SEO does NOT work according to Google’s head of sales advertising

[Nacho]

Andy Beal’s outstanding findings at the Search Engine Lowdown (http://www.searchenginelowdown.com/2004/07/googles-patrick-keane-afraid-of-search.html) about how Google's head of sales advertising, Patrick Keane, basically replied:
there is no way to improve your rankings on Google and that any claims by a SEO company were false. He suggested that a few simple "design changes" were all that could be done and that a SEO firm wasn't needed.
Wow! I agree with you Andy, I can’t believe HE (hopefully not all Google) can not realize that everyone involved with the SEM industry is their BEST sales force. Even when accounts have been created directly by businesses, SEM firms then come in and multiply the number of keywords, clickthroughs and conversions.

[AndyBeal]

I believe Patrick heads-up all agency sales relationships, so I it's in his interests to push AdWords as much as possible. That being said, his comments were very ill-informed. If SEO didn't work, why would Google sponsor SES in San Jose, send a number of engineers to discuss SEO tactics, have staff post in SEO forums and the following qoutes on their webmaster info pages...

"Many SEOs provide useful services for website owners, from writing copy to giving advice on site architecture and helping to find relevant directories to which a site can be submitted."

"While Google does not have relationships with any SEOs and does not offer recommendations, we do have a few tips that may help you distinguish between an SEO that will improve your site and one that will only improve your chances of being dropped from search engine results altogether"

http://www.google.com/webmasters/seo.html

[David Wallace]

Yep, he definitely put his foot in his mouth on that one. I wonder what the audience response was?

[Daria_Goetsch]

...If SEO didn't work, why would Google sponsor SES in San Jose, send a number of engineers to discuss SEO tactics, have staff post in SEO forums and the following qoutes on their webmaster info pages...

You are right, of course SEO works or they wouldn't be doing the above. Unfortunately for them they won't make as much money with traditional SEO as with AdWords. Bad choice of words on their part.

[AussieWebmaster]

You are right, of course SEO works or they wouldn't be doing the above. Unfortunately for them they won't make as much money with traditional SEO as with AdWords. Bad choice of words on their part.
They have to know that one does not exist without the other. SEO helps grab traffic.... but if that traffic is worth grabbing then obviously adwords is as important if not more so.

The fact that people are conscious of the traffic that can be gained by good search placement makes SEO an important part of any internet marketing strategy, to think otherwise is naive and ultimately a costly error.