For a number of years, SEOs have called for SEO certification from a trusted organisation, but it appears that Google has backed out of the race to provide it.
Google Trends Analyst, Gary Illyes said in a interview earlier this week that Google will not provide SEO certification like they do for AdWords and other partners. Illyes explained that whilst there may be good reason to provide it, there are considerably more reasons not to. He added that Google has discussed this “a lot” internally and the eventual conclusion was that no SEO certification will be attributed to those in the community.
To quote from Gary’s Google Hangout session earlier this week:
Q: Do you think Google should have an SEO certification programme just like it has an AdWords certification program?
A: “We were thinking of that, a lot and a bit more. And we always end up with the conclusion that we shouldn’t do it. There are many reasons why that would be a good idea, but there are also many more reasons why it would be a bad idea.
“If we endorse SEOs, then that would also mean that we actually have to train them. Which would be nonsense. First of all, it wouldn’t be scalable to train, I don’t know, how many people. Second, if we do go down that path, then we will have to hire more people, which costs even more. Finally, we would have to ask for money and search doesn’t ask for money for anything. So there is already a potentially huge conflict there.
“The short answer is no, we will not have that any time soon.”
At present, the closest thing to SEO certification Google has offered to the community is the top contributor program.
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