1. Tell us more about you and your company !
My name is Cristian Mezei. I'm 23 years old. I have been an Internet savvy human since 1996, the first time when I discovered it. I was 13 years old back then. I bought my first PC in 1990. There were three other similar PC's in Bucharest, at that time. It was an Epson XT (0x86) with
640k base memory, a 20 MB HDD (which was like a 1 TB HDD today) and 4kb of video memory. Gradually, over the years, I found a passion in business and self-maintenance, beeing forced to sustain myself from the age of 14-15.

I have been employed in all-over-the-place fields like sales, computer repairs, consulting, managing etc.

I started a computer company about 5 years ago (we had like 17 employees) and my partner
made it go away (he stole about 90% of the cash flow and fled). He's still "at-large".

Amongst my previous employers, are Lamit Company and BullGuard.

Our company, Infomarket Network, was started about 4 months ago, as a joint venture between
me and a good friend. We now have about 2 full-time employees (leaving ourselves aside), and
about 6 part-time employees/collaborators. A total of about 10 humans. We work with a lot of
other Romanian or foreign companies too.

We deal with web developing in PHP, web design, web marketing, and in the future months we
will start a hosting department, mainly for our internal clients. We will host some servers at
Media Temple.

I have a personal/business blog and amongst some websites, two directories I love :
Webxperience and Webotopia.

2. Could you explain what an SEO does ?

"An SEO" is the basic concept that's started to spread amongst web users. Other include "SEO
Expert", "SEO Developer", "Internet Engineer" etc. The position is actually "Internet Marketer"
or "Web Marketer" which relates to every bit of internet-based marketing that a website could
benefit from, starting from PR (press releases), social aspects, project management and ending
with, but not being limited to, the onpage/offpage optimization techniques.

3. Is SEO something you would recommend for a webmaster or is strictly for the SEO
pros?

I think a recent post of mine, can explain this better. Every company, small, medium or large
should take SEO and Internet marketing seriously. It's the most cost-effective and targeted
advertising possible. And it's very easy to achieve if the consultant you contract is a professional.
The risks are also much lower then in other fields like banner advertising, where you spend
thousands of dollars (on serious campaigns) and can not be sure of the CTR. The visitors are
much less targeted too.

4. When optimizing a website do you focus on a certain search engine (Google) or do you
try to optimize for all (Yahoo, MSN) ?

We optimize for Google. Yahoo! and MSN (Live.com) are small sidekicks of Google, which will
follow ranks much more rapidly than Google. Google has 15 times more filters than MSN
(Live.com) or Yahoo! thus the optimization techniques must be undertaken with a much broader
vision. Google also sends more than 100 times (discussable and relative) more traffic than the
other two search engines combined. As a general sideline, if you rank well in Google, you will
rank good in Yahoo! and MSN (Live.com) too. This is off course a GENERAL sideline.

5. Are all these books/e-books about SEO worth something or are they only made to attract
people ?

I can highly recommend Aaron's SEO Book (no affiliate id). I have to admit, I didn't bought it
myself ($80). A friend borrowed it to me. Aaron has a lot of experience and he truly shows it in
that book. Most of the other marketers are afraid to showcase their knowledge (or they just don't
know jack). Sure, a lot of books are useless. Before you buy ANY book (no matter SEO or not)
just try to search it on Google and try to see what others say about it.

I have about 7-8 years experience with marketing on the Internet, and I can say that I did learn
a few useful stuff from Aaron's book, especially advanced guidelines and techniques. Imagine
what a starter/rookie could learn.

6. What do you think about people who cloak content ? It's ok to do that ?

Off course it's NOT ok. You not only deceive yourself but you deceive your visitors too. You
also break the TOS of all the search engines. Sure, there will always be blackhats that don't care
about the TOS. Their main concern is getting money fast, and from my own experience, never
try to compete with a blackhat, whilst you use only whitehat techniques. You will never achieve
the same results. Nor as fast nor as good. Blackhat simply works, at the expense of fairness and
respect for the other players on the market.

7. Could you describe the perfect client ?

The client who already has at least some basic notions about the industry, who is very well
documented and knows what to ask, and who pays on time.

Clients are usually encouraged to find more about a SEO company, before they sign a contract.
Prices are also important. Clients have to realize that this not a $100/contract industry.

8. How do you see the search space changing in the next 1 to 5 years?

A lot of websites/companies will start to look into SEO more. The search engines will be
growing ever more, and will research more techniques to detect spam and to remove it
automatically, without a human intervention. They (the search engines) will try to integrate all
the god damn services into their searching interface. We already have a calendar, a calculator,
search, a directory, mail, website building tool, DHL package tracing, RSS reader, etc.

A lot of other companies will want to compete with the big contextual networks like AdSense,
YPN!, and the new contestant adCenter. The smaller companies are just now up to the job, still.

I also wrote a post on the search engine trends in 2006.

9. Is spam good for SEO techniques ?

NO.

10. What type of sites are good for revenue these days ?

Usually, a niche that you can monetize easily. Whitehat like hosting, online shopping,
directories, publishing/content, health information. Blackhat like online casinos, pharmacies,
porn etc.

11. Some advice or hot SEO tip for Webmaster's Talks users ?

I can give you some of the more interesting posts in my blog (it's easier for me):

14 search marketing questions, answered
There's more to Alexa than you know
Web directories with an affiliate program
The difference between Overture's search estimates and reality
Better pagerank funneling and weight
5 facts on link building
5 Google Adsense Secrets, Tips and Tricks
Google AdSense account disabled - The FAQ
Gaining inbound links can't hurt right ? Wrong
Are your indexed pages WAY lower than they should be ?
Conclusion : Text near the links anchor


It's been nice meeting you Adrian.

Thanks for interview Cristian !

1 Re: Interview with SEO Expert Cristian Mezei by 4eyes on December 16, 2006, 06:03:12

2 Re: Interview with SEO Expert Cristian Mezei by TheGodFather on January 15, 2007, 02:43:33

3 Re: Interview with SEO Expert Cristian Mezei by tkumar on May 28, 2008, 22:33:05