Bad SEO Clients Ask Stupid Questions - They DO Exist!

First off, I do SEO. I am an SEO expert, that means I know my shit. I didn't just wake up last Tuesday and think "Gosh, I should do SEO and offer services to random people for money." I went to school, I attended courses I spend at least 3 hours a day reading the SEO updates, for the last decade. Basically, I know my shit and I don't like to be questioned.

Are bad SEO clients becoming more frequent, and more stupider-er?

This post is an introduction to the stupidest questions that I have been asked, not in 1996 when SEO was a new and mysterious thing, but in 2013 as SEO is the standard for any business with a website. It isn't a secret society of nerds in a basement anymore, we exist, we are in the world and yes we know our shit- don't question it.

This topic could go on forever, as I have learned there are really stupid people in the world, I will however refrain from a barrage of idiocy blurted on this page, similar to my inbox from stupid clients. I will stick to a few that just, irritate me to the point of writing this post.

Stupid Question:

Q: Can I just copy content from my competitors and out rank them?
A: No, that would be copyright infringement and duplicate content which are both negatives to your overall SEO campaign.

Pretty cut and dried right? You don't see a McDonalds banner outside of Burger King, or the Burger King website promoting a BK Big Mac- that shit ain't right. 

The idiocy continued-

2nd Q: Well, if I do that anyway won't Google just punish them? How do they know that THEY didn't copy me?
2nd A: You stupid **ck, REALLY? - oh wait I didn't say that .....
2nd A a- Google indexes webpages on a continual basis, at some point prior to you taking the content, Google has more than likely already attributed that page content to your competitor and indexed their URL for that content. So yes they will know that you are the second to use the same content and you will be negatively impacted by that process, it's also quite unethical.

You'd think, the business owner would say - OH, DARN! Nope, it continued. 

3rd Q: Well, if they are outranking me based on content, I should just use parts of their content and outrank them with their own words. I don't see how a search engine would know the difference, didn't they "index" my content already too.

At this point dear readers, I opened a beer. 

3rd A:  Yes, your content and webpages have been indexed in Google the search engines know how your site looked, so when you change the content it will index the new content ( in this situation your competitors' content). Google will then index the new content on your site and will again visit your competitors' as well. When they show up as the same content a 'flag' will go up within the software that is Google. It will flag yours as new content being duplicated as old content on another site. This makes you the website that copied the content, it's NEVER a good idea.

Second beer, feet on desk - feeling completely confident that this dude won't ask another question. 

4th Q: Oh, I see. Well what if I just use the competitor who isn't in the number one spot? So, I copy the URL in the fourth or fifth spot?

The fourth answer didn't come from me, I couldn't do it. I didn't respond, I did however get drunk on green bottle German Beer and thought about becoming a brewmaster instead of doing SEO.