Top 21 Signs You Need a Break From SEO (2007 version)
By Matt McGee on Sep 4, 2007 | comments (45)
Back by popular demand, one year later! Here’s the 2007 version of “Signs You Need a Break from SEO.” Enjoy!
1.) In the middle of Sunday morning church services, you decide that The Ten Commandments are the original linkbait.
2.) You know the names of Danny Sullivan’s dog, Matt Cutts’ cat, and Matt’s other cat.
3.) You setup a new blog for your 9-year-old, taught him what RSS is and how to use Bloglines, and told him to start reading the Problogger feed, because if Stephan Spencer’s kid can make money online, yours can, too, dammit.
4.) Even though you’re not a homeowner, even though you’re not a real estate agent, and even though you don’t care about real estate in any way, shape, or form, you read the Zillow blog … “because Vanessa Fox works there now.”
5.) Without even looking, you know how to spell Philipp Lenssen‘s name correctly. (That’s one L, two Ps, two Ss.)
6.) You’re filling out a registration form for your child, and when it asks for Emergency Contact, you put Matt Cutts. For Relationship, you put “I commented on his blog once.”
7.) Your spouse makes you erase that, so instead you put Danny Sullivan and “Father (of SEO).”
8.) As you arrive at your vacation destination — a gorgeous, beachside hotel in Honolulu — a pretty, young lady greets you. This is heaven, you think to yourself. She puts a lai around your neck and says “Mahalo!” You punch her.
9.) You’re out with friends and one of them tells a fantastic story. At the end, you start to twitch because you can’t find a “Sphinn This” button anywhere.
10.) Your spouse leaves you a note with five chores you have to get done over the weekend. You ignore it because you’re tired of numbered lists.
11.) When your spouse gets angry three weeks later because the chores aren’t done, you tell her the note is stuck in your supplemental index. And you take away her ability to see what other notes are in there.
12.) You’ve not only thought about, but you’ve also written about the business benefits of Twitter.
13.) You know more about the famous chef Dave Pasternack than you did at this time last year.
14.) You have a dream one night in which you’re on a beach, competing in a Survivor-like competition that has something to do with running as fast as you can and collecting flags from various “stations”, only you’re not trying to win a million dollars and Jeff Probst is nowhere to be found. Instead, you’re competing against Stuntdubl and Jeff Probst’s role is being handled by Danny Sullivan. (I’m not making that up. I had that dream.)
15.) As a music fan, you’d really like to get into Linkin Park, but you don’t because it sounds like a bad neighborhood.
16.) The nurse tells you and your spouse that you’re going to have twins. You secretly hope they’re not identical. You know … duplicate content issues.
17.) You care about what this guy or this guy think about SEO.
18.) You’ve quit your fantasy football league and started a new fantasy game based on points being earned on YOUmoz.
19.) The candidates’ use of social media, SEO, and PPC will have even the slightest impact on your 2008 presidential vote.
20.) Your friend, the longtime Apple geek, is reminiscing one night about how much he loved the Lisa, and you think to yourself … Barone?
21.) You laughed at anything on this list!
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Related: Top 21 Signs You Need a Break from SEO (2006 edition)
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On Sep 4, 2007, David Wallace said:
# 14 is pretty scary, man. But seriously, I’ve had similar dreams. I definitely need a break.
On Sep 4, 2007, Matt McGee said:
I wasn’t sure if I should admit to that one, David, but you know … if you’re gonna talk the talk, you gotta walk the walk.
On Sep 4, 2007, sheseltine said:
Thank goodness I haven’t got as far as having the dream yet. As for the other 20…
On Sep 4, 2007, Stuart said:
I’m still picking pieces of my chicken sandwich off the screen after reading #8
On Sep 5, 2007, Miriam said:
My husband and I read aloud to one another often, and a few months ago, reading a history of ancient China, I announced to him that the backbone of their civilization had been “e-commerce”. (rather than commerce) The scary thing is, I read on several lines further before we both went, “Wait a minute, what did I just say???”
We laughed…but maybe we need a break from the web in general. Your list is hitting home here on too many points, Matt!
Miriam
On Sep 5, 2007, bleachepisodesonline said:
CLASSIC! supplemental index ftw
On Sep 5, 2007, davidmihm said:
Great stuff, Matt!! I particularly liked your delivery on #8. I had a feeling there’d be something about Mahalo when I clicked through to this list & I was not disappointed!!
Same with #11.
On Sep 5, 2007, MaltaSEO said:
One to add to your list… You think to yourself “this is really funny stuff, I should send this to my family.” Then you realize that they wouldn’t understand one thing on the list, let alone think it is funny. So you sit alone at your computer laughing all by yourself.
On Sep 5, 2007, Patrick Schaber said:
Thanks alot, Matt! I was sitting at my desk earlier today laughing out loud while my co-workers looked at me like I was nuts. I can relate to MaltaSEO’s comment.
That was hilarious! Nice work!
On Sep 5, 2007, Matt McGee said:
Thanks for the kind words, gang. I’m glad you all got a few laughs out of it. I can totally relate on not being able to share it with others…. we’re all such geeks.
On Sep 7, 2007, samueljclarke said:
Absolutely brilliant! I couldn’t agree more with the pangs of regret as I fruitlessly scour my email contacts for at least *someone* who will appreciate it along with me; however, being very new to search I must admit (even more geekily!) to a warm fuzzy feeling induced by being able to laugh along with you guys… good grief!
On Sep 10, 2007, Elixir Blogger said:
I’ve been working in SEO for less than a year and I can already relate to far too many of those signs. Thanks for the laughs!
On Sep 11, 2007, alan_bleiweiss said:
LOL…
This is great! If I wasn’t sure before, as soon as I read #4 I knew I was in trouble because as soon as I learned about Vanessa going over to Zillow I subscribed to their blog! hahaha
On Sep 12, 2007, jonkelly said:
Matt, loved the list. Especially #16 since I’m the father of twins who couldn’t be more different!
On Sep 12, 2007, andrewgoodman said:
Great stuff Matt. My personal favorites, 1, 5, 8, and 13. #8 actually brought tears to my eyes and elicited the requisite spit-take (should have listened on the coffee warning)…
On Sep 12, 2007, Matt McGee said:
Elixir, Alan, Jon, Andrew — glad you enjoyed it. Didn’t mean to make anyone spit coffee, but I did mean to get some laughs.
On Sep 13, 2007, oldschool said:
Good comic relief. I laughed out loud when I read #8.
On Jan 6, 2008, adwordsman said:
Hmm this one is PPC not SEO, but check it out:
You can’t teach an old dog new clicks…
search engine marketing is definitely a game for the young:
our 60-something year old accountant sent a bill to one of our clients for our “paper clip” marketing services
i can’t imagine what kind of marketing you could do with paper clips, but i’ll bet we could figure it out with the right ex-army consultant-
that’s right, if there’s anyone who would know how to do paper clip marketing, it would be macgyver.
On May 20, 2008, Fat Lester said:
Starting with #1, this list had me chuckling the whole way through it. I can’t believe I’d never made the association with the 10 Commandments before. So obvious, yet so funny. Great post!
On Jul 14, 2008, Amit Verma said:
Where is 2008 Version?
On Jul 14, 2008, Matt McGee said:
In development….
On Jul 24, 2008, Nick Stamoulis said:
#10 is great…My life always leaves me lists and it continues to grow and grow…not like my SEO lists of course!
)
On Jul 31, 2008, SEOMichael said:
Nice work, very funny. Numbers 1 and 6 got me going.
On Sep 24, 2008, Chris Monty said:
Holy cow. My soda just came out my nose. That was funny! I would put it on my blog but I would be too worried about duplicate content. I would put it on my blog but I would be too worried about duplicate content.
On May 16, 2009, D. Watts said:
It was a good laugh. I feel burned out and I don’t know who the people are you mentioned. Guess I have a long way to go.
On Jul 2, 2009, Clayton Shumway said:
Great article, point 21 was where I fell in. Guess I need to do more SEO!