Whats the difference between a "SEO Consultant" and

Whats the difference between a "SEO Consultant" and a used car salesman? Answer: The used car salesman knows when he's lying. First, let me apologize to those of you have have taken offense at that seo joke. Many used car salesman have been calling to complain ..... (be da ding!) Yes, that second seo joke was bad. Sadly, the seo industry includes many bad jokes.... (be da ding! be da ding!) Seriously folks, I've receive alot of calls from SEO sales people and frankly, it would be hard to find a more-misguided group of people. And it's not that they mean to lie, its' just that they "get confused" and carried away and don't seem to really understand much. My impression is that many of them were part of a SEO effort that resulted in some site coming out number one on some search engine for some keyphrase at some time. At the time, they might have just been the secretary at the advertising agency that worked with the client. But, in the course of time, these details got lost. Through the course of exxageration and confusion, they lost track of what their actual role was and what was actually accomplished. Many of them are now boasting: "My last client used this technique and got to number 1 in 3 days!!!!" When they explain to me what they are planning to do, it seems to me to be very unlikely. And now, they are "SEO Consultants" (salepeople) peddling long term contracts with monthly payments. They act like that they really do know how to do SEO cost-effectively, that they really can take any site and make it do well in all the search engines, and that we should be gratified that they "prepared a customer analysis for you for free" (ie ran a few keyphrases thru some sort of analysis). Then, this is a true recent story, I found myself at a lunch with the firm president (saleguy) pushing for a signature on a contract for $5,000 month with no cancellation clause and no "level of effort" commitment or reporting by the contractor?" If you think I'm exaggerating, I'll show you such a contract. The SEO company that I was meeting with was the one pushed by a hosting firm(Webstream) at that time and they were promoting them on the phone and across their site. The company pushed the contract to me repeatedly and really expected me to sign. yick.... ***** In reality, there are really only two people who actually understand how the search engines work. Of course, they disagree....(yes, thats part of the show....) ******* My directory of SEO Jokes, Jokes about SEO, and Jokes about Search Engine Optimizers (OK. That one was a subtle. Did you miss the keyphrase threepeat? Are you paying attention?) Here's a few that I've found from around the web...with bylines and links.... www.stuntdubl.com/2006/03/24/seos-and-lawyers-its-a-joke/ including: - SEOs are safe from the threat of automation taking over their professions. No one would build a robot to do nothing. - If it weren’t for SEOs, we wouldn’t need them. - Talk is cheap…until SEOs get involved. ba ba bing... they just keep coming... Do you know an SEO's definition of SPAM? (thanks to http://www.webnauts.net/) S = SITES P = PLACED A = ABOVE M = MINE sad - this seo joke made me laugh out loud - from http://www.threadwatch.org/node/7134 SEO Anonymous Meeting Hi, My name is Michael and in the past 5 years the longest I've gone without checking stats or email messages is 3 days ..