marknyc said:
Yeah, I do know a little about SEO...well, actually quite a bit. That's not the point though, the intent of what he is trying to do is what I am pointing out.
Antiquated or not, it is still black hat behavior and I think most people would agree. Furthermore, I never said that I had a problem with him including any cuemaker names at all, just the inclusion of other dealers that are his competitors.
I don't think your analogy of Pepsi claiming to be better than Coke matches up. He isn't claiming to be better than the competitors I listed at all, he is just using their names to try and skim off of their search result hits. As far as being "just business", I guess we have a differing opinion on what is inappropriate and acceptable and what isn't. And no, I would not suggest the other dealers include IndyQ as part of their SEO strategy. Use your OWN content and rely on your OWN merits and let others do the same. I have dealt with quite a few of the other dealers on this forum and think they probably feel the same way.
We can also agree to disagree on the definition of GOOD PEOPLE - and that is fine. I am still pretty content with mine, so I will hold on to it for a bit longer. Call me a "Hater" if you want, all I did was point out a simple fact and identify it as unethical behavior. Pretty much the whole industry defines this as being unethical, even if you choose not to. Whether it works or not is a different discussion. You were mentioning Roy's honesty and integrity and that is completely your right. Carry on, please. I am just providing a little more insight and think that prospective cue buyers and other dealers are entitled to know about the bigger picture - that's my right.
I see your point. You did however have a problem with the cue maker names as you made a point to say that he has "Erik Lee Cues" in the meta tags.
We will just disagree then about whether it's unethical to include a competitor's name in your content.
The bigger picture is this, Roy has been in business for 15 years. He has a huge customer base which includes some of the world's largest collectors. A man doesn't get to the point he is at in this business without being a stand up person. The business of high end cues is just too small a world for someone to get by for so long if he were screwing people over.
You dig up something that he PROBABLY did in the mid 90s when he was building his website and that was the prevailing wisdom of the time. I would bet he hasn't changed those meta tags for a decade and has completely forgotten about them. If not then I would expect him to put all the new cue dealer competitor's websites in there. In the last five years there are several new dealers of high end cues as well as plenty of WAY more popular websites selling pool equipment. Why hasn't Roy stuffed all these into the meta tags if he is sooooo unethical?
Another thing is that you don't even know how those things got there. For all you know some clueless web designer stuffed those keywords in there because he thought it was the way to go at the time and Roy has no clue that they are even there. At least you make the ASSUMPTION that HE did it and that he knows about it.
You know full well that the vast majority of business owners that have websites have no clue what the code looks like or even what a meta tag is. So I find it highly disingenuous that you would seek to discredit a man with so weak an argument when you can't possibly know if Roy himself put them there or even knows about them.
So listen up potential cue buyers. Roy Mallot's website has the names of some other businesses in the industry in the meta tags. Some people feel that this is not right to have these names in the meta tags. This has a direct bearing on whether Roy Mallot is fit to sell you a cue or not. Can you see the correlation dear cue buyer?
From now on it is suggested that before you purchase a cue from any dealer you should have a qualified Search Engine Optimizer check the code on the website for any "black hat" seo techniques. If they find any then by all means don't purchase a cue from those unethical jerks.
While you are at it Mark, can you list the other dealers in the billiard industry who are trying to game the search engine's algo? I have a pretty good list of websites complete with their SEO profiles and what they are doing. I am sure that people would like you to continue and let us know which websites are "ethical" and which ones aren't. I'd be interested to see if you come up with the names on my list.
In the past they called this kind of reporting muckraking.
