A couple of days ago a friend told me that one of his cousins had just passed away at the age of 42. Today, he gave a bit more details on how his cousin died. Apparently his cousin had been suffering from diabetes and hepatitis for quite some time. A little more than week ago his health took a turn for the worse until he eventually succumbed to complications from his diseases. My friend said that his cousin had started to develop a skin rash so he went to see a dermatologist. Additionally, instead of taking medicines that have proven efficacy and backed by clinical trials and years of study, he opted to self-medicate with these so-called “herbal medicines”.

Immediately two things jump out in his case: 1.) he went to what he thought was the “right” doctor, but because of his history, it was the wrong doctor; 2.) he decided he could cure himself by taking “herbal medicines” that made dubious claims about their effectiveness.

He should have gone to see a physician first, given that he was already under treatment for diabetes and hepatitis. The rash was probably because of his hepatitis medication. Had he gone to his doctor instead of going directly to a dermatologist, his doctor would have given him different medication or modified his prescription.

Regardless of whether or not he went to see the right doctor, it would have all been pointless anyway. He decided to self-medicate and he chose to take some of these “herbal medicines”. I can’t say I blame him. Real medicines are expensive and they can have nasty side-effects (like unbearably itchy skin rash). If you tune in to your favorite local TV station, you will be bombarded with ads for “herbal” concoctions that claim to be effective against a wide range of illness. You will also see local showbiz personalities peddling all this crap as well. There is even one noon-time show that has a couple of these “herbal medicine” companies as one of their primary sponsors. After all, you can never go wrong with scantily clad women who basically tell you to take some pills that will cure you of all your afflictions.

I know that we have ancient herbalists to thank for much of what we call “real” medicines these days. But right now, there is simply too much of this “herbal medicine” gunk is in our airwaves. It must be a pretty lucrative business since the companies that make these things seem to have more than enough money to pay local celebrities to endorse their products. The ads and packaging for most of these high-profile “herbal medicines” are pretty slick as well, meaning they have a good (read: expensive) marketing agency behind them. Despite all the glossy claims made by the ads or the celebrities that endorse these “herbal medicines”, there is something that these companies just barely tell you: NO APPROVED THERAPEUTIC CLAIMS.

What the hell does that even mean?!? You bombard me with ads that tell me that your 7-herbs-in-one capsules effective against arthritis, high-blood pressure, kidney problems, chronic fatigue and it can give me an erection that lasts for 10 hours. Then you tell me, just for half a second in very small print, that you are making no approved therapeutic claims? It turns out that the BFAD (just like the US FDA) classifies these things as “food supplements” and companies must label their products to indicate that there are “no approved therapeutic claims”. There seems to be nothing specific as to how these things should be labeled. Which is why there are times when the disclaimer is barely even readable. They could also care less if the people who watch these ads even know what this disclaimer even means.

Basically this means that they can make dubious claims about the effectiveness of their products but they are cannot be held liable(?) if the product works for you or not. If the product works for you, cool! You can probably send them a letter telling them how effective their product is and they will probably put you in their next ad. If the product does not work for you, too bad for you, they made “no approved therapeutic claims” after all.

I can only wonder how many people, like my friend’s cousin, took these things thinking they will get better soon only to succumb to complications of their disease. If this were a perfect world, the disclaimer will be prominently displayed and explained, in layman’s terms, before and after the glossy ad is shown. But that’s probably asking too much. After all, who in their right mind would buy this crap if we all understood that it may or more likely may not work as advertised.

R.I.P. Steve.

If you came here via Google Search for the keywords “Hectic Capiznon Bloggers” then this rant is for you. Let me guess, you are part of this “SEO Contest” to push this particular set of keywords up in search result rankings. Think about what you are doing for a second. Do one better and ask yourself, “What am I doing? Is this SEO or is this spam?”

What is SEO? SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. What it all boils down to is that you use optimization techniques so that your website shows up first in the search results when someone searches for a particular keyword using Google or Yahoo search. It is a legitimate practice that is not only allowed, it is also encouraged. Google engineers like Matt Cutts encourage good Search Engine Optimization techniques and practices because it makes Google Search better at providing people with relevant search results. The problem lies in some shady “SEO techniques” that subvert the system.

Personally I have no problem with SEO and SEO Contests in general. I have used “white hat” Search Engine Optimization techniques when building CMS-enabled websites. The new Django-based multi-user blog and content publishing platform I am working on has features geared specifically towards SEO. However, I do have a gripe against people who use shady practices for “SEO”. Practices such as link bombing, keyword stuffing, spamdexing, content scraping, and cloaking are not only bad form, they are harmful.

Most SEO Contests I have seen used a set of intentionally nonsensical keywords. The organizers of events who use nonsense keywords such as “Nigritude Ultramarine” and “Seraphim Proudleduck” understand that the actions of their contestants have the potential to pollute search engine indexes. There are some organizers who fail to grasp the importance of keeping search engine indexes free from bogus search results and intentionally use valid, and sometimes commonly searched, keywords for these contests.

“SEO Contests” which use valid keywords like this one for Hectic Capiznon Bloggers are particularly bad. I am not sure if the organizers of this event know it but the following keywords will also match “capiznon”, “hectic blogger”, “capiznon blogger”, “capiznon blog”, “capiznon blogger”, “hectic capiznon” and a few other permutations. From what little information that I have found on this particular contest, there does not appear to be any set of rules as to what SEO techniques are allowed/disallowed (if there are, please point them out in the comments). So what is stopping the participants of this contest from using bad “SEO” practices?

Again I must stress: I have nothing against SEO and SEO Contests in general. But contests like this “Hectic Capiznon Bloggers” Contest pollute search engine results with bogus sites with no useful content on them whatsoever. For example. Search for the keyword “Capiznon” on Google. You will get only 1 relevant search result and it points to a Wikipedia entry. Capiznon is a valid keyword and it is something someone would enter if they were looking for information about the Capiznon Language. Instead of useful information about our cute little variant of Hiligaynon, you will get two pages full of irrelevant search results all pointing to this SEO contest. I will say it outright: You have just spammed the entire world with your nonsense! You have diluted the value of the word “Capiznon” with all this gibberish about a contest that no one really cares about.

Piece of advice to anyone who wants to start yet another SEO Contest: DO NOT USE VALID KEYWORDS IN YOUR CONTEST!

NOTE: The following paragraph has been reworded to make my point clear.

Piece of advice to people (especially the students) who join these contests: take a look at what the contest requires you to do. Review the rules and requirements carefully. There have been contests in the past that required one or more of the following from the contestants:

• Link back to several websites. One or two link backs are not bad. They are a powerful promotional tool. For example Animax Lamb used this to promote their website. On the other hand, link farming is a questionable activity.

• Contestants are required to “sign-off” their domain/blog/website. Now this requirement is fishy. If the contest requires you to transfer ownership of your domain/blog/website or content to the organizers walk away (unless there is at least a 5 figure sum involved ). Your domain/blog/website should be yours and yours alone and if they want it for themselves, you should make them pay through their noses instead of handing it over to them because of some sneaky contest rules.

Update

Note to those who wish to comment: Before you post a comment, please read the first three comments below. This is a conversation between Mr. Duane Cartujano (the organizer of “Hectic Capiznon Bloggers” SEO Contest) and myself. This post is mainly a critique on the way the contest was set up and not on SEO and SEO Contests in general. It is meant to serve as a guide on “How NOT to Do an SEO Contest”. As you can see, Mr. Cartujano has been professional enough to respond with tact to my criticism, even soliciting me for advice on the subject.

I have allowed some disrespectful comments (most probably by one of the contestants) against me. But this is only because I wanted to clarify my position regarding SEO and SEO Contests. This is my personal blog. I can pretty much say whatever I want to say here, but you cannot. So if you wish to leave a comment, please do so in a courteous and professional manner. Any more disrespectful and unprofessional comments will be deleted.

On “SEO” for this blog. It has very little SEO applied to it, only as much as you can get with a default Wordpress installation and this is by intent. The reason is that this is a “disposable” domain name. I might let go of this domain name in the future and I do not want it to have a high Google PR.

Thanks for stopping by.