SEO Tycoon

**VirtuosiMedia** · 04-24-2009, 05:07 PM

I know many people might not think about the ethical aspects of SEO, but I'd like to start a discussion about SEO ethics beyond just labeling methods as whitehat, blackhat, and grayhat.

What specific SEO practices do you view as ethical? Why?

What specific SEO practices do you think are unethical and wrong? Why?

What specific SEO practices are you unsure about?

**Feydakin** · 04-29-2009, 05:36 PM

Let me counter by asking you who sets the standard for what is 'ethical' and what is not?? And how do "ethics" enter in to the discussion to begin with??

**VirtuosiMedia** · 06:32 PM

Well, keep in mind that this is my personal opinion, but I believe ethics should be a consideration in everything we do. At the very least, that's the way I try to conduct my business and life in general. I may not always make the right calls, but I'm trying nonetheless. Now, some activities may be a little more obviously ethical or unethical than others, but what I'm trying to do is just to get people to start thinking in terms of ethics and SEO where they might not otherwise have even considered it. How does this action reflect on your company? How does it affect your users? Other sites? Are you building for the long or short term? Are you trying to deceive or trick your users or the search engines?

Ethics are not something that you can dictate to others because people are responsible for their own actions, but they are something that everyone decides for themselves, consciously or unconsciously, by the way they conduct their SEO and business.

For example, to start off answering the questions I posed above from my personal viewpoint (and you can feel free to agree or disagree):

Ethical

I view most on-page optimizations like changing title text, nofollowing links, and adjusting internal anchor text as ethical practices. There are ways to abuse those techniques that deceive the users, but in general it's good practice and it affects only your site anyways.

Unethical

Spamming irrelevant sites, forums, or blogs just to get a linkback is something that I view as unethical, regardless of whether or not that site has a high PageRank. I actually view that as the Internet's equivalent to vandalism. A few people that do this, though probably not most, may not be even thinking about whether or not the practice is ethical, they just do it because they heard that it's what you're supposed to do. It's those people that I'm hoping will take a moment and think about what they're doing and if it's really wanted or right.

Not Sure

An area that I'm not sure about is the creation of auxilary pages on sites like Squidoo, Wordpress.com, etc. that are meant funnel PageRank back to your site and to dominate the search engine results page. I think I'm coming to the conclusion that if those pages have value in and of themselves, then I don't mind doing it, but if they don't offer anything new or different, I don't think they should be used because they aren't contributing anything useful to the end user. However, the question that I'm currently asking is whether or not it would be worth it to create unique content for those pages or whether it would be better to just add that content to my site. I think I'm coming down on the side of just adding it to my site.

In general, I use the following as my guideline: If it adds benefit to the end user or doesn't hurt the end user, doesn't hurt my site's reputation in the long or short term, still falls within the search engines' TOS, and appears to make a measurable and benificial difference, do it. If it attempts to decieve the end user or the search engines or defaces another site in anyway, don't do it.

Again, this is the way I'd like to represent and conduct myself and you and others might differ, but my goal is just to start a discussion and/or get people thinking about the topic.

**vangogh** · 04-29-2009, 06:47 PM

I have to echo what Steve said about who gets to decide what is and isn't ethical. When I see debates like this they inevitably come down to people trying to hold others accountable to their own set of ethics.

What do I view as ethical in SEO? The same things I views as ethical outside of SEO. SEO really has nothing to do with it. I have my own code of ethics by which I lead my life and I hold myself to that standard of ethics as best I can.

What's ethical about a search engine or search engine results? Nothing. I laugh when I see people talking about one page deserving to rank better than another. No web page deserves to rank for anything. What may be the best result to you isn't necessarily the best result to me. There are so many factors that would go into determining what is or isn't relevant that it's impossible to be 100% objective.

Most ethical SEO conversations seem to revolve around what a search engines says you should or shouldn't do and usually that search engine is Google. When did search engines become the arbiters of ethics. I think all search engines do quite a few things I personally consider unethical so why would I attempt to abide by their ethics.

It's hard for me to specifically tell you what SEO practices I consider ethical or not, because I think they need to be seen in context. I can think of lots of practices that to me would be ethical in one context and unethical in another.

I guess I would see as unethical any thing that defaces another person's website to benefit mine. I wouldn't for example hack someone's site to inject links back to my sites. I don't like the idea of trying to make my site better by hurting another site. Of course if I do things to improve my own site and as a consequence that pushes other sites down in the search results technically I have hurt those sites, though I wouldn't see that as unethical in any way.

**vangogh** · 07:00 PM

VM it looks like we were posting at the same time.

What do you consider spam? I've seen plenty of things get called spam that I don't think are and I've seen plenty of things get called not spam that I think are spam.

Case in point. Say someone were to join a forum because they want to get some links. They do make real contributions and further the discussion, but they're sole motivation is for the links. They know from the outset they have no intention of spending time on that forum for more than a month. They add 10 new posts a day for a month and then never return. None of the posts are automated and all are attempts to add something to the discussion.

Is that spam?

Quote:

If it adds benefit to the end user or doesn't hurt the end user, doesn't hurt my site's reputation in the long or short term, still falls within the search engines' TOS, and appears to make a measurable and benificial difference, do it. If it attempts to decieve the end user or the search engines or defaces another site in anyway, don't do it.

1. Most things on the internet don't benefit any end user, yet it would hardly be called spam. The majority of content on the web is noise. Honest attempts at creating something, but still noise.

2. Again what does a search engine's TOS have to do with ethics. If tomorrow Google decided that all h1 tags were against it's terms of service would h1s become unethical? Search engine TOS's are written to further a search engines business. They aren't ethical guidelines in any way.

3. You can hurt your reputation doing ethical things and you can preserve your reputation doing unethical things. Reputation with who? Regardless of what you do a certain amount of people will love you, a certain amount will hate you, and most won't care one way or the other.

4. Deceive somebody how? If you write copy in a way that persuades someone to buy from you are you deceiving them? How can you know in advance what someone visiting your site does and doesn't know. If I place AdSense on my site you'll know it's AdSense and understand the links are ads. Another person might think the links are simply navigation within the site. Is that deception?

5. I agree about not defacing someone else's site.

**VirtuosiMedia** · 04-29-2009, 07:07 PM

For me, I think spam might be boiled down to two different questions: Is it wanted by the site owner? Does it add value relevant to the page's topic?

My point really wasn't to decide for people what is and isn't ethical, it was just to bring the topic up to get people actively thinking about the way they do SEO and how it might affect end users, other sites, the search engines and ultimately their own reputation and businesses. What they decide is up to them, but regardless, I thought that it might be a discussion worth having.

**vangogh** · 07:38 PM

I didn't think you were trying to decide for other people what is or isn't ethical. I have a hunch any discussion will eventually get there. Sorry if I'm coming across as combative. It's not my intention. I actually think this could be an interesting discussion which is why I posted.

Most of what I'm doing is just raising questions because I think there's such a gray area when trying to define spam or ethics. For example you mention about spam; Is it wanted by site owner?

How does one one know prior to posting what a site owner does or doesn't want. Let's take Digital Point as a case study. I would suggest they are happy with any post of any kind because it ultimately leads to more content, which leads to more search traffic, which leads to more clicks on AdSense. Most of it looks spammy to me, but it probably isn't to them.

When it comes to social media I see people all the time saying it's spam to submit your own content or to alert your friends to vote for your content. Yet most social media sites add tools so you can alert your friends about content you've submitted and most seem to be ok with you sometimes submitting your own content. They seem to object when it becomes too much, but not always in every situation.

Another example. First an apology to all of New England. I'm a Yankee fan. I don't want people posting in my forum about how wonderful the Red Sox are. Hardly makes it spam though.

Does it add value? Sounds good in theory. I'd suggest that most of the posts on this very forum add no value to the discussion. Many though are honest attempts to add value. So is the spam those posts that don't add value or those that don't attempt to add value? And how do you determine someone's intent. Sometimes it's obvious. Most times it's not. Also how do you define value? A newbie here might see a post as valuable where you or I wouldn't. You or I might find it valuable to see a post on some advanced aspect of SEO that would only confuse a newbie. Value is going to be in the eye of the beholder.

Again I'm not trying to be combative. Just pointing out how hard this can all be to talk about. I think all the emails I get for certain length enhancing products are spam. If you happen to be looking to buy one you might not see it as spam.

What I'd actually like to see is people looking into their own ethical code and doing their best to live up to it. If you think a certain practice is unethical then don't do it. However don't tell someone they have to live up to your ethical standards either.

**VirtuosiMedia** · 04-29-2009, 07:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vangogh

1. Most things on the internet don't benefit any end user, yet it would hardly be called spam. The majority of content on the web is noise. Honest attempts at creating something, but still noise.

Quite true. There is a lot of noise out there and I wouldn't necessarily classify it as spam either. However, what I was writing was my personal guideline and aspiration and I guess it may cover a little more than just ethics as applied to SEO. I'd like to create content that does have value to the end user and does more than just add to the noise. I may not always succeed, but that's my goal.

Quote:

Originally Posted by vangogh

2. Again what does a search engine's TOS have to do with ethics. If tomorrow Google decided that all h1 tags were against it's terms of service would h1s become unethical? Search engine TOS's are written to further a search engines business. They aren't ethical guidelines in any way.

Another good point. I don't believe that search engines are the arbiters of ethics and I know that they make decisions based on their bottom line and not ethics, necessarily. However, from a pragmatic standpoint, since SEO is search engine optimization, it makes sense to follow their guidelines as much as possible, even if they change. That said, I largely agree with what Google et al have set forth as guidelines. For most cases, it seems as if doing what is best for the user and what is best for their bottom line and our bottom lines coincide.

Quote:

Originally Posted by vangogh

3. You can hurt your reputation doing ethical things and you can preserve your reputation doing unethical things. Reputation with who? Regardless of what you do a certain amount of people will love you, a certain amount will hate you, and most won't care one way or the other.

True. Again, what I wrote was for me personally and like you said, it's an extension of my ethics outside of SEO. What others do to stay consistent with their ethics is up to them. However, perhaps I should have been a little more specific. You can do things in SEO that will get you blacklisted which ultimately will hurt your reputation. Similarly, if you get listed as an email spammer in the spam index, it's not going to help your reputation, regardless of what your ethics may be. My point here was to err on the side of caution in regards to those practices, but again, it's totally up to the individual business.

Quote:

Originally Posted by vangogh

4. Deceive somebody how? If you write copy in a way that persuades someone to buy from you are you deceiving them? How can you know in advance what someone visiting your site does and doesn't know. If I place AdSense on my site you'll know it's AdSense and understand the links are ads. Another person might think the links are simply navigation within the site. Is that deception?

There is definitely a spectrum here and perhaps many gray areas, but I still think it's worth discussing, even if just for food for thought. The point you gave may very well be one of those gray areas. However, my point here was conscious and blatant deception, misrepresentation, or misinformation. If your title and meta description say your page is about car parts and you have a lot of links with anchor texts that say 'car parts' pointed at the page, but you have a redirect or your copy is about how to get rich quick by downloading an ebook for only $79.95, I would label something like that as deception, even though it wouldn't be particularly effective.

**VirtuosiMedia** · 07:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vangogh

What I'd actually like to see is people looking into their own ethical code and doing their best to live up to it. If you think a certain practice is unethical then don't do it. However don't tell someone they have to live up to your ethical standards either.

That's exactly my hope with this discussion as well and I don't feel like you're being combative at all. I think you make good points. I think a lot of people might hear about a certain technique and so they'll just do it, without thinking what they're doing or about the potential consequences. I would just like to see them to think about it first. One of the ways I thought might be useful to get people was different people posting their views on specific practices and why they do or don't do them, not for the sake of argument, but to shed light on areas they haven't thought about before.

**tehfincheh** · 08:35 AM

I'll admit that there isn't much "Black Hat" that I haven't tried. Some of it has proven successful, some of it has proven a waste of time.

Personally, I think SEO ethics are BS. You've got two choices. You can follow the guidelines and get screwed over by an algorithm. Or you can screw the guidelines and manipulate the algorithm to your advantage. Some businesses can't and won't survive without a competitive advantage.

If you're bad at it, you deserve to get caught. If you're good at it, nobody's gonna know what you're doing in the first place. No harm done.

White Hat, Black Hat, Gay Hat...it doesn't really matter. It's all optimization with the intention of improving rankings.

If I use a keyword spinning Black Hat script to get my site ranked above another, do I feel bad about it? Not really. I could train a monkey to be good at White Hat SEO. It's common sense.

The issue of when Black Hat link building, for example, becomes spamming is a completely different subject altogether.

It's not in my ethics to spam inboxes with unsolicited email or to post garbage on forums. But if I can find a way to automate the process of contributing something genuine, that isn't going to deface another site, then you'd be stupid to think I wouldn't use that.

That's where Black Hat techniques are strongly divided. You have those who are bad at it (lorem ipsum spammers), and those who are capable of automating processes. Because if you know anything about shady SEO practices, you'll know that the primary driving factor is automation.

I dislike junk box spammers and blatant forum robots as much as the next guy. But not on the basis that they're using methods of Black Hat. I dislike them on the basis that they're defacing and amateur techniques.

In terms of using a "banned technique" to get ahead of a rival and nobody being any the wiser? That's not bad ethics. That's just being better than them.

**VirtuosiMedia** · 09:19 AM

Thanks for your input and honesty, Martin. I'm curious, having tried most black hat techniques, do you feel that they offer a significant advantage over white hat in terms of ranking? Also, do you weigh things like usability and/or conversion rates against SEO ranking when using something like a keyword spinner? I'm not sure if you do SEO for clients or just for yourself, but do you refrain from using certain methods depending on the client or site?

I don't really have a point here, but I find it interesting that you say that the primary driving factor of shady SEO is automation. I don't know what the exact percentage is now, but several years ago, roughly 17% of the Associated Press' wire releases about business and finance were generated automatically. Blogs can ping automatically, you can schedule blog posts, tweets, emails, etc. You can run tests for SEO using Google Alerts. The spread of API's also makes automation a lot easier as well. Take FriendFeed, for instance. I have a bookmarklet that let's me post a link to FriendFeed, which then updates Twitter, which I could hook up to Facebook and a number of other social media sites. FriendFeed also picks up my blog and posts when there is a new entry.

**tehfincheh** · 09:53 AM

Quote:

Thanks for your input and honesty, Martin. I'm curious, having tried most black hat techniques, do you feel that they offer a significant advantage over white hat in terms of ranking?

Absolutely, if done correctly.

The way I see it, Black Hat can be as simple as automating and scaling a White Hat process so that you get a few hundred hours' worth of work done at the click of a mouse.

Any idiot can dig out a spam service that throws your link on to a few hundred websites for a couple of dollars. 95% of those links will get filtered and the other 5% are non-contextual BS that ain't gonna rank on any day of the week.

Throwing lorem ipsum links in to a blog comment should be seen as bad ethics in my opinion because it's non-thought out and ultimately defaces the targeted website.

But if I get a blog comment written by a human that says "thnxks nice post!!! heres my site 2...", and another blog comment generated by a script that reads perfectly and touches on the subject matter - which is worse? The ethics are irrelevant. Who deserves to rank? The retard who can't spell or the Black Hat SEO guy who knows his stuff and uses it to his advantage?

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I'm not sure if you do SEO for clients or just for yourself, but do you refrain from using certain methods depending on the client or site?

Never ever ever in a million years would I consider using shady techniques for a client - unless they were aware of the ricks attached and actually asked me to.

I don't do SEO consulting. Every Black Hat technique I've ever experimented with has been at my own risk - and I think that's the only way you can do it really.

That said, I don't even waste my time with SEO anymore. PPC campaigns are what makes me my money.

**vangogh** · 04-30-2009, 07:09 PM

VM, I'm glad we agree on the benefits of this kind of thread.

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However, from a pragmatic standpoint, since SEO is search engine optimization, it makes sense to follow their guidelines as much as possible, even if they change.

Pragmatic is not the same as ethics though. I generally think the guidelines are good, but I also think that some are less guidelines and more what Google wants you to do since they can't figure it out.

Take something like paid links. I think the Google warnings are more a sign that they can't really figure out what links are paid for. They don't want people to buy and sell links since it doesn't fit well with their algorithm. So they tell us not to buy/sell links to make it easier on them. People bought and sold links before there was a Google. It's called advertising.

That's why I think you still need to take the guidelines with a grain of salt.

I don't practice black hat techniques, but not for any ethical reason. It's just not my thing. I think Martin would agree that when you practice black hat you go in with the expectation that some of your sites will get burned and you'll have to move on to another. That's not for me. I think it would be hard for me to lose sites like that.

I guess ethically I draw the line when it comes to things like defacing other sites. I think what you do on your own site is up to you, but when you actively go out to hurt another site it crosses a line. If your success hurts them that's fine, but to target them to take them down so you do better is wrong to me.

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But if I get a blog comment written by a human that says "thnxks nice post!!! heres my site 2...", and another blog comment generated by a script that reads perfectly and touches on the subject matter - which is worse? The ethics are irrelevant.

Yep. I think the ethical debate gets thrown around in silly ways. Didn't the whole original white hat black hat ethical thing start as a white hat marketing tactic. "See those guys are unethical so you should hire me" sort of thing. What are the ethics of that?

**VirtuosiMedia** · 08:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vangogh

Pragmatic is not the same as ethics though. I generally think the guidelines are good, but I also think that some are less guidelines and more what Google wants you to do since they can't figure it out.

True, and I that's what I was thinking when I wrote that, though I might not have spelled it out as clearly. I guess I view being listed in the search engines as something like a business arrangement. Google et al have laid out their guidelines with how they'd like to conduct business and we can choose to agree or disagree with those terms, with both courses of action having potentially different consequences. In regards to that, some types of SEO/marketing aren't an ethical matter but a business decision.

Quote:

Take something like paid links. I think the Google warnings are more a sign that they can't really figure out what links are paid for. They don't want people to buy and sell links since it doesn't fit well with their algorithm. So they tell us not to buy/sell links to make it easier on them. People bought and sold links before there was a Google. It's called advertising.

There could be another ulterior motive here as well, beyond the difficulty of Google constructing an algorithm that can detect offline business dealings.

Google's main revenue source is AdWords, but their authority comes from search. It very well could be that they are also trying to not-so-subtly leverage their authority in search to drive business to AdWords by saying that paid links are off-limits for SEO.

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I don't practice black hat techniques, but not for any ethical reason. It's just not my thing. I think Martin would agree that when you practice black hat you go in with the expectation that some of your sites will get burned and you'll have to move on to another. That's not for me. I think it would be hard for me to lose sites like that.

I think I agree here for the most part, but the ethics side of things is important to me personally, so I'm trying to figure out where I stand on most issues. For a lot of techniques, I think I'll find that they aren't a matter of ethics, but one of usability, cost-effectiveness, and general effectiveness. However, I still like to examine them in an ethical light to see if it applies. If ethics don't apply, then I move on to the next metric.

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I guess ethically I draw the line when it comes to things like defacing other sites. I think what you do on your own site is up to you, but when you actively go out to hurt another site it crosses a line. If your success hurts them that's fine, but to target them to take them down so you do better is wrong to me.

I agree. This reminds me of a quote, "man's freedom to swing his fist ends at the tip of another man's nose."

Moving on a little, do you have a series of metrics that you apply to a given technique, even if informally? I've not thought of this until writing this, but for me, it would probably be something like the following:

Is it ethical? If yes or if ethics don't apply, move on. If no, disregard. If unsure, hold off.
Will it negatively affect my site's reputation in the long or short-term? If no, continue; if yes, disregard.
Is it effective? If yes, continue; if no, disregard; if unsure, test.
Is it cost-effective in terms of time and money? If yes, continue; if no, disregard.
Does it negatively impact conversion rates? If no, continue; if yes, disregard.
Does it negatively impact usability? If no, continue; if yes, disregard.
Does it meet the search engines' guidelines? If yes, continue; if no, disregard.
Is the effect permanent or temporary? If permanent, yes; if temporary, it depends on the situation and effort involved.
Does it validate? If yes, continue; if no, disregard.
Is it automated without violating any of the above? If yes, great; if no, can it be?

Obviously, not all of those would apply to everyone, but I think that would be my decision matrix, probably in that order.

**vangogh** · 05-01-2009, 12:13 AM

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I view being listed in the search engines as something like a business arrangement.

Me too. But a business arrangement shouldn't be completely one-sided. Google can do what they want and I'll do what I want. Much of the time we'll agree. Sometimes we won't.

Quote:

There could be another ulterior motive here as well, beyond the difficulty of Google constructing an algorithm that can detect offline business dealings. Google's main revenue source is AdWords, but their authority comes from search. It very well could be that they are also trying to not-so-subtly leverage their authority in search to drive business to AdWords by saying that paid links are off-limits for SEO.

Agreed. I tried to give them the benefit of the doubt, but this could certainly be a possibility. If it is what does that say about the ethics of Google and their guidelines and why should anyone be ethically bound to follow those guidelines.

Quote:

man's freedom to swing his fist ends at the tip of another man's nose.

That's a great quote. It's pretty much how I feel.

I wouldn't say I have a set of metrics that I apply in any formal way. Not really in an informal way either, though most of the things you mention are things I would consider. It's more that I've looked at lot at my own code of ethics a lot and have a good sense of whether something is in agreement or against it.

It's more of an intuitive thing at this point, though most every thing you listed will cross my mind. I will strive for a balance in things too. Sometimes you have to give up one thing for the sake of another.

For example it's very possible that something good for visitors to my site would go against Google guidelines. In that case the decision is which should take precedence. I might quickly weigh the pros and cons and come to a decision. Of course I'd reserve the right to change my mind later as I saw how the decision affected other things.

I wouldn't set it up as a series of metrics or give everything an overall priority. I tend to make decisions on a case by case basis. So if something comes up I'll think about it and make the decision, but not according to any prearranged criteria. I think you'll always find things that won't fit well with your criteria.

**VirtuosiMedia** · 05-01-2009, 02:23 AM

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Me too. But a business arrangement shouldn't be completely one-sided. Google can do what they want and I'll do what I want. Much of the time we'll agree. Sometimes we won't.

True. Google gives us visitors through search results, we give Google content to search through. The problem is that Google has such a market share in search that they have quite a bit of leverage on the average website, making the relationship a bit lopsided, to grossly understate it. Google could easily go without the content of most individual sites because there really is very little that is unique that can't be found somewhere else, but it's a lot harder for websites to get targeted traffic without Google, though it certainly can be done.

Getting targeted traffic from other sources is one area that I really would like to know more about, SEO-wise. Martin mentioned PPC and I think that's probably the best option, all things considered. I haven't dipped my toes in it yet because I'm working on a serious site redesign and a few products, so my blog and everything else has taken a back burner. Again, though, AdSense belongs to Google and is the behemoth in the PPC arena. I hesitate to become Google reliant, even though AdSense would probably be my first PPC choice. Martin, do you have any tips on running a successful PPC campaign?

Social media is definitely an option and making it as easy as possible for users to bookmark or share pages, products, and services makes sense in most cases. Engaging in social conversations on various sites will take more effort and time, but I'm not sure about the reward factor. Do you have any insight? I could easily see social media engagement alone being a full-time job for several people.

Creating content for other sites like article directories, Squidoo, Hubpages, etc. just to get a link seems to me like it is generally a waste of time as I'd rather just add the content to my site itself. I think I've only ever found one or two articles from an article directory in a normal search and I've never come across Squidoo or any of the other page creation sites. However, I certainly wouldn't hesitate to write a guest post on certain blogs for the publicity. A newsletter is definitely something that I will be doing in the future as well.

Directories are an option, I suppose, but there are only a few I would bother submitting to and I don't ever search for information in a directory. I have a sneaking suspicion that not many other people do either.

Am I missing anything huge as far as getting external links? I'm not planning on getting into SEO as a business, but I will start doing it more for my site once I get these other projects taken care of. At this point, my basic SEO strategy could probably be summed up with: Create good content and services that give users a reason to return, make it easy to share and bookmark, take care of on-page optimizations, and then resort to PPC if and when necessary.

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I wouldn't set it up as a series of metrics or give everything an overall priority. I tend to make decisions on a case by case basis. So if something comes up I'll think about it and make the decision, but not according to any prearranged criteria. I think you'll always find things that won't fit well with your criteria.

There are always exceptions and they seem to give life most of its flavor.

**Feydakin** · 05-01-2009, 11:11 AM

I would agree with you in part, except that Google is experimenting with keeping the visitors on their site that they used to send out.. The new 'enhanced' SERPs with extended snippets are designed to do one thing, keep the user at Google.. This crosses the line in the business agreement in to content theft IMO..

I like to compare Google to Wal-Mart since people seem to understand meatspace examples better.. This is real, it happened to a friend of mine and I'm sure thousands of others..

A friend has an old school record store.. Sells CDs, LPs, concert tickets etc.. Awesome store.. One day Wal-Mart moved in to the area.. The general thought was, hey, this is great, WM will bring us more traffic and possibly more sales.. After WM showed up business improved.. For a while.. Then WM decided to renovate the area and build new strip centers around it and pushed to original people, the reason WM built there to begin with, to the back..

Record guy had a choice, live with what happened or agree to WMs new site plan and move to the new strip.. He moved..

Later WM updated the area again and told the mom and pops they had to change things about their store to 'be in compliance' or leave.. Most changed..

Still later WM decided that record guy was bad for the neighborhood because he drew a crowd that they didn't want.. Mostly tattood kids and head bangers.. So they made more demands on him like he needed to hire 24 hour security..

WM, like Google, likes to control the playing field.. Completely.. They change the deal when it suits them and you either play their way or not.. What they can't control directly they declare black hat or undesireable..

Personally, I'm not an SEO, I'm a marketer.. I don't 'care' what Google says.. I don't allow them to determine how I run my businesses.. This doesn't mean that I willfully break their guidlines, far from it.. What it means is that I will weigh the risk of being caught vs the reward of greater success.. One of our most successful websites received just 9% of it's traffic from Google.. While at the same time ranking #1 for all of it's key terms..

Usually I enjoy discussing online ethics.. But lately it has gotten to the point where a whole new generation of sheople read the SE Guidlines as if they were rules handed down from on high and anyone that dares to challenge them is evil incarnate.. Personally, I refuse to let a for profit company determine my ethics for me.. As Steven said, my ethical stance doesn't change just because I'm online or a search engine tells me it should..

**VirtuosiMedia** · 05-01-2009, 03:30 PM

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I would agree with you in part, except that Google is experimenting with keeping the visitors on their site that they used to send out.. The new 'enhanced' SERPs with extended snippets are designed to do one thing, keep the user at Google.. This crosses the line in the business agreement in to content theft IMO..

Google experiments with a lot of things all the time, but I'm not sure I've heard about that one. Could you share a link or explain a little further?

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WM, like Google, likes to control the playing field.. Completely.. They change the deal when it suits them and you either play their way or not.. What they can't control directly they declare black hat or undesireable..

True, but on the other side of things, isn't trying to control the playing field a natural approach for a lot of businesses? SEO and marketing are attempts to control the playing field. Businesses naturally compete and, while I'm not defending everything that Google, Wal*Mart, Microsoft, and countless others have done, it's a little hard to tell them that they don't have the right to expand because they're too big. Antitrust is one supposed defense, but after what happened to the telecommunications industry some years back and then Microsoft more recently, all the big players are careful how they step. They have legions of lawyers and lobbyists and I'd be surprised if very many antitrust cases materialize and bear fruit in the future.

That issue is a whole other conversation though, and it's largely out of our hands. Returning to SEO and marketing, I wholeheartedly agree with you that reducing reliance on a single company, namely Google, is the best approach. A comparative analogy is a company that has a multi-million dollar account with a single client that brings in the majority of its income versus having lots of clients with much smaller accounts and the income is spread out evenly. With the single client approach, because your business is basically built around that client, you'd better listen and do whatever you can to please that client or your business is in trouble. With multiple smaller clients, your business isn't reliant on any one of them and therefore has a lot more freedom. Personally, I prefer the second approach.

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Personally, I'm not an SEO, I'm a marketer.. I don't 'care' what Google says.. I don't allow them to determine how I run my businesses.. This doesn't mean that I willfully break their guidlines, far from it.. What it means is that I will weigh the risk of being caught vs the reward of greater success.. One of our most successful websites received just 9% of it's traffic from Google.. While at the same time ranking #1 for all of it's key terms..

That's a great success story. Kudos to you. Any tips you'd be willing to share would be wonderful, though I realize that it's your business and I understand if you'd prefer not to do so.

**vangogh** · 05-01-2009, 07:14 PM

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Am I missing anything huge as far as getting external links?

I think you covered a few things, but ultimately the best way to get links is to create content that people want to link to. There's certainly more to it than build it and they will come though. Business comes down to building relationships with real people and expanding your network. Then when you create truly great content you can ask your network to help promote it to get the ball rolling. Many in your network won't even need to be asked.

Think about the people you know through WT. Don't you think a few would link to you in some fashion if you asked. Social media sites enter into the equation, because they can help push things till they go viral. Obviously you need really great content for that, but say someone you know tweets a link to your post. All their followers see it. Maybe some of them retweet it and so on.

Not everything will go viral, but if you get to know Twitter and what kind of content people following you tend to tweet and retweet you can craft content more likely to spread.

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Google is experimenting with keeping the visitors on their site that they used to send out.. The new 'enhanced' SERPs with extended snippets are designed to do one thing, keep the user at Google.. This crosses the line in the business agreement in to content theft IMO.

Yep. We put up with it because many of us get so much traffic from Google we're afraid to lose it. Another way Google steals content is through the cache. They take your content and display in a framed page. A person could view most of the web without ever leaving Google (or any search engine).

Where are the ethics in Google serving your content on your server on their site while eating your bandwidth?

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Personally, I'm not an SEO, I'm a marketer.

I see myself the same way. To me SEO is about understanding what the search engines want to help me make better marketing decisions. Sometimes that decision will go against search engines though. Say for example CNN would sell me a permanent link across their site, but the link would be nofollowed or Google would know I bought the link and slap my site in some way. Who cares? The link from CNN would probably drive more traffic my way than Google does.

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Usually I enjoy discussing online ethics.. But lately it has gotten to the point where a whole new generation of sheople read the SE Guidlines as if they were rules handed down from on high and anyone that dares to challenge them is evil incarnate.

Same here. I'm not sure how the idea arose that Google somehow sets the ethical guidelines on the web. Google is a for profit company. I generally like them and what they do. Sometimes I disagree with how they handle something. I share the same concerns as others about how much data they now have access to. I don't think they're evil, but at the same time I don't feel comfortable with so much data all in one place.

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Google experiments with a lot of things all the time, but I'm not sure I've heard about that one. Could you share a link or explain a little further?

The snippets below links in search results used to be 2 lines only. I think Google will now show a 3rd line. I don't think they've gone beyond that. The idea is that if they show a little more info in the results people might find answers without having to actually visit your site.

That can be a good thing for end users. How many times do you have a simple question and don't need to visit dozens of pages. You just want a quick answer.

Then again is that fair to the person who created the content and answered your question? Google gets credit with solving your problem and the site owner gets nothing.

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True, but on the other side of things, isn't trying to control the playing field a natural approach for a lot of businesses?

Absolutely. Which is why we can't just blindly follow Google guidelines. Google is a for profit business. Some things in the guidelines are there not to help us, but to further Google profits.

Steve is right. It's about weighing the risks and rewards. It's silly to blatantly break Google's guidelines to make an extra $5 a month, but what if breaking those guidelines led to $5,000 a month in a way that didn't violate your own personal ethics?

**Feydakin** · 05-06-2009, 02:00 PM

Sorry - got pulled away -

VM - about longer snippets - its here on Google's own blog..
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/...e-results.html

I have no issue with the Wal*Marts, Microsofts, and Googles of the world.. I wish I was one some days.. They are free to do as they see fit for 'their' business model.. Just as we are free to stop playing with them and go elsewhere.. There are some great up and coming search engines ( http://duckduckgo.com/ and http://www.wolframalpha.com/ to point out 2 of them ) I, for one, chose to use them as much as they use me for my own benefit.. I just don't rely on them for my livelyhood because they could go away tomorrow..

As for tips that I could offer to do what I do, its really simple.. Build a great web site, follow the guidelines that make sense to you, and engage your customers on a personal level by being open and honest with them while providing the best possible service every single time.. Standard business practices.. I've had female customers so happy with jewelry that we made for them that I got topless photos of them as a thank you! I loved my job at the jewelry store.. I really really did

Steven, don't get me started on cache.. I've been doing some testing about rankings and allowing archive or noarchive.. Some insteresting results, but the test isn't broad enough to draw any real conclusions..

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Steve is right. It's about weighing the risks and rewards. It's silly to blatantly break Google's guidelines to make an extra $5 a month, but what if breaking those guidelines led to $5,000 a month in a way that didn't violate your own personal ethics?

Or $50,000 / mo

Google makes their decisions based on the same principles.. Will the changes they make earn them more money than it will cost them in users?? If yes, do it.. If no, don't do it.. Risk v Reward..