Do as I Say, Not as I Do

About a week ago a lot of bloggers were up in arms about Yahoo of all people committing a bit of cloaking.

When things like this happen, sometimes it's just a reminder that nobody's infallible, even those who set the guidelines against which many marketers work.

However, sometimes it's something else. With the complexities of search, advanced work sometimes comes down to consciously committing certain acts that would otherwise normally be flagged as worst practice. N00bs should note that "Do as I Say, Not as I Do" comes up in search marketing from time to time, in association with this.

Take for example this image. It's from this page from the site of SMX, the new event series kicking off next week in Seattle.

Looks like a classic mistake: text as an image needlessly, right?

Wrong. It's not walking out on a weak limb to assume this most likely a very conscious site building decision.

The giveaway is in the site itself, and who it's catering to: Advanced search marketers. So of course, the team building this site wouldn't be caught with their pants down doing something like this. Calling them on it would be like the first-year music theory student who struts into class one morning proclaiming

I found a mistake that Bach made!

only to find the professor's reply is

Bach was one of the people who pioneered and wrote what eventually became the rules. What you found was not a mistake, but part of that process playing out.

Having this bit of text as an image helps preserve a bit of confidentiality and/or juice exclusivity. Unlike how content related to speakers and sponsors is presented, it helps avoid passing casually content love between the SMX brand and those of the attendees.

Simple, subtle, effective.