It’s pretty much common knowledge: Web developers hate SEO experts. In all fairness, however, the feeling is mutual. But there are some good reasons for this culture clash.
“Same Thing” Sickness
One thing that SEO’s hate about web developers has to do with the way they execute or fail to carry out a very specific request.
A case in point: An SEO requests a developer to create a 301 redirect between pages. The developer does a meta-redirect or a 302 redirect citing that it’s the “same thing”.
From the developer’s perspective, it’s the same thing for the user, but from an SEO standpoint, it affects the search engine rankings.
The Death of Optimization
Developer skills and SEO techniques go hand in hand, so when if a developer fails to do their job, then it doesn’t matter what the SEO team does. Even with a copy of Google’s secret algorithm in hand, the site won’t rank if the site won’t work.
A case in point: A client implements some redesign elements. Suddenly, traffic drops by 30%.
The problem: Many of the pages don’t load like they should and the ones that do load show 500 server errors. The developer failed to spot the errors during the development process.
The result: 3 weeks of seriously diminished traffic.
The “I Know SEO” Syndrome
This is a contagious disease that developers get that can quickly spread to other developers. If you have ever heard a developer say something like I’m pretty good at SEO, it can usually be translated into I’ve read a little about SEO and therefore I pretty much know more than you do.
But wait a minute, SEO’s. You aren’t immune, either. There is a related syndrome called “I can code”.
A case in point: An SEO expert successfully builds a Word Press site and suddenly deems themselves a web developer.
The Real Problem
At the root of the culture clash between coders and SEO’s are their driving philosophies. Business classes that teach search engine optimization focus on uniqueness. After all, differentiating yourself from the competition is a good thing. On the other hand, computer science classes center on making everything the same. Each discipline takes a different approach to reaching the same result: stability and efficiency.
