In a recent article about Reddit.com’s Altruism, we talked about the astonishing power an online community can have when its members join together in common purpose or come out en masse to respond to one person or event. In the case of Reddit, this communal power has manifested time and again in displays of remarkable generosity and altruism. But that same power can be used for rather less philanthropic purposes — like pulling large-scale pranks, bringing down websites, or exacting revenge against people or organizations who dare to offend an online group’s sensibilities. In just such a way has 4chan.com, the image board and message forum where just about anything goes, become a surprisingly effective force in ganging up on people and communities, both online and in “real life.”

By and large, the members of 4chan aren’t given to random acts of kindness. Indeed, the way the site is designed and run, it is somewhat surprising that any activities outside the board itself are ever successfully executed. 4chan is set up to allow anyone to post images, links, and messages with complete anonymity. Originally founded by a man known only as “moot” as an anime image and discussion forum, the site has since been divided into a number of subcategories for different interests — TV and film, video games, photography, travel, and so on. These boards bear at least a semblance of order, and are subject to some basic rules of Internet decorum: no messages or images that would constitute illegal behavior, no flooding the board with advertisements, and so on.  But this basic adherence to law and order falls away more or less completely on the Random board, known as “/b/,” where anyone can post anything for any reason. It is the /b/ board and its inhabitants, known as b-tards, that have become 4chan’s claim to fame and given the site an identity and real-world power outside the confines of the site.

The /b/ board may be the closest thing we’ve seen to complete anarchy on the Internet. The moderation of language, content, and behavior is so minimal as to be nonexistent. In fact, 4chan’s rule #3 sums it up quite succinctly: “Do not post the following outside of /b/: Trolls, flames, racism, off-topic replies, uncalled for catchphrases, macro image replies, indecipherable text (example: “lol u tk him 2da bar|?”), anthropomorphic (“furry”), grotesque (“guro”), or loli/shota pornography.”[1] So, expect to see all of that, and more, on the /b/ board. Now, most of what’s posted there is unmemorable or harmless, if often confusing and pretty gross. And the/b/ board has been responsible for the genesis of quite a few of the internet’s most famous and, in some cases, beloved memes: lolcats, rickrolling, pedobear, and phrases like “epic fail.” The place is a free-for-all, and people mostly go there for silly and voyeuristic fun.

But the /b/ boards have also become a breeding ground for organized mischief. When the b-tards decide to join together to accomplish something, whether for fun or to make a point, it usually takes one of two forms: a distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attack, or hacking into sites (both personal and professional) to manipulate the information and cause chaos. Over time, these attacks have becomes something of a pastime on 4chan, and in the last couple of years they’ve targeted and raided different sites on a fairly regular basis. Now, in fairness, it should be said that even many of the most famous 4chan raids on other sites are generally done out of a (admittedly misguided and mean-spirited) sense of fun, and the consequences are usually no more dire than to put the site out of commission for a few hours. It’s not necessarily done with malicious intent.

But the b-tards have on occasion taken their mischief a step further, engaging in activities with serious consequences, and these have not been perceived as funny by the rest of the world. 4chan has hacked into personal emails, issued thousands of death threats to a few chosen individuals, and cost companies millions of dollars by spreading false rumors. The trick of it is, though, that activities on 4chan are remarkably hard to trace. The members are anonymous, without even needing to provide the usual requisite email address to sign up for an account. The site is not searchable, and its content is not archived. Content simply disappears from it after a fairly brief period of time. All of this makes it extremely difficult to pinpoint exactly who said what or when, and as a result, 4chan is rarely proven to be directly responsible for the mayhem it has caused.

Below are a number of examples of 4chan’s most notorious extracurricular activities.

1. Terrorist Hoaxer Sentenced to Felony Probation

On October 30 of 2007, Jeremy Dalin, 17, posted a terrorist threat on 4chan against Stevenson High School in Illinois, targeting athletes and black students. Another student found the post on 4chan, took a screencap of it, and alerted the authorities. School was cancelled the next day while the building was searched for the alleged bomb(s).

Meanwhile, the FBI traced the message to Dalin’s computer. When confronted about the threat, Dalin insisted that it had only been a joke. Nevertheless Dalin was charged with making false terrorist threats and, the following August, was sentenced to two years of felony probation. He avoided jail time by agreeing to travel around the county speaking to students about the dangers of carelessness on the Internet.[2] Another provision of his sentence limited his Web use for the two years of his probation.

2. FBI Probes 4chan’s “Anonymous” DDOS Attacks

One of the most influential subgroups of the 4chan community is that associated with the group known as  “Anonymous,” an organization of cyber-vigilantes who operate across a number of different Internet forums. In recent months, 4chan has been increasingly linked to Anonymous in a series of distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks.

These attacks are executed by flooding a site with a high enough volume of traffic to overwhelm the site’s servers, causing the site’s capabilities to fail and limiting its availability to more visitors. As of late, Anonymous has been targeting individuals and organizations who speak out or enact penalties against file-sharing and copyright violation, including the Motion Picture Association of America, The Recording Industry Association (RIAA), Hustler magazine, Kiss leading man Gene Simmons, and The British Phonographic Industry.[3]

These attacks have been under investigation for some time, but since a DDOS attack on the US Copyright Office website, the FBI has redoubled its efforts.

3. Project Chanology

The group known as Anonymous has its roots in 4chan, but it has grown into a phenomenon almost as powerful as its parent. Many Anonymous members continue to be active on 4chan as well, but the group has grown to include many people unaffiliated with the /b/ board. In addition to attacking intellectual property defenders and other vigilante activities, the major mission of Anonymous is to protest and, if possible, annihilate the Church of Scientology.

The organized effort against the controversial religion is called Project Chanology, and was publicly announced in YouTube video in January of 2008. The video accuses the Church of Scientology of Internet censorship, and stated its mission to “expel the church from the Internet.”[4] The activities attributed to Project Chanology have included DDOS attacks against the Church’s website, prank calls and faxes, and a steady stream of online posts condemning Scientology and the Church’s cultist activities.

In February of 2008, Anonymous organized the first of a series of formal, IRL (or “in real life”) protests outside dozens of Scientology buildings around the world, with an estimated 7,000 people in attendance.[5] The attacks and protests have continued steadily over the past two years. Below is a video of Anonymous’s message for Scientology.

4. 4Chan Hacks Christian Dating Site

In 2009 an unnamed Christian dating site was hacked and a list of email addresses and passwords stolen and posted on 4chan. Using this information, the aggressors gained access to dozens of Facebook and Twitter accounts, e-store profiles, and other web presences in addition to their victims’ personal emails.

A torrent of abuse ensued: embarrassing updates were made to personal profiles, offensive and inappropriate comments posted on message boards, private photographs were made public. Many of the victims’ profiles suddenly showed that they had converted to a different religion or otherwise renounced Christianity; others proclaimed their homosexuality or that they had contracted AIDS.[6]

Still more horrifying, some of the aggressors were able to hack into PayPal accounts and other sensitive information. The wave of personal attacks caused humiliation and panic among the victims.

5. Time Poll Hacked, Results Manipulated

When Time.com published its third annual World’s Most Influential Person poll, people were pretty surprised by the results. None of the usual suspects — Barack Obama, Oprah, Steve Jobs — made the top 20. Instead, coming in at #1 was none other than the 4chan founder himself, known only as “moot.” Now, moot being voted the world’s most influential person was surprising, but not outside the realm of possibility. But the real eyebrow-raiser was that the first letters in the names of the first 21 spots spell out “Marblecake, also The Game.”

Marblecake is the name of the IRC channel where 4chan started its famous campaign against Scientology, and “The Game” is a meme started on 4chan. Despite the general agreement that the skewed poll results were the handiwork of a 4chan hack, however, Time maintains that the results are legitimate:  “Moot denies knowing about any concerted plan by his followers to influence the poll, though TIME.com’s technical team did detect and extinguish several attempts to hack the vote.”[7]

6. B-tard Hacks Sarah Palin’s Yahoo Account

On September 16, 2008, at the height of the ’08 presidential campaign frenzy, b-tard “Rubico” announced on that he had hacked into vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s Yahoo email account. He had read through her emails, he said, and found “nothing incriminating, nothing that would derail her campaign as I had hoped,”[8] but still he posted the account password on the /b/ board.

Almost immediately, another user logged into Palin’s account and changed the password, sent an email a friend of Palin’s to inform her of the hack, and then posted a screenshot of that email on 4chan as proof that the password had been changed. However, this well-meaning b-tard neglected to cover the new password in the screenshot, so everyone on 4chan could see it anyway. Naturally, the Yahoo account was flooded with log-in attempts, and was automatically blocked.

Meanwhile, Rubico tried to cover his tracks after his initial post about his clever hack, but he left enough traces of his activities that the FBI and Secret Service were able to track him down with little trouble. On September 20^th the world learned Rubico’s true identity: David Kernell, a 20-year-old college student and son of Tennessee Democrat State Representative Mike Kernell. Ultimately Kernell was found guilty on two of four counts: anticipatory obstruction of justice by destruction of records, and a misdemeanor of unauthorized access to a computer. He was sentenced to one year and one day of prison, and three years of probation.[9] Here is how he did it.

7. 4chan vs. Bill O’Reilly

The news of Sarah Palin’s email hack caused a media frenzy and, not unusually, conservative pundit Bill O’Reilly was at the forefront. “I’m not going to mention the Web site that posted this,” O’Reilly said on his show The O’Reilly Factor, “but it’s one of those despicable, slimy, scummy websites.”[10]

The 4chan administrators took this with good humor, posting a banner saying “Despicable, Slimy, Scummy” at the top of the random image board. But some 4chan users took the jibe less gracefully; one user hacked into BillOReilly.com — accessible only to paying subscribers — and posted the names, billing addresses, email addresses, and passwords of 205 subscribers to Wikileaks and 4chan.[11]

8. YouTube Porn Day

Sometimes the 4chan community’s shenanigans are born of a genuine, righteous indignation, rather than boredom or the simple desire for attention. In January of 2010, for example, 4chan retaliated against YouTube for shutting down the account of popular YouTube channel owner Lukeywes1234. The 4chan community had over the previous weeks become increasingly enthusiastic about Lukeywes1234, an 8-year-old boy who posted videos of himself playing games and talking about his interests. Hundreds and then thousands of people began watching and commenting on his videos.

The swell of popularity, however, drew the attention of YouTube’s administrators, who then shut down Lukeywes’s account because he was well under the minimum age requirement to host a YouTube channel. [12] Although YouTube was perfectly within its rights to shut down the account, the 4chan community took it as a personal insult. In retaliation, hundreds of members began uploading pornographic videos onto YouTube, interspersed with innocent footage, all on a private setting; then, on January 6 — declared “YouTube Porn Day” by 4chan — all of the videos were made public at the same time. Countless people, searching for usual YouTube fare, would be subjected to adult videos instead if the YouTube administrators couldn’t find and eliminate all of them.

9. Operation Overload

The denizens of 4chan are keen on feuding with other online communities, and a favorite pastime on the /b/ board seems to be organizing pitched battles against a chosen target. The b-tards have become impressively organized and efficient when it comes to planning and executing denial-of-service (DOS) attacks. One of their most recent victims was the blogging community Tumblr, against whom 4chan bears a long-standing ill-will.

Indeed there is no love lost between the two sites, with members of each trolling the other on a regular basis. On November 15, 2010, the 4chan community kicked their animosity up a notch and organized Operation Overload, a DOS attack against Tumbler. The plan was no secret, and the Tumblr community got wind of it and decided to launch a preemptive strike: Operation Overkitten, a plan to flood the /b/ board with cat pictures while simultaneously attempting to hack into 4chan.

Overkitten was a moderate success, and knocked 4chan out of service temporarily. Operation Overload commenced almost immediately after 4chan service was restored, however, and it was a much larger and more sophisticated attack. Tumbler was overwhelmed, and the site was down for the better part of a day.

10. Google Trend Bombing

Another favorite hobby in the 4chan community is manipulating Google Trends by Googling the same phrase over and over again in order to start a rumor. The rumor then gets picked up by various blogs and gossip sites, and hilarity and/or panic ensues. The b-tards recently executed one very successful Google Trend attack against teen pop star Justin Bieber, googling “justin bieber syphilis” over and over until the world came to believe it might be true.[13]

Encouraged by the success of that venture, the group then set their sights on Oprah. This time, however, the rumor they started had just enough basis in reality to cause some really bad PR for the communications mogul. Oprah had opened up auditions for a “Search for the Next TV Star” competition, the winner of which would star in new reality show, to premiere on her new network OWN in January 2011. People sent in videos of themselves explaining their idea for the show and why they would be great at it. One popular contestant was Zach Anner, a Texas-based comedian with cerebral palsy. Anner held the #1 spot for a week, but then was supplanted by contestant Dr. Phyllis.

At this point, the 4chan community decided to start some mischief and accuse Oprah of rigging the contest. They began flooding Google with searches like “Does Oprah hate the handicapped?” and “Oprah rigs votes against Zach Anner.”[14] The ploy worked — dozens of blogs and news sites started questioning the legitimacy of Oprah’s contest. It wasn’t long before people began pointing to 4chan’s involvement in starting the rumor, but nevertheless the contest remained somewhat tarnished, and Oprah had to engage in some serious damage control.

11. 4chan Starts Steve Jobs Death Rumor

Of course, not all 4chan pranks are as elaborate as those requiring organized DOS attacks or Google Trend manipulations. Sometimes all it takes is one 18-year-old b-tard to get an idea from a 4chan thread and run with it to cause chaos and the loss of billions of dollars.

In October 2008, for example, one such teenaged 4chan frequenter posted an article on CNN’s citizen journalism site, iReport, announcing that Apple CEO Steve Jobs had suffered a massive heart attack and been rushed to the hospital.[15]

Naturally, thousands read this article and took it as evidence that Jobs was dead or dying. Within hours, Apple’s market cap dropped nearly $5 billion. Once the company released a statement assuring the public that no such heart attack had occurred, the SEC began an investigation to determine whether the false article had been posted with the direct intent of driving down Apple’s stock values.[16] It was this investigation that revealed 4chan to be the culprit; it was soon determined that the prank had been just that, and not a quest to bring down Apple.

12.  4chan Brings Cat Abuser to Justice in Hours

Every now and again, 4chan has justice on its side in its ruthless attacks. One day in August, a man found his family’s cat, Lola, inside a closed trash can. As it happens, the family’s CCTV camera had recorded the scenario the previous evening: a grey-haired middle aged woman, walking down the street, had seen the cat, picked her up, and unceremoniously chucked her into the garbage bin, firmly closing the lid before continuing her stroll.

Outraged, the man posted the video on 4chan. Within hours, the b-tards had identified the woman, found her name, address, employer, Facebook page — and began wreaking havoc on her life. They began sending her death threats and hacking her various online profiles; at least one person informed her employer, the Bank of Coventry, of what she had done; and, thankfully, somebody also reported her to the authorities.[17]

Most unfortunately for Ms. Bale, her first public statement about her behavior and the subsequent onslaught was less than apologetic: “I did it as a joke. I never thought it would be trapped, I expected it to wriggle out,” she told reporters. “I don’t know what the fuss is about. It’s just a cat.”[18]

This unwise statement invited further rancor — not just from 4chan, at this point, but from detesters of animal abuse everywhere — and Bale was eventually forced to go into hiding. Her offense wasn’t considered criminal and she was neither fined nor jailed, but eventually she did issue a rather more sincere apology.[19]

13.  Questionable Justice Against Puppy-Thrower

Apparently the story about Mary Bale was not quite famous enough to teach the world that if there’s one thing 4chan won’t stand for, it’s animal abuse. Within weeks of the Lola/trashcan incident, another video surfaced on the /b/ board, this time rehosted from YouTube, of a young woman throwing puppies into a river. The video was accompanied by this message:

“We can determine from the picture so few things:

One, based on assumption, she probably has a Facebook account, no matter what country they’re in.

Two, she is 5ft 6in-5ft 8in, blond, eye color unknown, Caucasian

She has something written upside-down on her red sweater, barely legible, might be of assistance if it’s the product of a local store.

Let’s work together on exposing this sicko! Use the comments.”[20]

Using that scant information and the combined skills and energies of the righteously angered, the b-tards set to work identifying both the woman in the video and the person responsible for filming it. The videographer was easier to find; it wasn’t long before they found the YouTube account where the video was originally uploaded, his hometown in Bosnia, and what appeared to be his Facebook profile.

Attacks on the man began forthwith. But finding the girl who did the actual puppy-murdering was less straightforward. The b-tards identified two Facebook profiles of likely candidates, and began attacking both the girl they felt confident was the culprit and her friends and family. But because nobody came forward to officially admit to the heinous crime, nobody could be sure they were harassing the right person. The Bosnian police began investigating the case, and eventually reported that they’d found the girl living in Bugojno (the same town 4chan had identified). Soon after, a second video appeared, purporting to be an apology for the animal abuse.[21]

**Warning, graphic video below,watch at your own risk.

14.  Twitter Trending Topic Spam

4chan’s credibility as a breeding ground for organized attacks on other sites would, of course, be significantly diminished if the b-tards couldn’t boast a successful raid on social media behemoth Twitter.com. It was apparently for this and no other reason that in July of 2009, a massive invasion ensued on Twitter.

Named “Operation Shitter” on the/b/ board, the attack consisted of an enormous influx of fake accounts all posting at the same time, pushing through the NSFW trending topic #gorillapenis to the top of the trend list.[22]

The blitz of NSFW spam compelled the Twitter administrators to ban vast swaths of accounts, including innocent ones, to force the trend back down.[23] Additionally, the incident was originally blamed on 4chan’s rival site Ebaum’s World, until evidenced surfaced of 4chan-affiliated wikis and links with specific details on “Operation Shitter” and precise instructions on how to spam Twitter.

15.  While Reddit Donates to Dying Girl, 4Chan Targets Her Tormentors

The news that Jennifer and Scott Petkov were taunting their 7-year old neighbor Kathleen Edward about her terminal illness was met with a variety of responses on different online communities. There was, of course, a general outcry against their despicable behavior, and thousands of people expressed their outrage on Facebook, Twitter, and just about every message board and forum in the world.

The Reddit community, in a truly heart-warming show of generosity, donated thousands of dollars to give Kathleen a shopping spree at a local toystore. 4chan, on the other hand, took a somewhat different tack: in true 4chan fashion, some b-tard or other posted the Petkov’s home address and phone number, and the free-for-all began.[24] The Petkov’s house was egged, their online accounts vandalized, their lives threatened by continuous phone and email threats. Scott Petkov was suspended from his job due to the flood of letters to his employer. The Petkovs finally apologized, but have remained the victims of occasional harassment and are still among the year’s most hated internet villains.

Conclusions:

Just as each individual has a capacity for good and evil, so too do online groups. In fact, perhaps it helps to view online communities such as reddit and 4chan as complex individuals, with a variety of motivations and desires, both good and bad.  In individuals, good or evil actions arise out of a variety of influences, from genetics, to upbringing, to situation, to mood.  Online, these same factors still exist, but the format of the community is the essential driving factor in determining which of these individual human influences gain the strongest foothold.

On reddit, individual accountability and incentive (through karma) has created a culture where altruism flourishes over maliciousness.  4chan, in contrast, has no such accountability, providing fertile ground for chaotic and all too often malicious actions. This of course is an incredibly simplistic analysis.  I think it is wrong to characterize 4chan as an exclusively negative force online. In fact, I think there is an essential place for 4chan.  Anonymity can provide a platform for true freedom.  As we move towards a future where our online lives are more and more trackable, saying how we really feel is becoming more dangerous.  Places like 4chan give voice to those who otherwise may have kept their mouths shut, and for this reason, 4chan has incredible value.   Below is a very interesting video about 4chan given by its creator Moot at TED with additional insight into the value of truly anonymous online community.

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[1] http://www.4chan.org/rules
[2]http://cybercrimes.wordpress.com/2008/08/19/4chan-terrorist-hoaxer-jeremie-dalin-will-serve-two-years-of-felony-probation/
[3] http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-20022264-261.html
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Chanology
[5]http://www.lisamcpherson.org/pc.htm
[6] http://thenextweb.com/2009/08/22/facebook-4chan-hack-christians-email-accounts-social-network-profiles/
[7] http://mashable.com/2009/04/27/time-4chan-moot/
[8] http://valleywag.gawker.com/5051933/how-a-b+tard-hacked-sarah-palins-yahoo-account
[9] http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/palin-e-mail-snoop-sentenced-year-prison
[10] http://valleywag.gawker.com/5054185/despicable-slimy-scummy-websites-take-revenge-on-bill-oreilly
[11] http://valleywag.gawker.com/5054185/despicable-slimy-scummy-websites-take-revenge-on-bill-oreilly
[12] http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2010/01/youtube_porn_4chan_lukeywes1234.html
[13] http://ology.com/celebs-and-gossip/4chan-sets-its-sights-oprah
[14] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/22/oprah-rigs-votes-zach-anner_n_621729.html
[15] http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2008/10/friday-apple-links-steve-jobs-still-not-dead.ars
[16] http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2008/10/sources-sec-identifies-steve-jobs-heart-attack-prankster.ars
[17] http://gawker.com/5622237/how-4chan-brought-the-evil-british-cat-lady-to-justice
[18] http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/liz-hoggard-tough-on-the-causes-of-cat-crime-2061938.html
[19] http://gawker.com/5622237/how-4chan-brought-the-evil-british-cat-lady-to-justice
[20] https://mail.google.com/mail/?hl=en&shva=1#inbox
[21] http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-20015305-71.html
[22] http://news.cnet.com/8301-13515_3-10279618-26.html?part=rss
[23] http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1917894/latest_twitter_raid_blame_it_on_4chan.html?cat=15
[24] http://www.liquida.com/blog-news/11939759/facebook-trenton-4chan/

Comments (3)

No matter how big or small the client, your success with them is will be shaped by how effectively you communicate with them about what to expect when working with your firm. It is fact, like most other industries, the search marketing field is very broad and has many acronyms that even the best of us get confused by on occasion.  So, why do we expect our clients to get it the first time?

Here’s an exercise: picture yourself when you first started search marketing and the level of knowledge you had.  Got it?  Now picture your old self as a current prospect.  Isn’t that image scary?  Where do you even begin?  I usually start with day one of the internet.  No really, I give it to them straight up old school, considering the average persons understanding of how the internet works is stuck back in the 90′s with altavista and meta tagging, so, if you want to hook them, you’ve got to start there.  If you can keep them interested all the way to 2009, you’ve got a shot at a healthy relationship.   Its important that you feel out the level of understanding your prospect has about the search engine marketing before attempting to connect the dots.  So, during that process be aware of these misconceptions that you’ll undoubtedly run into. You can choose to run for the hills or expect to ramp up your communications, leaving no gap in knowledge or room for misunderstanding.

Myth Numero Uno: “My Domain Came SEO Optimized”

First of all, SEO can’t possibly come with your domain.  A single domain with no pages or content is only as good as its name, there is nothing else to be “SEO’d.”  That said, picking a name is extremely important, because, in our world, you’re stuck with it.   You can’t decide that on one random day that you’d prefer another domain and just change your name and that’s that.   To avoid a giant seo nightmare, when you’re planning your concept, leave the name for last… right before you develop the site.

Myth Numero Dos: “I was Told Flash is the Best Type of Website… and I Want it”

Flash is so pretty.  I love flash.  My website won’t work without flash.   I can’t achieve the same objectives without flash. SEO websites are ugly, mine is flash based. I know the secret to ranking an entirely flash based website.

I have heard all of these comments. Let’s set the record straight, flash allows you to do some pretty awesome things from a design/user experience basis but for SEO, it’s still useless garbage. So, what we usually go for if the client is hellbent on flash movies and loading bars is to seamlessly integrate the two.

Having a website whose infrastructure is built with solid html, thousands of indexable pages with dynamic content and tastefully created flash movies is the perfect combination of glitz, glam and pragmatic design. ��Your customers will be pleasantly surprised and so will the search engines.

Myth Numero Tres: “You Can Achieve #1 Position by Injecting Some Tags and/or Submitting to Google”

Meta tags are SO TIRED AND OLD.  I mean, yes, all websites should have them just so when a client looks at your source code, meta tags exist, then your client will immediately assume that you’ve must be doing something right.  Thats about all they’re good for nowadays.  The days of SEO being a quick index.html file open, find/replace, use of permutation tools is over (unless you’re doing some PPC). There are literally hundreds of more important factors than how many meta tags you’ve got shoved in.

My buddy knows someone who can submit my website to the top of Google.

Yeah? What does that even mean? Where do you go to submit your site? Is that like the DMV where you go to register your car? Do they take credit cards?

The odd thing is that there are others within this industry that make money by convincing ill-informed people with money to pay them in exchange for submitting their website to the top of google. Lies.

Build an awesome website that is compliant with 100′s of SEO rules of thumb (which change often) + Build 1000′s of quality in-bound links = a start to a successful website.

After you can master that equation, we move onto calculus and testing.  Its not an exact science, every website is different and operates in a niche with unique limits/obstacles but getting your website to the top has nothing to do with contacting google. In fact, they contact you. robots.txt

Myth Numero Quatro:  Anything Worthwhile Usually Takes More Than a Day to Build. Rome did. Your Successful Website Will Too.

Just like there is no Google submission committee where you’re website is denied or approved, there is no such thing as overnight results in the seo/sem world.  If you’re looking for that, PPC is your way to go and in some cases, a great way to test your longer term SEO efforts and keyword targeting.

In fact, the process of working on a search marketing project should be a long term, healthy relationship based on a slow to moderate rise in rankings, traffic and sales.  Depending on the talents of the SEO firm, this may take 2-3 months or 2-3 years based on the strategy they execute and the tools they deploy.  What is strange to me is that its common in the SEO world, despite the better judgement of any mildly successful SEO to oversell and under-deliver.   Logically, if you tell someone to expect a filet and give them ground beef, they’re going to be unhappy.  Be sure to educate your prospect on what to expect, how long they will have to wait for gratification and why it takes so long to achieve the outlined results. Or, if you like being dropped like a fly- show ‘em a filet.

Myth Numero Cinco: “Rankings are Permanent”

There is nothing permanent about the search engines besides fluctuation in the SERP’s and the need for a stellar SEO team to make sure your website is growing at a rate faster than anyone else in that niche.  The goal is to become competitive and continue the rate of progression so that no other website can catch up.  Sounds easy, right?   Some niches are easier than others.  If you’re just starting, make sure your research is done meticulously well and the pro’s outweigh the con’s.

Myth Numero Seis: “Ranking Number One for One Keyword is an Actual Search Strategy”

“I want to rank number-one for cleaning.”  Sure you do.  But why not expand your horizons and realize that while ranking number one for cleaning, if achieved, is probably only a fraction of the relevant traffic on the internet looking for what you’re offering.   The process of getting your website to rank for 10000 tangentially related keywords (long tail) vs. “cleaning” would consist of an inherently different strategy and would need to be planned from the get-go.  Again, I can’t stress the words “Keyword Research” enough here.

Myth Numero Siete: “My Sister is a Social Media Expert”

And my poodle is a brain surgeon.  The hot marketing buzz word right now is SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING.  Just because you poke your girlfriend on facebook or retweet her useless comments of the day, does not mean that you know social media marketing. Knowing how to operate an account and leveraging an entire network of people for the benefit of a single user are two different things and the latter takes a skill that can’t be created overnight and should be taken much more seriously than most people do.

Lets start with the uber official wikipedia definition of what social media marketing is.

“Social media marketing is a term that describes the act of using social networks, online communities, blogs, wikis or any other collaborative Internet form of media for marketing, sales, public relations and customer service.”

So, when your client asks for more sales, and you tell them you’re going to use social media marketing as a way to make that happen, what are you actually saying?  You have got to be clear as day. You’re going to create 30 viral youtube videos that drive X amount of traffic resulting in X amount of links, bringing your rankings up 20 spot and sales up by 400%? Or, are you going to use a power tweet account to build brand recognition and quality links to internally produced content and other media?   With the almost perpetual advent of new social networks with popularity increasing on some and decreasing on others, where should you bring your clients website to be social?  A celebrity blog on reedit? Probably not. A techno-nerd blog on digg? If the content marries the social characteristics of the community, then give it a go.  If not, search for a more targeted venue.

Myth Numero Ocho: “Buying Non-Unique Content or Copying Content From Article Databases is Smart”

A successful blog can do wonders for a business online.   But its got to be original, unique to your website and consistent.  Blogging can do two very important things for your website and business, the first being an instant way to communicate with your constituents, customers, vendors, investor or anyone who has a stake/interest in what your business does.   These people can begin to or even continue building a relationship with you without taking up a huge amount of time so in a sense, blogging is realtime public relations. Blogging can also have the power to build very relevant, fresh links that will help your site rise the rankings as your authority becomes stronger online.   So, no matter if you’re selling widgets or cupcakes, it’s always positive to keep a blog.

Myth Numero Nueve: “I’m going to cut long term costs by buying all of the necessary links.”

Like the millions of other people on the internet looking to cut corners and get rich quick, Google knows who you they are and if you engage in the activity, in that fashion, you will be found out too – and most likely penalized.  So, don’t do it. Build real, quality links to content that is worth while to the consumer and the search engine alike.

Myth Numero Diez: “I Have Someone Who Will Get my Website to #1 for $299″

Really? Thats Interesting.  You are buying into the rubbish that someone can get you valuable rankings in less than a days work?  They are either lying to you to get your business or you’re asking for your website to be ranked for weak terms in a non-competitive niche. The truth of the matter is that no matter the source, the volume of work in getting anything ranked number one for nearly any term can’t be done for that rate. Read the fine print, check their references and ask questions if you don’t understand the proposal.

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