Read The Exploit by: Alexander R. Galloway and Eugene Thacker.

Its either we choose the provisional response from a Determinist Argument and so we can hope for universality and ubiquity….. Or we choose the provisional response from a Nominalist Argument and we then can hope for more occultism and cryptography.

I only ask as I’ve never heard of them. And having looked through their site, they look more like an advocacy group, rather than a typical professional body.

Would it be possible for them to develop guidelines, recognised professional qualifications, a means of accountability and the like?

Basically, until SEO is professionalised in the same way traditional jobs are, and their professional body is given teeth like most other professional associations have, the public will surely continue to be confused around SEO.

My point, and one I think Danny makes much better in the post I linked to, is that the public aren’t saying that. They don’t know what SEO is, and when they do find out they’re keen for advice - the people who say this sort of stuff are generally the bloggerati.

And whilst you may not have meant to attack, when one’s career is frequently put down, phrases such as “let’s hope so” & “tricks” tend to get the hackles up - but maybe that’s our issue rather than yours.

Like I said before, it’s an interesting post, with some good points, and doesn’t change the fact that I always enjoy your blog & your columns in The Guardian

As long as there are search engines there will be SEO. The real question should be what will SEO be in 2,3, 5 years.

Bottom line: SEO is more than “tricks with metadata”. As long as there are search engines, folks will want to move up. As long as they want to move up, there’ll be SEO.