topr8 - 3:16 pm on Apr 25, 2002 (gmt 0)

yes mardi_gras

i couldn't agree more and indeed some sites are not dependant on search engines, but my point was and i quote what i said before ...

>>>i believe money/time spent on promotion in whatever form is by FAR the greatest priority for a new web enterprise

so yes whatever it takes but everyone is looking for traffic, not always from search it is true, but my point was if money/time isn't spent on getting traffic through whatever medium is chosen then a website itself is of no purpose.

often someone wants a website and wants search engine traffic and in their ignorance they just assume if they get a website designed and produced visitors will just flood in from search engines.

you haven't addressed my main points, i.e., there can only ever be 3 people in the top 3 so most people will be disappointed and the more people use seo, the less effective they will be.

well yes but there are millions upon millions of keyword phases and contrary to popular belief, it is my experience that 3 and 4 keyword phrases are the killer ones, and as you increase the words so do the permutations increase - there is enough to go around, and the basic business adage applies online too, which is that businesses fail all the time because they don't/can't get it right, just because you go into business does not give a divine right to success.

I know that you SEOs don't like directories because they use human beings to rank the sites and so the SEO trickery can't get a site in but I do think that the concept of having an engine/directory where each site is previewed and approved by a human being is better than one created by spiders or robots.

i agree in principle, but there are many people who would contest that directory listings are not entirely "fair" either, good descriptions given for favoured websites for instance, directories are very open to abuse, of a different kind to "SEO trickery" it is true but abuse all the same. (ps. i'm not pointing fingers specifically just putting accross a general point)