The SEO Industry Needs You to Be Afraid

I am a sick man. I am a spiteful man. I am a man who has spent more than two decades in SEO, which is the same thing.

Actually, I take that back. I'm not spiteful. Spite requires energy, and I have spent all my energy writing meta descriptions for websites that sell industrial ball bearings. Do you know what a meta description for industrial ball bearings looks like? I do. I have written eleven thousand of them. The good news is, after the first six thousand, you stop feeling anything at all.

But I am here to tell you something important, and I need you to pay attention, because what I'm about to say could save you a great deal of money and suffering, or it could ruin your day, depending on how much money you've already given to people like me. The SEO industry needs you to be afraid.

Not "benefits from" or "profits from" or "happens to do well when." Needs. The way a hospital needs sick people. The way a divorce lawyer needs unhappy marriages. The way my Uncle Jerry needs there to be a conspiracy, any conspiracy, because otherwise he's just a man who got fired from the post office for reasons that were entirely his fault.

The Email

Check your inbox. Go ahead. I'll wait. Somewhere in there, probably filed under "promotions" if your email client has any sense, there's a message with a subject line like URGENT: Algorithm Update Detected or Your Rankings May Be At Risk or 17 Critical SEO Errors Found On Your Website (You Won't Believe Number 8).

These emails are not warnings. They are products. Someone, somewhere, in an office that I guarantee has a ping-pong table and a sign that says "Work Hard Play Hard," decided that the best way to get you to open an email was to make you feel like your house was on fire. And they were right. Fear has a 47% higher open rate than curiosity. I know this because I used to be the guy looking at those numbers. I used to be the guy writing those subject lines. I used to go home at night and tell myself I was providing a valuable service, which is what everyone tells themselves, including the people who write junk mail for extended car warranties.

The entire business model of SEO is this: manufacture a problem, then sell the solution. It's the same model as antivirus software, which, and I need you to understand this, is the greatest scam in the history of computing. A company creates a product that protects you from threats. The threats are real, technically, in the sense that someone somewhere could theoretically try to hack your computer. But the threat is wildly overstated, and the solution is mostly unnecessary, and the whole thing only works if you're constantly, persistently, unrelentingly afraid.

John McAfee understood this. The man created an antivirus company, made hundreds of millions of dollars, and then spent the rest of his life trying to warn people that the whole thing was a scam. Nobody listened. They were too busy renewing their subscriptions.

The Update

Every few months, Google announces an "algorithm update." They give it a name, like "Panda" or "Penguin" or "Helpful Content Update," which is a name that tells you nothing and means nothing and exists solely to give SEO consultants something to talk about at conferences.

And the moment the update is announced, the industry mobilizes. It's really something to see. It's like watching ants respond to a dropped piece of candy, except the ants are wearing Patagonia vests and the candy is your fear.

Within hours, you will see:

Blog posts. So many blog posts. Blog posts claiming to explain "what the update means for your site." The people writing these posts don't know what the update means. Google doesn't tell anyone what the update means. Google's own employees don't know what the update means. But the posts get written anyway, because the posts aren't meant to inform you, they're meant to capture your panic-search for "Google update what do I do" and redirect it toward someone's consulting services.

Twitter threads. Long Twitter threads with lots of graphs. The graphs show rankings going up and down. The person posting the thread implies that these movements are caused by the update. They are not. Rankings go up and down all the time, for reasons that have nothing to do with algorithm changes. A site that dropped after an update might have dropped anyway. A site that went up might go back down next week. Correlation is not causation, but correlation looks great in a Twitter thread, and looking great in a Twitter thread is the entire point.

Webinars. "Emergency webinars." I have been invited to participate in emergency webinars. I have declined, because I have some remaining shred of self-respect, but I have watched them, and they are always the same. Someone talks for forty-five minutes about things they don't understand, then spends fifteen minutes selling a course that will teach you the things they just admitted they don't understand. It's beautiful, in a way. Like watching a snake eat its own tail, except the snake is charging $497 for the privilege.

The truth, which is not profitable and therefore not widely shared, is this: most algorithm updates don't affect most sites. Google makes thousands of changes to its algorithm every year. Most of them do nothing noticeable. The big updates that destroy websites are rare, and when they happen, there's usually nothing you could have done to prevent it, and often nothing you can do to fix it. But "there's nothing you can do" doesn't sell courses. "There's nothing you can do" doesn't fill webinar seats. "There's nothing you can do" is commercially useless, so we don't say it.

The Tools

Let me tell you about SEO tools, which are, and I want to be very clear about this, one of the great frauds of our time.

Every SEO tool works the same way. You put in your website, and the tool shows you a number. The number is usually bad. If the number were good, you wouldn't need the tool, and then you wouldn't pay for the tool, and then how would the tool company afford its ping-pong table?

The number has a scary name. "Domain Authority." "Trust Flow." "Toxicity Score." These names sound like they mean something. They sound like they're measuring something real. They are not.

"Domain Authority" is not a Google metric. Google has never used "Domain Authority." Google does not care about your "Domain Authority." "Domain Authority" was invented by a company called Moz, which needed something to sell, and what they decided to sell was a number they made up. This is not a criticism. I respect the hustle. But you should know what you're buying.

"Trust Flow" is not a Google metric. "Citation Flow" is not a Google metric. "Toxicity Score" is absolutely not a Google metric, and the entire concept of "toxic backlinks" is, at best, wildly overstated, and at worst, a complete fabrication designed to sell link removal services to frightened website owners.

I have watched clients lose sleep over their Moz score. I have watched clients fire agencies because their Ahrefs graph went down. I have watched clients pay thousands of dollars to "disavow" backlinks that were doing them no harm, because a tool showed a red number and red numbers are scary and scary numbers must be fixed.

Meanwhile, their actual Google traffic was fine. Sometimes it was going up. But they weren't looking at their actual Google traffic, because actual Google traffic is boring and free, and the tools are exciting and expensive, and we are a species that confuses expense with importance.

The Conference

I have been to many SEO conferences. Too many. I have stood in too many convention center hallways, eating too many tiny sandwiches, listening to too many conversations about "link velocity" and "topical authority" and other concepts that may or may not be real.

SEO conferences are not educational events. They are trade shows for fear.

Every talk follows the same structure. First, the speaker establishes that you should be afraid. The landscape is changing. Your competitors are ahead of you. What worked last year doesn't work this year. You are, the speaker implies without quite saying, in grave danger.

Then, the speaker presents data. The data looks scary. Graphs go down. Percentages are alarming. Case studies show websites that failed, presumably because they didn't do the thing the speaker is about to sell you.

Then, the speaker offers hope. But wait. There's a solution. The speaker has figured it out. The speaker has the answer. The speaker has, and this is always the word, a "framework."

Then, the speaker sells you the framework. Sometimes it's a course. Sometimes it's a tool. Sometimes it's an agency. But there's always something to buy, because the speaker didn't fly to Las Vegas to give away information for free. The speaker flew to Las Vegas to convert your fear into their revenue. The sandwich you're eating isn't free either. You're paying for it with your attention, and your attention is being directed toward the purchase of something you probably don't need.

I know because I've been the speaker. I've stood on those stages. I've given those talks. I've watched the audience take notes, and I've watched them buy the thing, and I've deposited the checks. And I told myself I was helping. We all tell ourselves we're helping.

The Certification

SEO certifications are fear products. The fear being sold is the fear of inadequacy. What if you don't know enough? What if your competitors are certified and you're not? What if a client asks for credentials and you have none?

The certifications don't prove anything. Google's own SEO certification, which you would think would be authoritative, contains questions about features that no longer exist. I know this because I took it, and I passed, and I came away knowing less than I did before, because several of the "correct" answers were wrong.

Third-party certifications are worse. They're diploma mills. You pay money, you take a test, you get a badge for your LinkedIn profile. The badge means nothing. The test proves nothing. But the badge makes you feel better, and feeling better is worth money, which is why the certification industry exists.

I have no certifications. I have more than two decades of experience, and a track record, and clients who will vouch for me. But sometimes I lose jobs to people with certifications and no experience, because the certifications look official, and looking official is often more valuable than being competent.

The Agency

Most SEO agencies are fear-based organisms. They feed on terror. They excrete reports.

The pitch is always the same: "Your competitors are investing in SEO. You're falling behind. Every month you wait, they get stronger and you get weaker. You need us."

The pitch works because it's scary, and because it might be true, and because you have no way of knowing whether it's true, which is the ideal condition for selling something.

The reality is that most agencies do almost nothing. I know because I've inherited clients from agencies. I've audited their work. I've seen the invoices and compared them to the deliverables. And what I've found, again and again, is this: one blog post per month, usually written by someone who doesn't speak English as a first language and certainly doesn't understand the client's business. Some directory submissions, which haven't mattered since approximately 2010. And reports. So many reports. Reports with graphs. Reports with charts. Reports with numbers that go up and down and don't mean anything but look very impressive if you don't know what you're looking at.

The agencies charge five figures a month for this. Sometimes six figures. And the clients pay, month after month, year after year, because they're afraid. Afraid to cancel. Afraid of what might happen if they stop "doing SEO." Afraid of falling behind competitors who are, in most cases, also paying agencies to do nothing.

It's a beautiful system. Everyone is paying everyone else to maintain a shared delusion. The only people who lose are the clients, and they don't know they're losing, because the reports say they're winning.

The Confession

I am part of this industry. I make money from it. I am telling you how it works anyway.

Why? I've thought about this a lot. Late at night, mostly, when I should be sleeping, but instead I'm lying in bed thinking about meta descriptions for industrial ball bearings and wondering what I've done with my life.

Part of it is guilt. I have taken money from people who didn't need to spend it. I have sold services that didn't need to be bought. I have participated in the fear machine, and even though I tried to be one of the good ones, even though I tried to deliver actual value, I was still part of the machine, and the machine is bad.

Part of it is exhaustion. More than two decades is a long time. More than two decades of watching people get scared into bad decisions. More than two decades of competing with charlatans who are better at manufacturing fear than I am at delivering results. More than two decades of explaining to clients that the scary email they received is a sales pitch, not a warning. It wears on you.

Part of it is spite. I lied earlier when I said I wasn't spiteful. I am spiteful. I am spiteful toward the people who are better at this grift than I am. I am spiteful toward the agencies that charge more and deliver less. I am spiteful toward the tool vendors who invented metrics to frighten people. If I can't beat them, I can at least expose them, and that's something.

Mostly, though, I think it's because someone should say it. Someone who's been inside the machine should explain how the machine works. And since no one else seems willing to do it, I guess it has to be me.

What You Should Actually Do

Stop being afraid. That's the first thing. The fear is the product. Don't buy it.

When you get a scary email about your website, delete it. When a tool shows you a red number, close the tab. When someone tells you there's been an algorithm update and you need to act immediately, understand that they are trying to sell you something, and the thing they are selling is your own fear, marked up 400%.

The algorithm will do what the algorithm does. You cannot control it. You cannot predict it. You cannot outsmart it. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either lying or deluded, and it doesn't matter which, because the result is the same.

What you can do is make things worth finding. Build something people actually want. Write content that actually helps someone. Fix the technical problems that actually matter, which are fewer than you think. Build internal links that actually work. And then wait.

Waiting is the only strategy that works. Patience. Time. The boring, unsexy work of making something good and letting it find its audience. No one will sell you this strategy because it's free, and free things don't generate revenue, and generating revenue is the point.

The End

Nothing I've said will change anything. The fear machine is too profitable. The incentives are too strong. Tomorrow there will be another urgent email, another critical update, another essential tool, another emergency webinar, another conference with tiny sandwiches and big promises.

The agencies will continue to charge and deliver nothing. The tools will continue to invent metrics. The certifications will continue to certify. The conferences will continue to convene. And the fear will continue to flow, because fear is the product, and the product must flow.

I'm not telling you this because I think it will change the industry. I'm telling you because you deserve to know how the game is played. The house always wins. But at least now you know the house is cheating.

The SEO industry needs you to be afraid. Now that you know this, you can choose whether to keep playing.

I'll still be here, either way. Writing meta descriptions for industrial ball bearings. Trying to be one of the good ones. Failing, probably, but trying.

That's all any of us can do.