Dealing With "This Is The Way Our Old SEO Did It"

They say in business, one way to ensure your long-term failure, is to use the line "we've always done it this way." Maybe the same is true for SEO? Esben Rasmussen, an SEO, posted on Twitter "I am just in an uphill struggle with a global IT department of a big company "Our old SEO told us we could do it this way, so we are not changing this."

Here is that tweet:

Makes sense!
I am just in an uphill struggle with a global IT department of a big company "Our old SEO told us we could do it this way, so we are not changing this." 😬 pic.twitter.com/URUhCfl5JE

— Esben Rasmussen (@EsbenRasmussen) January 14, 2021

John Mueller of Google actually replied to it saying "Pick your battles :). Keep it on your list and squeeze it in the next time the file gets updated."

So I was curious, if other SEOs need to deal with this a lot or not. So I made a Twitter poll that got a surprisingly low number of responses:

How often do you hear this? Our old SEO told us X, so we are not going to listen to your alternative suggestion on that SEO topic? Take the Twitter poll...

— Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick) January 14, 2021

It seems like this is an ongoing issue for many SEO consultants. SEOs have to deal with, "well, our previous SEO did it this way or told us X."

Sometimes, maybe, sometimes, that previous SEO got it wrong or maybe you hired an new SEO to get the job done right?

Forum discussion at Twitter.