This past week, as I sort through the many and varied emails and newsletter I receive I happen across this WebProNews sponsor message pumping the “information” about Google and long tail keyword Search Engine Optimization and the effect this has for directory-themed websites.

While SEO is always a good thing to grow natural traffic to your website, so-called “long tail” keyword optimization is a myth and always will be a myth and those people/companies that base their business model on this optimization strategy will always be cheating their clients.

Other than natural SEO a “long-tail” optimization is not possible as an SEO advertising pitch by not so good SEO companies because it is impossible to track except in reverse, meaning you check your traffic logs and tell yourself you’ve done a good job when you see “restaurant french cuisine” as a traffic highway to your website.

As long as there are unethical SEO people out there this “long tail optimization” strategy will be a big money play. It’s a result you get to prove when it happens and there’s always a hole in any search engine somewhere that will send visitors to your website, not on one keyword but when visitors end up on your site when they treat Google (or Bing, Yahoo, etc) as a magic 8-ball, looking for answers to questions that are better asked of a real person.

I will use one of my favorite questions to Google as an example: “how to drive him crazy“.

Now, while this “long tail” drives good traffic to my site, was there any effort to optimize my page for this long tail keyword? No, of course not. But if I said there was an effort, you’d have to believe me because how could I be wrong? I get traffic from this long tail, the proof is in the pudding.

So, believe what you want, but I prefer to remain in the light and know that there can be no positive proof of SEO for long tail keywords. If there are disagreements, please let me know, I’d love it for you to prove your “method of long tail SEO” to me.