SEO Stars Vs. SEO Celebrities

Rob Kerry has a wonderful post named Celebrities Killed The SEO Star. In short, Rob said, “I believe that celebrity SEOs, brands and blogs are feeding a generation of untested and poorly trained search marketers, who pass themselves off as SEO experts.”

Ah, link bait at it’s best – at least within the SEO space.

I have known Rob for a long time, in fact, he blogged here in his earlier days.

I am not going to suggest Rob is talking about me as being an SEO Celebrity? Why? Well, because he defined an SEO celeb as a “high profile SEO bloggers recently ceased client work and personal projects, in order to appear impartial and trustworthy to their community.” I was never an SEO that provided client work, I started off as an SEO blogger. But I made that decision to remain impartial and trustworthy and it has worked, I think.

In any event, let me take this argument and flip it around a bit. Note, I write this while my house has been with out electricity or heat since Saturday and I am not expecting it back until this coming Saturday (note: my office has power and heat.)

Most SEO “Stars” I know of became an SEO star through mentions and vouches from SEO Celebrities. There are very few SEO Stars that are well known without being mentioned by blogs – such as SEOBook’s blog. 🙂

Now, I am all for SEOs testing and using hard data. In fact, SEO Scientist and many others have been pushing for this for years. It has gotten some SEOs who are really respected in trouble for using data wrong.

There is room for the SEO Celebrity and the SEO Star but ultimately, results and SEO technique comes from day to day practice, not blogging. I would think that is common sense.

Forum discussion at Sphinn.