libel

1) n. to publish in print (including pictures), writing or broadcast through radio, television or film, an untruth about another which will do harm to that person or his/her reputation, by tending to bring the target into ridicule, hatred, scorn or contempt of others. Libel is the written or broadcast form of defamation, distinguished from slander, which is oral defamation.

2) v. to broadcast or publish a written defamatory statement.

 

By the time you finish reading this post, you’ll certainly agree that we’re most definitely guilty of publishing information that will do harm to the subject of this post or his reputation, by tending to bring him into ridicule, hatred, scorn or contempt of others.

Which seems only fair, since we hold him in scorn and contempt, ourselves.

However, the key ingredient in libel (or slander or defamation, for that matter), as any jurist would attest, is that the information being shared is false. In this case, everything we’re sharing is documented. Does that mean it’s false, you might ask? Well…. no, not necessarily. In fact, this is about pointing out some statements published by an individual that range from mildly ridiculous to obscenely ridiculous, with at least one statement that is called false by someone intimately familiar with the facts.

So, I’ll lay it out, and you can make up your own mind what’s true and what isn’t. I’ll help you out a bit here and there, by pointing out the ridiculous parts.

A few days ago, I was made aware of a thread on LinkedIn, where an individual had posted a link to a post on his blog, in which he was making statements that I judged to be very misleading to the often unexperienced readers in that group. The individual was one Don Halbert,.  Checking his profile, I was mildly amused when I found that his tagline was “★Copywriter | Internet Marketing & SEO Expert★”.

I’m generally perturbed when I see people present themselves as “expert”, “ninja”, “guru” or “master”… it just seems a little pretentious to me.

So, before chiming in, I decided to check out a few of this expert’s links, to learn a little more about him. One of the first things I came across was a statement that Don Halbert could claim lineage to Gary Halbert, a man who, admittedly, was an undisputed star in marketing, before he passed on. Wandering around Don’s site some more, I found that this “lineage” wasn’t so distant… he said that Gary Halbert was his great uncle.Somewhat perturbed by a number of chest-thumping statements I encountered on his site, I decided it was time to respond to his inaccurate statement in the thread. But by the time I got there, he was already having an exchange with someone else… a very proficient SEO with whom I have had numerous business dealings, that is also an undisputed star in his field.

By way of background, Don Halbert’s blog post dealt with a recent update by Google of their Toolbar Pagerank indicator. This used to happen approximately every 3 months, but has recently become more irregular. However, the real point is, as any real SEO will quickly point out, Toolbar Pagerank, or TBPR, means little as a metric.

First, it’s unknown outside of Google’s inner sactum whether TBPR is even really based upon true Pagerank, or PR. Many assume it is, but recognize the fact that by the time you see that TBPR number, it’s only a snapshot of a day that may be three months or more past. The vast majority of people that heed TBPR are those that are interested in buying or selling links. Real SEOs know better than to base their decisions or actions upon outdated data.

In his post, Don said, among other things that caught my attention:

“To put it plainly…a link from a PR2 site holds less value than having a link from a PR4 site. And when YOUR site is the one that is increasing in ranking…this bodes well for your Google authority and therefore almost 100% of the time you will see an increase in the SERPs (search engine results pages).”

Now, see… this is the kind of statement I have a problem with, regardless of the source. He says it as though it were an absolute. There are very few absolutes in our world. Gravity comes to mind, but even that can be negated. And in the SEO world, there are NO absolutes! So when I see someone make such absolute statements that an inexperienced person might accept as gospel, it really pisses me off!

If he had said, “To put it plainly…a link from a PR2 site holds less value than having a link from a PR4 site, all else being equal”, then I wouldn’t have had such a problem with it. Similarly, “…therefore almost 100% of the time you will see an increase in the SERPs (search engine results pages)”, is misleading, as it fails to take into consideration the multitude of variables that could easily cause exactly the opposite effect!

Back to the thread, in his first two responses to my colleague, Don had meanwhile reiterated his above absolute:

“a link on a PR4 is far better than a link on a PR1”, and followed it with this: “… my vast knowledge/experience in this department tells me otherwise”. (First ridiculous alert: Always beware of those that are quick to toot their own horn.)

Then, I pointed out to him that PR and TBPR are two very different things and two colleagues also pointed out that TBPR is not a decent metric. One even offered a very demonstrative example to prove his point.

At that point, Don Halbert got both defensive and offensive. It seemed unlikely he was going to entertain any opposing opinions.

Enter Absolute #2?: “My point is that having a link (of which YOU ABSOLUTELY MUST HAVE in order to rank for your keywords) from a PR4 is a lot finer than a PR1 in Google’s eyes.” (Second ridiculous alert: Totally WRONG!)

Now, I could be generous, and call this simply another irresponsible absolute statement. But the fact of the matter is, it’s just plain WRONG! You do NOT have to have a link in order to rank for a keyword. Non-linking citations are sufficient, at least when you’re not facing much competition. There was a time when his statement was true, yes. But we’re no longer working in the last millennium. For someone that bills themselves as an “SEO Expert”, “the best SEO on the Planet” and “Internet Marketing Master”, I think it’s reasonable to expect them to know that. I mean, I know I’m not “the best SEO on the Planet”, but I know it… how could he not?

Further exchanges in that LinkedIn thread proved to be useless in convincing our “SEO Expert” that his confidence in TBPR as a metric of a link’s value was misplaced. All we got was a number of claims of his “vast knowledge/experience in this department”, his “my expansive experience in Internet marketing and credentials” and some assorted chest thumping about virtually everything he feels he’s accomplished since he was 8 years old.

Dude! Are you just overcompensating or are you suffering from LBMS?

Then of course, there was the pièce de résistance: Halbert’s claim, which I mentioned earlier, that the late Gary Halbert was his great uncle. While it initially struck me as odd that he would mention it so often, as though Gary’s brilliance in marketing was hereditary, I didn’t give it a lot of thought until Don’s personality began to show in his rather theatrical performance in the thread.

So I mentioned it to a friend that just happens to be friends with two of Gary Halbert’s sons. I figured if Gary was someone’s great uncle, they’d certainly know. He contacted them, and they emphatically stated that their father had been neither uncle nor great uncle to anyone. Period.

To be insufferably egotistical isn’t such a rare affliction. Neither, unfortunately, is a propensity for denying the logic of opposing arguments. However, to attempt to profit by associating oneself with the good name of another, at best, makes one’s character doubtable. If, in fact, that association turns out to be a total fabrication, then all doubt is removed. Since I don’t have sufficient knowledge of the entire Halbert family, I can’t even hazard a guess as to whether Don’s claim is valid. But I have to assume that Gary’s own sons DO have enough knowledge, and they were quite emphatic in saying that it was not true.

Wait! Did I say that was the piece de résistance? Perhaps I was too hasty. There’s yet another facet of Don Halbert’s personality to shine some light upon, before anyone can judge whether they want to trust their business and livelihood to his own special brand of integrity.

By his own admission, Don Halbert, self-proclaimed hacker, posed as “Vista”, selling satellite pirating cards into the Canadian grey market. At the time, according to Don, such piracy wasn’t yet illegal, at least in Canada. Apparently the Canadian legislature is as slow and unwieldy as most, and they didn’t get around to making it a crime until some years later. By that time, by his own accounting, Don ceased to sell the tools to people that wished to steal the property of others. At that time, however, such theft and the sale of the tools that facilitated it, WAS illegal in the U.S., where the stolen property resided. An interesting, if somewhat twisted, take on morality, in my opinion.

I think the question to ask yourself is, do you want to walk on the wild side, trusting your business to someone that:

• Demonstrates an outdated and incomplete knowledge of basic SEO principles, while billing themselves as an expert;
• Is so puffed up with their own importance, that they may fail to remember the importance of their client;
• Claims some special consideration for supposedly being a relative of an accomplished marketer;
• May possibly have invented that familial relationship just to capitalize on someone else’s reputation;
• Has admitted to aiding and abetting theft of property by others.

If you care to gamble with your own future, then by all means, hire Don Halbert. I imagine he’s probably willing to gamble with your future, too.

 

While we’re asking questions, let’s take a look at just a few of the inconsistencies in Halbert’s stories. In the image below, the top half is a post he made in the recent LinkedIn thread, and the bottom is from his website.

As you can see, on his website, he claims to have been pretty much away from computers between the ages of 13 and 21. Yet in the thread, he says he owned his own business, writing POS and other software, at the age of 15.

Then on his website, he states that at 24 years of age he opened his own shop, repairing PCs for beer money, while in the LI thread, he was managing the “build room of a major PC manufacturer…with a team of system engineers” working under his supervision.

One is naturally led to wonder, in the face of so many inconsistencies, which of the two is true. A bit of critical thinking, of course, might make you wonder if either is true.

One closing thought, before I leave you to check out our other pages on the illustrious Mr. Halbert… is it pure coincidence that he has chosen Costa Rica as his new home? I hear it’s a beautiful country, populated by a very friendly people, with still-affordable prime property and an investment-friendly government… all attractive to anyone that fancies a tropical paradise.

I also understand that their policies on extradition are based upon dual criminality. That means that they won’t extradite anyone unless the alleged crime committed in the partner country was ALSO  a crime in Costa Rica when committed (both the US and Canada, Halbert’s birthplace, are partner countries with Costa Rica). Convenient, since as recently as 2006, Costa Rica still had no regulatory body or structure of the federal telecommunications monopoly, ICE. So digital theft of service is unlikely to have been a crime in the early 2000s when Don supposedly “saw the light”. Perhaps that’s just a happy coincidence… as I said, Costa Rica is a wonderful place. I suppose only Don could give an honest answer to that question.

Certainly we could believe him, if he crosses his heart?

This page is not an exercise in character assassination. It is merely a warning to those seeking SEO services in Costa Rica, indeed anywhere, that you need to be careful to whom you entrust your financial future. There are unscrupulous people out there, that will lie, cheat and steal, on one end of the scale, or fabricate, stretch and obfuscate on the other. Don Halbert is one of those individuals that we feel bears a close examination before you enter into any business relationship with him, simply because there are too many questions.

 

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