Jason Calacanis Has Never Had to Rank for Viagra, Has He?

By Li Evans

It seems that dropping the "F" bomb and calling SEO Bullshit during a keynote speech only fulfilled Jason Calacanis' need for the drama and headlines for about 2 months.  Yes, he's back again, claiming that 90% of the SEO's are snake oil salesmen.  Apparently he forgets there are women in SEO too, but that's neither here nor there.

My boss at Commerce360, Craig Danuloff, has a great post in regards to what Jason wrote.  Jason does have some good points, but, he's still misguided, and honestly doesn't really have a clue about all that is involved with this industry.  To him, SEO is about having a blog and writing a good headline.  Obviously he's never had a client in the pharmaceutical industry, airline/travel industry, diet pill industry or ever had to optimize for a term like "viagra", "hoodia" or "cheap airline tickets".  If he had, he'd likely understand a lot more goes into SEO than what he thinks.

I've touted this horn about knowing your client, your client's competition and your client's market space, and that is essential to SEO as a properly written title tag.  Its also knowing that "being #1" in every sense of the word, is a lot different than "thinking" you "should be #1" and trying to "game" your way there.  These days, gaming doesn't work as well as it did a year ago, or 5 years ago.  In tough, competitive industries you need SEO by strategy and being real, not by coincidence or gaming the system. 

Jason, when you can say you've ranked a web page for "viagra" or "cheap airline tickets" and think it was easy, then you may be able to come back and rightfully say "SEO is Bullshit".  But until you can do that, your experience with blogging is just that - experience with blogging, not SEO, and it'd be wise for you to refrain from throwing insults and tirades at industries you really don't fully understand.  It just makes us SEO folks really mad at you, and basically makes you look as much of an "uninformed tard" as that "complete tard" (as Boser calls him)  in that video you featured as the centerpiece of your tirade.