here or there and think they know it all. I could write volumes on that topic.

[edited by: RP_Joe at 5:54 am (utc) on Aug 29, 2010]