Matt Cutts video : Branded Sites Could be at Risk

[Whitey]

In a recent interview recorded on video, Matt communicated to his audience of advanced SEO's, that pushing the boundaries of optimisation could seriously jeopardise their existence in this marketing channel.

[mattcutts.com...]

Maybe it's better to do nothing or very little [ in terms of advanced SEO ] for branded companies.

Also, what does this say about G's handling of business' that fall into a black hole, for whatever reason?

Does this encourage the throw away web site mentality of spammers ?

[tedster]

To me, Matt is pointing to a sharp divide in what gets called "SEO". The high risk approaches are something that a brand site needs to know are high risk. Yes, those approaches can trash a big brand - I've seen it and I've been asked to help repair several cases.

I notice this in our discussions here, too - the word "SEO" means different things to different people.

1) For some people, SEO is about packaging information in a way that search engines can easily assess its relevance for different queries.

2) For others, SEO is about finding technical loopholes in the algortihm that can be exploited for better ranking. The more a brand site goes into that second direction, the more risk they take on.

Top management for a strong brand would usually be taking the long view - something beyond a quarter by quarter approach. But top management often may not know that their web team is trying for a quick advantage now, with a potentially big downside.