A Harvard study on Boston SEO providers, which was covered by Stanford University, about the complexity and effectiveness of SEO.
Excerpt
If you own a business, you’ve probably heard the phrase “SEO” before today. Search Engine Optimization (known colloquially as SEO) is the method by which your website becomes a top-ranked result in Google’s search index. It’s a very elusive practice and can turn into a money pit. Every business wants to be seen first when potential customers search for their product or service. However, getting to the top spot on the search page is a challenge, because Google’s algorithms are nebulous and constantly changing so they can prevent this very thing from clouding their search index. Harvard recently took a look at this topic in a six-month “SEO study” to reveal what’s really going on behind the curtains at Web Agencies, Google, and under the thumbs of the end-users.