From BarnacleSEO.com

Barnacle SEO – Hanging On For 15 Years

As the person who originally coined the phrase Barnacle SEO, I’ve wondered why it is so hard to rank for the phrase Barnacle SEO.Table of Contents

What is Barnacle SEO?

Barnacle SEO is a powerful strategy that can help businesses get high-ranking search results in even the most highly competitive keywords and markets. The idea behind Barnacle SEO is to leverage other, highly reputable websites and platforms by placing content on them that either references you in the form of a citation, or links to you, or in the best case both!

Or, as I said in the original post, “Barnacle SEO: attaching oneself to a large fixed object and waiting for the customers to float by in the current.”

Way back in the day when we first started doing this, the most common platforms available were directory sites like YellowPages.com, and the like. These are still great foundational placements for Barnacle SEO, but there are many, many more.

What is Barnacle Marketing?

Barnacle Marketing is on overarching term that can refer to any non-SEO attempts to leverage the strength of other brands.

Examples include:

• Vanity baiting

• Newsjacking

• Influencer Marketing

• Other Collaborations

• Opportunistic Associations

In essence, if you have an opportunity to be referenced or associated with a larger entity, you’re Barnacle-ing.

What Is A Barnacle?

From Wikipedia:

Barnacles are a type of arthropod constituting the subclass Cirripedia in the subphylum Crustacea, and are hence related to crabs and lobsters. Barnacles are exclusively marine, and tend to live in shallow and tidal waters, typically in erosive settings. They are sessile (nonmobile) and most are suspension feeders, but those in infraclass Rhizocephala are highly specialized parasites on crustaceans. They have four nektonic (active swimming) larval stages. Around 1,000 barnacle species are currently known.[1] The name Cirripedia is Latin, meaning “curl-footed”.[2] The study of barnacles is called cirripedology.

In Barnacle SEO, a barnacles is your reference on the larger entity. These may be directory listings, published articles, or any other reference to your brand or website.