You know, regardless of my personal opinions on SEO, I think that in tech fields, rather than searching for longevity, it is better to choose what is good for you in the short term. (For money, fun, etc.) Tech changes so quickly it's impossible to count on anything staying stable for very long.
What do the forumites -- especially those in the IT field -- think of search engine optimization companies? I am not asking about their efficacy; I'm asking about their viability in the marketplace and the longevity such companies might have. I may have the opportunity to go to work for one as a copywriter, which would probably be a big step up in terms of pay scale. It would mean a much longer commute. It would also mean a much more stable schedule. I don't want it to mean a risk. Thoughts?
They're really shady. Basically they charge non-technical people who happen to have web sites a lot of money to tell them really obvious things you should do to improve their web site search ranking.
Worse, if you are going to be writing copy, then that is the shadier kind of SEO. Basically there will be web sites that have bad search rankings, so you will be writing "fake" content that serves no other purpose than to add content to sites that otherwise don't have content. Where I used to work we had a site that was really nothing more than a form we wanted people to fill out. We created a bunch of extra pages on the site from copy/pasta content to get the site to show up in search results for when people searched for certain things. That's going to be all you are doing.
If you're only concerned about security and money, and don't care that the actual work is super lame, then the news is a little better. Google isn't going away anytime soon. Successful SEO companies have been, and will continue, to scam companies into paying them big money. The only thing to worry about is that Google's algorithm could change enough to wreck you, which has happened in the past.
Last week my girlfriend and I went to HUMP!, which the The Stranger's (Dan Savage's paper, if you haven't read the thread) annual amateur porn festival/contest. It was a lot of fun, and we got to watch a bunch of wacky amateur porn and vote on what was best, but the only thing I really wanted to relate was that while I was there, Dan was talking to a guy in the seat next to me and I was having to hold in a giant fanboy squee while Bonnie - who interned at The Stranger for almost a year and ran into Dan on a regular basis - rolled her eyes at me.
That was definitely an homage toa softer world.Gabe even drew one panel out of focus, in characteristic ASW style.
Yeah. Also, I don't care what anyone else thinks, a photograph broken up into "panels" with no narrative sequence is not a comic.
As far as whether or not its a comic goes, the lack of narrative is the only catch for me. It's more like graphic surrealist poetry, which is too clunky to use as a definition for one thing. However, gag comics don't necessarily have narratives, and they have a healthy tradition.
However, gag comics don't necessarily have narratives, and they have a healthy tradition.
Are you talking about one-panel gag comics? Because I'd argue that those are also not comics -- they're cartoons, but not comics. EDIT: Also, I think there is (or at least can be) a narrative there. A good single illustration can tell a lot of story -- look at any Norman Rockwell painting for an example. A Far Side comic has a narrative -- things are happening. They're just condensed into a single moment. But, in my opinion at least, comics are about what happens when you string pictures of moments together.
Are you talking about one-panel gag comics? Because I'd argue that those are also not comics -- they're cartoons, but not comics. EDIT: Also, I think there is (or at least can be) a narrative there. A good single illustration can tell a lot of story -- look at any Norman Rockwell painting for an example. A Far Side comic has a narrative -- things are happening. They're just condensed into a single moment. But, in my opinion at least, comics are about what happens when you string pictures of moments together.
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Worse, if you are going to be writing copy, then that is the shadier kind of SEO. Basically there will be web sites that have bad search rankings, so you will be writing "fake" content that serves no other purpose than to add content to sites that otherwise don't have content. Where I used to work we had a site that was really nothing more than a form we wanted people to fill out. We created a bunch of extra pages on the site from copy/pasta content to get the site to show up in search results for when people searched for certain things. That's going to be all you are doing.
If you're only concerned about security and money, and don't care that the actual work is super lame, then the news is a little better. Google isn't going away anytime soon. Successful SEO companies have been, and will continue, to scam companies into paying them big money. The only thing to worry about is that Google's algorithm could change enough to wreck you, which has happened in the past.
EDIT: Also, I think there is (or at least can be) a narrative there. A good single illustration can tell a lot of story -- look at any Norman Rockwell painting for an example. A Far Side comic has a narrative -- things are happening. They're just condensed into a single moment. But, in my opinion at least, comics are about what happens when you string pictures of moments together.