[skytreader]

When I saw that sticker, I immediately wanted to give it to this SEO consultant I worked with several years ago. We had a Python + Angular stack so among our first conversations went like:

Him: Okay your biggest problem right now is that your website is written in Java.

Me: Uhh...no...we use Python. Why is our choice of backend language a problem? (I honestly thought this involves a development in Google v. Oracle that I didn't know about.)

Him: No, no. It's all in Java. Look...(he uses a tool that shows us what Googlebot sees).

Me: Ah...Javascript.

Him: Yes, Java.

I instantly recognized the situation I was in so I didn't opt for pedantry. I adjusted accordingly but I kept using Javascript on my side of the conversation. I dunno if he ever caught on to that or if someone ever corrected him but this has been some kind of inside joke in my engineering team at the time.

I'm hoping if he has this on his laptop lid, it would serve as a "hobo sign" for future software engineers he might have to meet with. (Not to be mean on Christmas! He gave us competent advice, this issue aside.)

[Aeolun]

I’m really curious what good advice an SEO consultant that knows so little about his platform he cannot distinguish Java from Javascript can give.

I would be immediately suspect of anything else they said or did.

[justbaker]

Sounds like he needs to consult some books and articles and get to that “I don’t know what I’m talking about” moment.

[skytreader]

Man, this obnoxious HN arrogance again. And on Christmas Eve too. I specifically added that Not to be mean part because it's simply not fair that people judge your competence based on an unflattering anecdote. But of course, here we are. :(

Look here:

- He was a consultant; not part of the team. It wasn't his platform, strictly speaking.

- That said, Java and JS was created 1995. Google was founded 1998. I'd give two or three years more before the term "SEO" even became a thing. And then a few more years before it became an established sub-industry. My point is, people working in a Web/IT field have been confusing Java and JS far before SEO's time. These people aren't programmers though they may have worked closely with programmers. Does that make them incompetent at their job?

Marketing: Hey we want a tie-in with the release of the first Harry Potter film! (Good suggestion) Can Java make magic spell effects when people click on our website?

Programmer: Heck no, dunce. First of all, you're thinking of Javascript. Second of all, even if we were a Java Applet, that would be difficult. Third of all, our website is basically in Flash so yes we can accomplish that with some ActionScript.

- You know why these people can't distinguish Java from JS? Because the distinction doesn't matter for their job! The job of an SEO consultant, in particular, is to come up with a strategy; this takes a lot of approaches, and technical execution is a small part of the pie. A lot of the companies they would work with won't even have dedicated engineers developing the platform.

The point of the meeting I related, ICYMI, is that our website is basically "code not content" in the eyes of Googlebot so that needed to be addressed. It could've been spewing out Brainfuck and the point of the meeting stands.

----

SEO is really a different kind of beast (I've talked about it here other times before). In that team I'm ready to admit that I, the guy who can distinguish between Java and Javascript, had the least impact; there was a low bar on the programming skills needed and I just happened to be the guy with nothing else on his plate then. I was a "fungible asset" as the cool kids would say nowadays. Shows you how little technical programming details matter for general SEO.

And yet with that guy's strategy we achieved (and this goes on my resume):

- from page nowhere of hyper-targeted keywords we made it to page 1 within a few months. Crept up in ranking slowly with marketing, not technical, strategy. Then from that content we managed to score in less-targeted keywords.

- by the end of my tenure as the "Growth Hacker" we went from 200K users to past the 1M mark with zero marketing ad spend. (We were actually bleeding on ad spend with very little ROI that's why they kickstarted the SEO initiative.) It was slow but steady, not the hockey-stick growth that would've pulled Sequoia Capital on board but enough for our investors.

----

To be honest, this is one long comment too many than I planned today. But what can I do duty calls (https://xkcd.com/386/) even on holidays. Merry Christmas/Happy holidays and a fine new year HN community. I'm pulling myself off-duty for HN comments for the rest of the calendar year.

[justbaker]

> My point is, people working in a Web/IT field have been confusing Java and JS far before SEO's time. These people aren't programmers though they may have worked closely with programmers. Does that make them incompetent at their job?

It’s been around for nearly thirty years. It entirely matters if they are saying “your site has poor SEO because it uses Java” rather than “because it uses JavaScript”. I’m glad you reinforced it without becoming arrogant or standoffish and seemed to meet your goal in working with him. I’m not sure I’d been able to do the same myself. Merry Christmas :)

[Aeolun]

I’m glad you reached your goal, which is exactly why I was asking.

I’d genuinely like to know if someone had a good experience since it might change my current view.

Unfortunately, the tone of your comment did the exact opposite. You blame me for being uncharitable in the same breath that you are being immensely uncharitable yourself.

In my experience, people that don’t know the difference are invariably windbags that read results off of whatever google dashboard. It’s not like this skepticism on HN comes out of nowhere. There’s a fuckton of charlatans in the SEO space.

I’ll admit part of it is that nobody listens to me when I tell them the same thing (5 months before) their $200/hour consultant is telling them.

There was another section here, but in the spirit of Christmas I’ll leave off.

Have a good one :)