On April 6th, 2021 a question was posted: “Who do you blame for Yahoo Answers getting shut down?” reads one of the final question ever submitted to the venerable advice service.

Who are the type of people to use Yahoo Answers?

• People who don’t take life seriously, mostly teenagers, but then again we all know the type of adult to use Yahoo Answers for humour
• The minority are genuine folk searching the internet for an answer that are not au fait with Google search. After all, who uses the Yahoo! Search Engine in 2021?
• Low-level amateur SEO’s looking for backlinks like u/BizTuber on Reddit

SEO Amateurs Fixate on Backlinks

Blog commenting, forum posts and answering Yahoo! questions or posting on Quora seem to prevail 15 years after Google slyly let us know that these spammy efforts no longer work to improve SERPs ranking.

Personally, I have got no conception about people in their 20’s reading an article on the internet telling them to go forth and spam, just make sure to leave a comment. “Great Blog! I enjoyed reading it! For luxury watches you should check out xxx domain!” Sigh

Poor Google Ranking Strategy

Maybe it’s the menopause but this niggles me no end. Here I am, a hard working sole trader with white and grey hat SEO morals, seemingly in competition with so-called Search Marketers who offer a menu list of tasks for you to buy.

Here’s an example for £50:

Buy now!
• 5 Document Sharing and Submissions
• 25 High Authority Links
• 5 High Metrics
• 5 Audio Sharing
• 10 Business Directory Listings
• 20 Low OBL Blog Comments
• 5 Article Submission
• 10 Gov and Edu Profile Backlinks
• 50 Blog Comments Tier 2
• 50 Bookmark Tier 2
• 5 Design Galleries
• 5 Artist Portfolio
• 10 Web 2.0 Blog

I feel this is why spam emails exist, there’s a certain percentage of the population online who are vulnerable and don’t have a swollen bank balance. People in this category are more inclined to fall for internet romance scams, fake lottery wins, and getting cheap SEO with a long list of “Things That I Don’t Understand”

SEO Things That I Don’t Understand But Everyone Talks About Them

Here’s an example of a recent client enquiry:

“Hi Nina, I am looking for Google analytics, PPC, and Google Adwords guidance and implementation for my business based in central London.
Start date would be as soon as possible. Also please let me know how much it would cost, your availability, and how quickly it can be done.
I don’t understand all the technical terms, but I do understand what I am trying to explain. Would you be able to create a package just for us that will improve our SEO efficiently and organically.”