Hey, hey!
I spend a lot of time being angry, so it probably won’t surprise you to know that I’ve spent the last 7 days since I last spoke to you angry too. I might as well just make it my whole personality with the SEO industry being the fucking binfire that it is right now.
(This is the 17/02/2026 issue of my newsletter – subscribe here)
Don’t get me wrong – I’m not angry that I’m not going to have a job any longer (I’m lucky enough that I get enquiries for SEO most days) or that I have to learn something new (I learn new things all the time, it’s something I love about SEO). I’m not angry as such that there are companies out there making a lot more money than I am (same as it ever was).
But I AM angry – fucking angry – that business owners, website owners, marketing directors, businesses small and large are being ripped off left right and fucking centre, every single fucking day.
What makes me so angry, I guess, is the frustration. I can SEE it happening, I FEEL it happening. And I can’t stop it.
It’s not my job to stop it, I know that- I’m not that important. I’m just one small freelance SEO, shouting into the void a lot of the time. Better and bigger SEOs than me are fighting the fight, but I still speak to people most days who have been sucked in, bamboozled and jargon-ed into paying for something they don’t need, given absolutely fucking awful advice.
Some people don’t like me because I’m loud and bolshy. I get that, and yes, I often revel in it. But I’m loud and bolshy largely because I care.
- I care about the marketing director who paid thousands for an AEO audit that was complete and utter shite from beginning to end.
- I care about the business owners being told by a company that should know fucking better that they need something that anyone who matters has said is complete bollocks.
- I care about the people in my industry who feel they have to jump on a bandwagon to keep their businesses going.
And, twee as it sounds, I care about SEO. I care about website owners. I care about small businesses and people who’s livelihoods often depend on getting these things right, but are being given bad advice.
I don’t have an answer, I don’t know if anyone does.
And I’m not going to try and wrap this up with a neat little bow, because there isn’t one. The anger IS the point. The frustration IS the point.
What I do know is that every time one of you replies to these newsletters with your own horror story – another shit audit, another agency promising the earth and delivering fuck all, another “strategy” that was just buzzwords in a slide deck – it tells me the problem is real. It’s not just me being a grumpy cow on the internet.
Maybe the best I can do is keep being loud about it. Keep calling it out when I see it. Keep hoping that somewhere, someone reads one of these emails before they sign that contract, and thinks “hang on a minute.”
That’s not much, but it’s something.
Anyway. Thanks for letting me rant. Normal service will resume next week, probably. Unless someone pisses me off again between now and then. Which we all know is going to happen, right?
Always non-wanky
Nx
