I just got a newsletter with this "news flash":

-- Top 100 New Zealand Company Web Sites Invisible to Search Engines
Report finds Top 100 NZ company websites are a waste of money. Respected search optimisation company Web Rank has today launched a study on the search engine compatibility of the websites of the country's leading organisations
http://www.webrank.biz/Top100NZ.htm#NewZealandTop100Companies

Gee, I went to Google and found the first one right away. I'm not sure where they get off with charging for a report that seems, for one thing, very inflamitory, and not very accurate, and two, contains no information how the actual traffic that the site is getting.

Is it any secret that 9 out of every ten sites are have little or no optimization? No. Is being covered up that most sites have design flaws? No. So what is the big deal, and why would anyone pay that kind of money for a report about what is already common knowledge? No idea.

And the thing that REALLY bothers me is that it seems very subjective and one sided. Is there any information about how much traffic these sites are actually getting? Not that I can see. Maybe they are happy with what they are getting now from the fact that they are all big companies and maybe theyare using email, print media, TV, or radio advertising.

Would SEO and site submissions help? Oh, for sure. No doubt about it. But to release a fancy report that seems to show that all these companies are "wasting" their money is silly and just playing on people's fears.

I'm very disappointed....tisk-tisk-tisk...

(hristian