My word of the week is “entropy”.

I don’t even know where it came from. I was one of those awful kids who read too much, and to this day strange words hijack my vocabulary when I’m trying to have a normal, human conversation. Because I’m far too much of a clever dick to resist showing off, they often get inflicted on my long-suffering colleagues. I was looking for a word that meant “if we don’t do something now this will get worse and worse”, and out it came.

WTF is Entropy?

Entropy is a physics concept, and my pseudo pop-science trivia knowledge tells me that it’s from the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The Second Law of Themodynamics goes as follows:

“In a closed system, all things tend towards entropy.”

I first came across this in The God Delusion, as an argument to support creationism. If all things, when left to themselves, tend to crumble into disorder, how can Evolution, which requires ever increasing complexity and order, possibly occur without some form of God to power it?

As an argument, this is bollocks, because it conveniently ignores the first half of the sentence:

“In a closed system…”

The Earth is not a closed system. It’s hooked up to a constant stream of energy in the form of sunlight, and this input is why we have weasels and sporks and #danceponydance instead of, well, not a lot.

So a closed system, no matter how complex, is doomed to fail. It doesn’t matter how good you are, if you’ve not got a channel from the outside world somewhere feeding something in, you’ll not just stay static. You’ll go backwards.

What SEO Blogs Aren’t Teaching Us About SEO

Where’s your input? Other SEO’s? Industry blogs? Maybe you occasionally move off the beaten path and read up on some more general marketing topics? That helps, but if everybody in marketing only reads about marketing topics on marketing blogs with marketing comments by marketers, that’s still a closed system.

I’m always looking for new SEO blogs to add to my bulging list of RSS feeds. I check inbound.org several times daily. And to be honest, I’m getting bored of it. I’m not learning much from rehash after rehash.

It’s one of the reasons I’ve not been inspired to write much myself. Do we really need yet more SEO blog posts? Or does our system need more outside input?

Why Are We Ridiculing the Solution?

There have been a few recent posts about the dearth of good quality content in the SEO industry generally. I mostly agree, but the fact that the “what X taught me about SEO” article format has become the source of generalised industry derision bothers me a little.

Sure, it’s not particularly elegant, and it’s mostly used to generate retweet worthy headlines instead of genuine insight, but if used right it’s got the potential to push back the boundaries, open up our closed system and deliver us from entropy.

The best SEO ideas I’ve come across in the past six months have not been published in blogs about SEO. They’ve been about psychology, statistics, other stuff. My RSS reader needs outside input. It needs some more diverse reading material to replace the same old same old.

The Entropy Experiment

My challenge: I’m diversifying. I’m going on an SEO article diet. As far as I can manage, industry-specific reading will be replaced with alternative topics that interest me in the search for new ideas and fresh perspectives.

I may well start with some Physics.

Should it really be possible to wipe the slate clean, and rise from the ashes of a spammy link profile as a born-again white hatter?

Bing’s introduction of a link disavowal tool has fuelled speculation that Google are also considering allowing webmasters to distance themselves from the links pointing to their site, even leading to a suggestion that Google is “dodging responsibility“ by failing to introduce a similar feature.

To me, the idea that a site slapped for manipulative link building tactics should, after a particularly hard-hitting algorithm update, be able to simply renounce its old ways and disavow the same manipulative links that were previously the cornerstone of its campaign is a slap in the face to those who’ve taken the long-term approach of quality link building.

Granted, though, the hardcode spammers aren’t really the folks we’re talking about, and in reality any link disavowal system by Google will be built to preclude that possibility – I’d be very surprised if a Google disavowal system didn’t also include some form of manual review. Instead, the argument for link disavowal is that it offers a lifeline to those struggling with the effects of negative SEO carried out by jealous competitors, or who were unwittingly seduced by the siren call of a naughty black hat agency.

To the ‘naive webmasters’, I say this: nowhere else in business (or in life) is there a get-out clause for those who are too greedy, too lazy or too stupid to properly research the people they choose to act on their behalf. While site owners duped by the promise of number one rankings for peanuts may not be personally to blame for the spammy SEO techniques that have destroyed their rankings, they sure as hell should be prepared to take responsibility for their poor decision making, and either put the work in to fix the damage or cut their losses and move on if their link profile is beyond repair.

To those who claim negative SEO by their competitors has caused their site’s penalty, I say this: if your site has so little to differentiate it from the competition that a few poor links can hurt you, you’re doing it wrong. Sites with a strong brand, an engaged user base backed up by social signals and a genuine reason for existing would be virtually impossible to unseat with negative SEO. If your site’s hold on its rankings was so tenuous that negative SEO would actually actually possible, your moment in the sun was severely limited anyway.

If a site has a genuine customer base, something real to say and something genuine to offer, it’ll be able to withstand an algorithm change or a few poor quality links thrown its way, whether these were built internally, by an agency on their behalf or maliciously by a competitor. If all it’s got going for it is a series of spammy techniques artificially forcing it up the rankings, it never deserved to be there in the first place and doesn’t deserve to be reinstated.

If your site is worth anything at all, you’ll have the authority and trust to make it worth putting in the work to recover from a penalty. Everybody makes mistakes, but if you have the basics in place it is possible to get back on track. If you don’t, you have way bigger problems than your link profile, and you probably don’t have anything worth saving.

If your site is an identikit affiliate site or reseller with generic product descriptions and no unique value proposition.

If you don’t make an effort to reach out to your customers via other channels, and rely entirely on a handful of high ranking keywords to keep your business afloat.

If you find it so difficult to differentiate yourself from the competition that a rival webmaster building spammy links to your site could actually have a significant impact on you.

If you blindly believe the snake oil SEO salesmen when they promise you massive gains for virtually no investment, and swallow their promises without questioning their tactics.

Then Google doesn’t need you, and nobody else will miss you. You are undeserving of Webmaster Tools-based redemption. Your SEO strategy has fundamental issues that go way beyond the links you were building, and disavowing a bunch of them won’t even begin to get that back on track.

Here endeth the lesson. Don’t agree? Tell me in the comments:

It’s dangerous out there.

Image credit: APM Alex

Perhaps you’ve been expecting for this for a long time, and were among the first to pull down the shutters and crouch in the darkness, shotgun in hand. Or maybe you’ve just woken in a hospital bed to find that everything you thought you knew was wrong.

To many, Google’s recent updates have had more than a touch of apocalyptic horror about them. Huge swathes of links have been devalued, previously successful sites dropped without trace from the rankings. The tried and trusted link building practices you’ve come to rely on are mere shells, grey-skinned and blank-eyed, gnawing on the entrails of some less fortunate webmaster.

Whether you’re a master of survival or a terrified newbie, here are some tips for surviving the SEO zombie apocalypse:

1. Build your bunker

Image credit: Kecko

Surviving a zombie apocalypse isn’t just about getting out there with a baseball bat and smashing some undead skulls. You need a defensive position to fall back on, whether that means commandeering an abandoned nuclear bunker or boarding up the windows and doors on your house.

Those who survive are the ones who prepared in advance, stockpiling food and weapons and ignoring the scorn of their families and neighbours. They won’t be laughing when you slam the door in their stupid, terrified faces, will they?

Likewise, there are defensive steps every SEO can take to guard against any future apocalyptic changes to the algorithm. Simple steps, like maintaining as varied a link profile as possible or building up alternative traffic sources from social media referrals or partnerships with other high traffic sites. These might seem like a lot of effort for something that might never happen, but they could be the difference between your site weathering the storm or being eaten alive by a horde of walking corpses.

2. Stay away from large settlements

Photo by Caio Schiavo

Everything’s better in the big city, right? There could be survivors, maybe even an army base. Those signs look so big and bright, dotted amongst the burned out cars and scattered body parts, that it’s hard to believe there’s not still civilisation out there, somewhere.

Wrong.

You’re an idiot if you follow the crowd. The cities will have been among the first places to be overrun, the shops will already have been looted, and any survivors you come across will most likely relieve you of your weapons, food and footwear before leaving you alone and unarmed to take your chances as night falls.

It’s tempting to replace lost blog network links with other easy targets; EzineArticles, link networks, directories. Loads of people have got these links already, they seem to work, and hey, they look like such an easy solution.

Loads of webmasters have already trodden that road, which is exactly why you shouldn’t. Do you really think there’ll be anything of value left by the time you get there? Find your own path.

3. Don’t get sentimental

Image credit: Elbragon

“Let’s not do anything hasty…”"I’m fine, really.”

…says your best friend, as dark blood seeps from a fresh bite mark. They’re starting to look a little pale round the gills: their flesh waxy, their eyes developing the trademark milky glaze that signifies a conversion into one of the living dead. They say they just need some sleep and they’ll be fine in the morning. Do you believe them?

Often, we cling on to our favourites for far longer than is safe. Perhaps that link building tactic has served you well over many months, years even. It’s always been there to fall back on, and it’s saved your neck more times than you can remember. But now, it’s been marked out. Rumours are spreading of devaluation, or even penalties.

The temptation to keep going until the bitter end can be almost overwhelming, but we have to be strong: a compassionate shotgun between the eyes of an old friend now will save you the pain of having to chainsaw them in the face two days later, when they corner you in a dark petrol station.

Survive and rebuild

For survivors, there’s no time to relax. The next algorithm change could hit anything, any time, and even if you’ve dodged Penguin there’s no guarantee that you’ll not be affected. Being prepared for the worst means choosing your SEO tactics carefully – don’t rely too heavily on any one tactic, and ask yourself whether the links you’re building could come under fire in future, even if they haven’t yet.

Being prepared also means hedging your bets – if losing your SEO traffic would completely destroy your business, you need to diversify. Do some disaster planning, and work on building some alternative traffic channels so you’ve got other options if the worst happens.

Got your own survival tips? Tell me in the comments: