Who is da' MAN!!!!!????? Options

[jjmancini]

I have heard things about SEO and who is the most informative person. I have heard from a quite reliable source that Danny Sullivan from:

http://searchenginewatch.com/

Is DA MAN!!!

Anyone care to disagree???

Let me know!

[cre8pc]

Danny Sullivan has been around for a long time and is highly respected, especially as reporter and conference presenter. There are many people I regard as great teachers and professionals in the biz. One of them is Ammon Johns, who is an Administrator for these forums

Kim

[jjmancini]

Well I agree!

There are many people I regard as great teachers and professionals in the biz. One of them is Ammon Johns, who is an Administrator for these forums

Ammon has been the most thourough and most willing to help out of anybody I have ever met in the biz (SEO)!

Any other thoughts?

Who else is credible and has the knowledege of the biz?

[bragadocchio]

Danny Sullivan has been writing about search engines for a number of years now.

The title of his site, Searchenginewatch, reflects that at one time, his efforts may have been focused upon an objective view of search engines like a "watchdog" group keeps an eye on government agencies.

His objectivity, and his careful, consistent, and detailed observations have earned the respect that they deserve.

But, there are a lot of people who are very knowledgeable and well respected in the SEO/SEM community. We're fortunate to have a number of them here. As Kim says, Ammon's knowledge of SEO is amazing, as is his ability and inclination to share with others what he knows.

[NorthStar]

I'm not quite sure what the point of this post is....but Senor Sullivan certainly had been at it for a while. And he just got over a 1,000 people to show up for SES NY and most were paying over $1,000 to be there. If you do the math it probably makes him " da man" if you are in it for the money.

But, just because you are the most well known in the business does not mean you know the most. If you want the best at SEO you might want to do some competitive searches. Try porn, casinos, hotels, debt consolidation, online degrees, etc. Those people are the best. Look for those that walk the walk. Talking is easy. That said, placing you money on Ammon seems like money very well spent.

[Black_Knight]

Hey, lay off the compliments guys, or I'll need a new black hat for my swelling head.

If you want a few ' famous names of SEO', you'll find that peter_d interviewed a few in his Search Engine Blog. Of course, other great names would include Detlev Johnson (longtime moderator of the famous I-SEARCH discussiuon list at Audette Media) and the late Jim Wilson.

[rcjordan]

Now Ammon, take your bows like a gentleman. But I have a question, are you sure it's a black hat?

[The Alien]

BK would you be talking about Jim Wilson of The Department of Mathematics Education at UofGa or the man behind JimWorld?

[The Alien]

Here's something I'll bet you didn't know .... goto.com, the guys that \"invented\" pay per click, were avid and active members of the searchengineforums prior to launching the idea. They've never actually admitted it, but I'm sure that the SEO nightmares, as told in the thousands of posts at SEF were a big part of the catalyst spawning their creation. Goto credits Jim's steadfast support of the idea, and the proliferation of it's relevance and importance in the forums, and the Gazette with their success. To hear them tell it, there wouldn't be an overture.com today if Jim didn't do all that he did for goto.com back then. 

Think this say's quite a bit about Jim Wilson

http://memorial.jimworld.com/legacy/

[Black_Knight]

But I have a question, are you sure it's a black hat?

Oh yes, it is my official "black hat SEO" one.

[rustybrick]

Cute topic.

I was wondering if it would be appropriate to expand this topic into a history lesson on some of the old time SEOs.

Does anyone have history on who started the SEO revolution? Who were the major players back 7 years ago? I know some of this information, but I know some of you guys were there in the trenches.

Or maybe its best to start a new thread on it. Mods, your call.

[Black_Knight]

7 years ago the names were far fewer, many of the same names I mentioned previously.

Danny Sullivan of course, as SearchEngineWatch has been a landmark for a long time.

Jim Wilson, of course, and his 'helpware' stuff was widely known, and I guess he was just getting SEF to become huge around then as it was THE forum in '98.

I believe that Jim's SearchEngineForums were where Ralph Tegtmeier (aka Fantomaster) and I first encountered each other directly, though I spent far more time over at MarketPositionTalk. Its also where I first encounted Brett Tabke (prior to launching his SearchEngineWorld forum which later became WebmasterWorld of course).

The names not mentioned already would include Brent Winters (president of the company that has brought up WebPosition Gold) and his Market Position Newsletter. Frederick Marckini (iProspect) was a pretty regular expert contributor to that Newsletter.

Google didn't arrive until '98 of course, and even then it crept in with no big publicity, so the biggest name back then was Altavista. That continue until 2000 when the huge news that people discussed were the Bow Tie Theory, (on which I wrote one of the few remaining examples of my articles from that time for Ralph's FantomNews) and of course, Term Vectors (aka 'Vertical Themes' sparking years of the great 'themes' debates, which itself was part of the push in new directions that seriously boosted the forums at SearchEngineWorld/WebmasterWorld).

[cre8pc]

I spent far more time over at MarketPositionTalk.

Which is where I met Ammon, around 1999? And Phil Craven, Rick Archer... several others.

Jill Whalen and Kalena Jordan have been around for a long while too.

I must admit I loved SEO back in the late 1990's, before Google (BG). Submission was easier, and the results of tweaking SEO techniques could be viewed faster. It was easier to make clients happy because of this too

Kim

[Ron Carnell]

Google didn't arrive until '98 of course, and even then it crept in with no big publicity, so the biggest name back then was Altavista.

You forgot Excite, Ammon.

In '98 and through all of '99, Excite was the engine behind both Yahoo and AOL, driving even more traffic than the veteran AV. I was moderating the Excite forum at JimWorld during that era, and remember well the weekly omg-where-did-my-site-go? scares. Yea, I said weekly. Every single Monday morning, Excite's update would create a mini-Florida back then. It was a crazy time, and I can't imagine why anyone would miss it.

But I do.

[Black_Knight]

Yup, Excite was a biggie back then - and it would have beggared belief then to imagine the end it would come to just a few years later. But it was Altavista that was the Google of its time with new ideas and patents causing a storm.

Nostalgia isn't new of course, and in fact, nostalgia used to be so much better back then.

Back then we were nostalgically recalling the heyday of Infoseek with its literally instant indexing. Submit your page and wham, there it was in the SERPs. Wow that was cool. You could submit, check rank, tweak and resubmit all in real time. No wonder they ditched that. Altavista had instantaneous spidering of course, and it would grab your page as you submitted it, but it wasn't the same.

[sanity]

the heyday of Infoseek with its literally instant indexing. Submit your page and wham, there it was in the SERPs.

Now those really were the days weren't theyl. It's funny for such a relatively few short years the search marketing world has packed a whole lot in.

[NorthStar]

Now that you've brought up Excite:

I've noticed increased traffic from Excite in the past week. Anyone know what they changed?

[bragadocchio]

Owners

See:

Have you been asking Jeeves?