alt.internet.search-engines

Re: 'Ethical' SEO?

C.W. <from_...@nomail.com>

On Thu, 4 Nov 2004 18:27:27 +0000 (UTC), <spam...@postmaster.co.uk>
wrote:

[snip]

>They quote Google in their booklet, while talking about ethics of your SEO
>agency saying alarm bells should ring if... "Your SEO provider puts links
>into their other clients on doorway pages."

>BMM put links into themselves on every page they build. On their smaller
>pages, this is a visible "Search Engine Optimisation by Big Mouth Media"
>tag, with a clickable link. They also list themselves, with a URL in the
>pages META DATA. This is free advertising for bigmouth, and greatly improves
>their ranking for "Search Engine Optimisation" it appears to do nothing for
>the client at all.

[snip]

>This appears to operate in direct contradiction to Google's guidelines
>(regarding building pages for search engines rather than users). Their
>linking back to themselves from client sites, and this inter-site linking
>also appears to be in direct contradiction with Google's guidelines.

Not commentiing about the inter-linking within the company's own site
... but ...

I don't see how a link to a company, doing the SEO, in the footer of
every page of the site is any different from a site design firm that
also puts a links back to their own site in the footer of a client's
site.

In terms of the Google guidelines, in regards to the links you pointed
out being on client's sites, I think Google were more so referring to
"doorway pages" that were created simply for sharing links to boost
the backlinks thoughts. More blatent than one backlink shared in a
footer [An example of what I mean would be the doorway pages like the
ones Traffic Power created for their clients] ... and some people
theorize footer links are not heavily weighted compared to links
appearing in the main body of content.

In terms of the clients "not knowing" - you have admitted to not
knowing if this particular SEO firm's clients know [and/or agreed]
about the META tag or not. So hard call on claiming that was being
doing unethically or not.

Carol