One of the best performing linkbait ideas on the Web seems to be SEO bashing.
When you read things like
you may assume it’s a new phenomenon.
Yet it’s not.
SEO has been the black sheep everybody loved to bash early on.
The Web was full of provocative anti-SEO rage baits long before the term has become mainstream.
Here is a little history lesson with some prominent examples from the early days of SEO before 2010.
We can learn from them a lot.
Why bash SEO?
Bashing SEO is an ugly yet very successful way of gaining links at the expense of others.
It seems the less substance an anti-SEO claim has the more links you’ll gain.
A prerequisite of this link baiting technique is considerable authority though.
Do you write on your unknown blog that SEO sucks? Nobody will link to you.
In fact I used the SEO bashing technique myself when I started this blog.
That was an exception though and not really a true bashing. Why?
I added real value to the post though so that it went viral due to the advice it offered.
List of successful SEO bashings from the early days of the Web
Here is the list of the the most successful SEO bashings of the early Web era.
Don’t believe me? Those were the days of
- blogs (still called weblogs back then!)
- early “front page” based social sites like Digg
- linkbait (before clickbait went mainstream)
- social bookmarking (going viral was not common yet)
And SEO bashings of course.
Some of the phenomena still exist. Others don’t.
I preserved the memory of some of the most impactful SEO bashings though:
- “SEO is Dead” by the infamous SEO 2.0 has been translated in more than a 12 languages
- “SEO is Bullshit” by Jason Calacanis — the perhaps most renowned Internet prankster — was huge
- “SEO is Bullshit” by
contrast.ie succeeded twice in a row with no substance whatsoever! - “Why Diggers hate SEO” by Muhammad Saleem had of course major success on Digg
- “SEO has no Future” by Shoemoney got some considerable attention with plenty of links from the SEO industry
- “SEO Sucks” by Shoemoney was a publicity stunt on a search conference that made everybody publish the image
Steve Rubel attempted a SEO bashing linkbait but failed. Why?
He was outspoken enough so he just got a few links, still he went popular here and there.
So the bashing hook is popular but the execution matters as well.
A generic rehash of the ancient “SEO is dead” meme won’t cut it.
It just happens too often!
Indeed I created the Kenny from South Park version to illustrate it.
Why? Kenny got killed in every episode originally and was alive the next one.
Why is SEO bashing so popular?
Most people are not interested in the future of SEO or its status.
Yet you’ll find lots of Internet users who are fed up with it or who want their prejudice reinforced.
Trolls who consider SEO spam are not to be convinced.
Plus most people on the Web only notice SEO of the worst kind, the indeed spammy one.
It’s no use to tell people who hate SEO that all the major newspapers invest heavily in SEO etc.
In case you want to capitalize on the ignorance of Web users make them happy by SEO bashing!
They will give you plenty of links.
Also the SEO industry itself will link to you out of sheer rage!
It still works to this day to some extent! I see “SEO is dead” etc. examples every year.
So you get the links that way yet your reputation may suffer significantly.
Just check out the examples from above.
None of them is still online (except my own one).
I had to link the Internet Archive version in most cases. Others were gone completely.
Most of the sites that published them are defunct by now!
