Message from discussion
'Ethical' SEO?
Path: g2news1.google.com!news4.google.com!newsfeed2.dallas1.level3.net!news.level3.com!newsfeed.mathworks.com!news-out.cwix.com!newsfeed.cwix.com!prodigy.com!newsmst01a.news.prodigy.com!prodigy.com!postmaster.news.prodigy.com!newssvr33.news.prodigy.com.POSTED!e625307f!not-for-mail
From: from_...@nomail.com (C.W.)
Newsgroups: alt.internet.search-engines
Subject: Re: 'Ethical' SEO?
Message-ID: <418b8613.144367730@news.prodigy.net>
References: <cmdsa2$s2e$1@sparta.btinternet.com> <okclo05iha4ev0r722mor4480vvh1dsogt@4ax.com> <418abb61.92470411@news.prodigy.net> <cmfhn3$8n6$1@sparta.btinternet.com>
X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.21/32.243
Lines: 74
NNTP-Posting-Host: 4.239.183.178
X-Complaints-To: abuse@prodigy.net
X-Trace: newssvr33.news.prodigy.com 1099665740 ST000 4.239.183.178 (Fri, 05 Nov 2004 09:42:20 EST)
NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 05 Nov 2004 09:42:20 EST
Organization: SBC http://yahoo.sbc.com
X-UserInfo1: FKPO@SJGPZVWSTX[GRNNOFTBGR_N@ATM[@GZ_GYO^BSZUSAANVUEAE[YETZPIWWI[FCIZA^NBFXZ_D[BFNTCNVPDTNTKHWXKB@X^B_OCJLPZ@ET_O[G\XSG@E\G[ZKVLBL^CJINM@I_KVIOR\T_M_AW_M[_BWU_HFA_]@A_A^SGFAUDE_DFTMQPFWVW[QPJN
Date: Fri, 05 Nov 2004 14:42:20 GMT
On Fri, 5 Nov 2004 09:38:49 +0000 (UTC), <spam...@postmaster.co.uk>
wrote:
>> Google is only negative, in my opinion, about people abusing SEO
>> thoughts - which opens the cans of worms about what is deemed ethical
>> and what is not. :)
>
>This the main thrust of my question I suppose; what is 'ethical'?. I have
>looked into doing optimisation on the site myself and looked into some
>forums and newsgroups, but they are so full of contradiction and confused
>people, it is difficult to draw out any concrete knowledge from them. It was
>also consuming way too much of my time and detracting from my main duties;
>hence we are considering hiring a professional to do it.
>
>But when paying for a service from a professional (say an electrician), you
>don't expect to have to hang a sign on your door saying that the electrics
>on the premises were done by Bob's Electricals. You pay for the service, if
>they want to use you to advertise, they can pay you for the advertising
>space. Unless of course they offer a sizable discount for including these
>footer links.
When I put the house up for sale, the real estate company put a sign
in the yard saying they were handling the sale of the house - I didn't
get a discount. The sold sign stayed up during the closing and until
the new folks moved in.
Granted the real estate sign was helping me out also - but after the
house sold, how was the sold sign helping me? It wasn't - it was
helping the real estate company give the visual message to others
driving by "We sold another house ... we can do the same for you!" The
sign was placed in my yard for exchange of services - I had a house to
sell, the real estate company would help me do that.
You tried to compare site-wide links in a footer to the beign the same
as the SEO company creating doorway pages on the client's sites solely
for the purpose of sharing those links and you felt that was unethical
because of Google statement about doorway pages. Then you follow that
up with the argumentation of "But if the site optimizer paid for or
gave the client a sizeable discount for that link space" - that would
somehow be "better" and suddenly "ethical" in your opinion? Now it is
the same link - so what is the difference? And why is it better,
ethical wise, that someone pays for links on sites?
>But this is it; what exactly is 'ethical SEO'?
A can of worms.
Let's face it, SEO is manipulation of the content - bettering it to
appeal better to search engines. You wouldn't consider doing it or
hiring someone to do it for you if not wanting to rank higher than you
already are in search engines.
Is it ethical to reword your content to insert repetitions of your
perceived keywords? That is done for the search engines, by some
people at times, more so than the readers of that content - for
example:
Like humor? Welcome the best hurmor site around! We have job humor,
marriage humor, mom humor, dad humor, in-law humor, political humor
.. and more! Why - this site has more humor than you can shake a
stick at! If you love humor, you are in the right place for great
humor!
Work Humor | Marriage Humor | Mom Humor | Dad Humor | In-Law Humor |
Political Humor | Tech Humor
Now how much you wanna bet the word humor is mentioned to appeal to
the search engines versus the person visiting the site?
Ethical SEO is generally interpreted to not doing anything "against
the SE rules" and not being "harmful to the client's site" . After
that ... seems it goes gray.
Carol
|
