Passive Aggressive Attack or Misunderstanding?

So I’m quite irked by one of the recent Going Natural videos from StomperNET, titled “Warning – Advanced SEO Technique Does NOT Work“.

I’ve expressed my feelings on Jerry West’s blog on a post titled, “Leslie Rohde Slams the LSI Model“, and it could be possible that I’m jumping to conclusions.

But it is undeniable that the controversy this video has generated, has caused many of the people who saw the video to believe that the methodologies Leslie was attacking were that of Bruce Clay and my friend & mentor, Russell Wright from ThemeZoom. (According to Jerry West, they are not and I would lean towards believing him.)

If you look at the comments on the SN Anti-LSI video, members of their community are railing on Russell Wright with no response from anyone from StomperNET. Now you may be asking, “how is that StomperNet’s fault?”

Well, my position is that if your emails and video aren’t clear about what you are speaking out against, and as a result, your followers start spewing negative crap about someone on your own blog, it is your responsibility to clear up any misunderstandings… especially if you approved those negative comments on your blog, without properly addressing them.

That aside, if anyone has any doubt about the methods Bruce Clay and Russell Wright teach, here’s my personal perspective/experience:

I don’t know Bruce personally, but the results he’s produced for his own personal website speaks for itself.

BruceClay.com has some VERY VERY impressive rankings including top rankings for “search engine optimization“, among many other extremely competitive terms. All you need to do is look at the title tags on his website, and do a Google search for the keyterms in the tags.

I don’t know of anyone with more impressive results, with a single website, thanks to his silo methodology and impressive inbound linking campaigns.

I do know Russell Wright personally, and I have to say that he has to be the most intelligent human beings I’ve ever met and spoken with. And I don’t say that lightly, considering I spent 4 years at MIT studying, working and learning from some of the most brilliant scientist, professors and academics in the world while earning my bachelors there.

Russell’s teachings about SEO and on running a consulting business, have been directly responsible for our thriving business, and over $100,000 in revenue since November of 2008 when my partner and I joined the Theme Zoom Protege program, with Jon Keel and ThemeZoom.

I’ll admit that when friends of mine and people I trust are attacked, I might over react and maybe I did that on Jerry West’s blog by accusing SN of passive aggressive marketing tactics.

But the fact remains that the folks from StomperNET have remained pretty silent with regards to the baseless and negative comments directly attacking Russell, and TZ, which they approved on their blog.

Leslie Rohde responded with regards to silo’ing (which he endorses btw), but not about the attacks.

That being said, there is no denying that the technical content in the Going Natural videos is outstanding as is their product. What I’m looking for is the restoration of the integrity in their marketing.

Jerry West told me to have a beer and chill out… I had the beer and it tasted like crap. (I normally love beer.) I’d like Leslie or someone from StomperNet to address this issue directly to kill the unfair and negative buzz, once and for all.

Then I can feel ok with recommending STSE program to our list and members. (Not that they need it.)