andrewegan1986

Obviously not OP from Fortune but I was a reporter at Forbes Magazine for 2 years and worked on their list of richest individuals.

You are basically correct. There is A LOT of hidden wealth that outside observers can't confirm. Sure, oil oligarchs are one area. There is, however, a significant amount of wealth that simply pre-dates many of the governments tasked with regulating it. Think old, old money. I believe there's a family, still worth billions, whose money originally came from managing the mail system of the Holy Roman Empire. Its pretty difficult to account for wealth that pre-dates modern capitalism.

He said it twice. Jon mentioned the username in another comment. u/ButtFarm69 getting some attention from Jon Stewart, I'm quite jealous.

You are correct that relevant content is still the most important characteristic for SEO. With that said, page speed is important. Incredibly important. A well coded site that follows SEO best practices gets more consistent organic traffic. It's plain and simple. There are white papers and various studies that show it.

However, I do largely agree with your comments. Clients often don't know/care enough to really focus on specific elements of their sites. I can tell you after about eight years in marketing/advertising, it is often who you know. When a new website is designed, I can almost guarantee one of the first people considered will be a friend/relative of the person controlling the money.

DIBS on Austin use!

Hahaha, well done robot gods. Yup. That is exactly who I was thinking of!