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41 of 47 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Comprehensive Guide, November 17, 2009
This review is from: The Art of SEO: Mastering Search Engine Optimization (Theory in Practice) (Paperback)
I am one who has been very outspoken about the more shady SEO practitioners and about the ridiculously overprices "courses" that are heavily promoted on the Internet. SEO has acquired some of the taint of huckster marketing because of that.
I hope this book helps eliminate some of that. There's no need to pay some self-styled "Internet Guru" hundreds or thousands of dollars for SEO secrets. There are no secrets: every concept, every "trick", every piece of advice is available on the Internet for free. Of course you have to find it all, you have to learn what things are outdated, what advice doesn't work - or you could find 99% here in this book.
Of course it's not for everyone. It assumes some technical knowledge or at least access to someone with that knowledge. As an example, at several points 301 redirects are used as the solution certain SEO issues. Although some minor direction is given about implementing these, you'd need more than is provided here if you were a neophyte - someone using Blogger or [...] isn't going to become proficient with Apache from reading this.
The only small complaint I can make is that sometimes the authors use too many examples, especially for the more basic concepts at the beginning of the book. However, too many is far better than too few, so I won't complain too much. I definitely can't complain that they left anything out: this could serve as a course book for a SEO class.
I'll be recommending this strongly.
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20 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Almost Cutting-Edge, November 4, 2009
This review is from: The Art of SEO: Mastering Search Engine Optimization (Theory in Practice) (Paperback)
I did enjoy this overview of the SEO field. Granted, even though it has a first printing copyright of October 2009, there are already some outdated links, which only serves to highlight the incredible rate of development that the Internet engenders. This is an excellent introduction to a highly volatile field, and I was very impressed with the depth of subject matter. At the same time, I found the repetition from chapter to chapter of nearly identical text somewhat distracting, which is why I hesitate to give this book a full five stars.
In some ways, this book sets the stage for the next evolution in marketing. Pay-Per-Click does not have the return on investment that Search Engine Optimization can have, and the authors do a very good job of outlining exactly why this is - and while there are many, many different signals which can be manipulated to some extent by a search engine optimizer (optimist?) the authors do an excellent job explaining the many pitfalls that can arise when SEO is done incorrectly. Still, I was somewhat perplexed to note that two tools I rely on most heavily seemed completely overlooked in the text, those being Google Alerts (which provides me with endless supply of keyword-relevant content as it hits the net) and Market Samurai, an astoundingly useful tool in my keyword research process.
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16 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Link Building Chapter Saves this Book, January 19, 2011
This review is from: The Art of SEO: Mastering Search Engine Optimization (Theory in Practice) (Paperback)
Chapter 7 "Creating Link-Worthy Content and Link Marketing" saves this otherwise mediocre book. While this 555-page tome contains lots of information, it lacks few new insights or gems. With four authors, where was the editor?
Score:
2 stars: Overall
5 stars: New information about the importance of link building makes Chapter 7 a must read
1 star: The book fails to mention free seo/web developer toolbars from SEObook, SEOmoz and Chris Pederick
1 star: In the midst of citing research from SEO industry cronies, the authors forgot to attribute The Long Tail to Chris Anderson, citing a derivative work instead.
1 star: The book lists accolades from dozens of respected industry leaders and published authors, but the content fails to live up to this hype. Quid pro quo?
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