Rising Above the SEO Reputation
How many times have you seen an article referring to SEO (search engine optimization) as a "Black Art" or "underhanded", "manipulative", "sleazy", "deceptive", "sneaky" etc?. I could go on and on but you get my drift. The thing is - our industry has a pitiful reputation which is being reinforced on a daily basis by the media and word of mouth.
This realization hit me between the eyes recently when I read a comment in a search engine forum from an SEO who claimed he used his ethical SEO methods as a Unique Selling Point. Look what we've been reduced to - differentiating ourselves from the masses because we DON'T break the rules. What other industry could boast such a thing? Apart from the used car industry, I can't really think of any.
So where did this nasty reputation come from and why has it been allowed to propogate? Well, it's mainly care of the hundreds of cowboys out there who decide one day they are online marketing experts, announce themselves as SEO's and set up a backyard biz, deciding (naively) that the fastest way to achieve high rankings is to break the rules, "crack" the search engine algorithms and undermine the search indexes by generating pages and pages of search engine spam. They do this by creating doorway pages designed for search engine spiders rather than humans, complete with hidden text, hidden links, cloaking and lots of other "tricks" they come across as they surf the Internet.
Problem is these self-proclaimed experts don't bother to do their research and learn that such spamming techniques have long been ineffective. Nearly all the search engines these days have sophisticated methods of detecting and removing spam within days of receiving submissions. Penalties for spamming the search engines differ from engine to engine, but can range from being "red flagged" and put on a watch list, to being hit with a ranking penalty, to having your site permanently banned from their index (in severe cases). The type of scumbag SEO's that would play Russian Roulette with their client's web sites in this fashion are well-deserving of scorn. It can take months for search engines to lift such penalties, if they decide to at all.
While ineffective, such search engine spamming techniques have defined the reputation of the search engine optimization industry to date. In turn, this reputation is eroding business for so-called "ethical" SEO's - a term I use loosely to describe SEO's that don't try to
CONTINUE BELOW...
Didn't Find What You Were Looking For?
Try a Specialized Search HERE
MOST RECENT ARTICLES
ArticleSphere.com: Internet And E-business | Forums
Forums articles from ArticleSphere.com
Forum Marketing: How To Boost Your Profits With Forum Marketing Posted By : J...
Forum marketing is the act of using web forums to gain traffic to your website. Using forums to market your site can also result in more sales of your products or services, depending upon what type of website you are promoting. The key to utilizing forums as a promotional tool is to do it in a subtle manner. More and more forum administrators are becoming open-eyed to spam users who exist solely to promote their website in their signature.
Using Message Boards for Internet Marketing Posted By : Jason Swanson
Internet marketing is a very wide term which can be used to encompass a variety of marketing techniques which are used online. Banner advertisements, website promotion, search engine optimization, email marketing and affiliate marketing all fall under the umbrella of the term Internet marketing but there is even more to Internet marketing than those concepts. Promoting your website or business on message boards can also be considered to be Internet marketing. In fact this is one of the simplest and least expensive Internet marketing options available.
Using Forums in Article Marketing Posted By : Jason Swanson
Wherever your business is, online or off, forums can benefit you. These benefits Take many forms for marketers. Forums can be a source of information on what the market needs an as a means of letting people know how that need can be met. You can post articles on forums, find tidbits of useful information for writing more articles and you can learn from others as well as teach them.
How To Use Forums For Internet Marketing Posted By : Mc Glenn
Internet marketing using forums as one source. The internet is awash with forums, both those specifically dedicated to novice and seasoned internet marketers and those that are niche-specific.
Computer Forums - A Great Place to Get the Help You Need at No Cost Posted By...
Have you ever experienced an annoying problem with your computer that you just could not get sorted out on your own? Most people have, and it can be completely frustrating when you are on a schedule trying to meet a deadline. Computer consultants/technicians are expensive even for the most basic of tasks, and calling one each time you have a simple problem can break the bank pretty quickly. However, if you can read simple directions and follow instructions, then it is likely that you can get all the help you need with your computer problems just for the asking.
Newsfeed display by CaRP
CONTINUE HERE...
undermine the search engine indexes when optimizing web sites. Actually, I'm not really comfortable with the term "ethics" to describe SEO. Until the industry establishes and accepts a standardized Code of Practice, we are just measuring others by our own personal standards and a set of arbitrary rules. But the SEO's I'm talking about strive to keep search results as relevant as possible by revising the visible site content and following the guidelines set down by the search engines in the optimization process. Some SEO's call this "White Magic SEO" - a tongue in cheek response to the "Black Magic" jibes I guess.
Not surprisingly, search engines have been reduced to lumping all SEO's into the "untrustworthy" basket. On their Webmaster Do's and Don'ts page (http://www.google.com/webmasters/dos.html), Google state: "Be very careful about allowing an individual consultant or company to 'optimize' your web site. Chances are they will engage in some of our "Don'ts" and end up hurting your site". Chances are? Sounds a bit presumptuous if you ask me. Likewise, at a recent search engine conference, a representative from AltaVista declared that "all SEO's could be described using four letter words". The typical Internet user can only come to the conclusion that, according to some very reliable sources, SEO's are not to be trusted - now how fair is that?
So the main problem is - how do we address this reputation issue? Do we establish and agree on a standard Code of Practise as in development on sites such as the World Association of Internet Marketers (http://www.waim.org/ethics.html), SEO Consultants (http://www.seoconsultants.com/seo-code-of-ethics.htm) and SEO Pros (http://www.seopros.org/members/practices.htm)? Do we race around locating and reporting search engine spam in the hope of improving our reputation in the eyes of the search engines? Or do we simply follow our own set of standards and hope potential clients can come to their own untainted conclusions? Personally I'm looking forward to the day when I no longer detect immediate suspicion when I tell people I optimize web sites for a living.
About the Author
Article by Kalena Jordan, CEO of Web Rank. Kalena was one of the first search engine optimization experts in Australia & New Zealand and is well known and respected in her field. For more of her articles on search engine ranking and online marketing, please visit http://www.high-search-engine-ranking.com
|
