There is a lot of talk as to
whether or not certain of the search engine optimization
techniques and methods are ethical. In this series of short
articles, I will discuss each of the 'questionable' techniques
and demonstrate that none of them are intrinsically unethical
and, therefore, none of them are intrinsically wrong.
Arguments against their useage do not stand up in the face of
good, old-fashioned common sense. It doesn't mean that the
techniques cannot be used in unethical and unscrupulous ways;
it simply means that they are not intrinsically unethical,
they are not spam and it is not wrong to use them.
There is a lot of rubbish talked about search engine spam.
Some people have even tried to formalize it by laying down
definitions as to what is and isn't spam. Two of the main
definitions are:-
Whatever each search engine says is spam, is spam for that
engine.
The first definition means that everyone who is engaged in
search engine optimization of any kind is, by definition, a
spammer - bar none.
What is meant by 'search engine spam'?
The same
question comes up time and time again - "Is this spam?". What
the question really means is, "Is this wrong or unethical?",
although sometimes the question may mean, "Is this going to
get my site penalized?".
The fact is that none of the so-called
spam techniques and methods are in any way wrong or unethical.
A technique or method only becomes wrong or unethical when it is used
unethically; e.g. a page that appears to be about one thing
but which automatically redirects people to something quite
different.
An example of a search engine optimization method that some
consider to be spam/wrong/unethical is hidden text. The idea
behind hidden text is to show some optimized text to the
search engines but not to people viewing the page in a
browser. It is done because the text wouldn't make much sense
to the viewer or it would spoil the design of the page. But
there is nothing wrong with this technique. It doesn't attempt
to hide anything from the search engines. The fact that they
don't want it is irrelevant. The text is in plain sight to
them and their programs. If they don't spot it, that's their
problem.
What should be realized about all the so-called search
engine spam techniques is that they don't hurt anyone. In fact
they help everybody. Unless they are used unscrupulously, they
help a page to be ranked more highly for its actual topic than
it otherwise would. Surfers find the page in the search
results and go to the page's site. There they find what they
expected to find, having read the page's search engine
listing. The surfer is happy, the search engine should be
happy because it sent a surfer to a relevant site, and the
page owner is happy because s/he has a site visitor.
The fact that so-called spam techniques were used to get
the page high in the search results for its actual topic
doesn't matter. Everyone's a winner.
Let me be perfectly clear. There is nothing instrinsically wrong, immoral or unethical with
any of the so-called search engine spam techniques and
methods. Like many other things in life, some of
them can be used in unscrupulous ways but, in themselves, they
are perfectly good, moral and ethical. Some of them are so
good, moral and ethical that the search engines themselves use
them when they auto-redirect visitors to a local
version of the engine, and they do it by cloaking -
providing different pages to different people according to
some criteria; in this case it's the geographical location.
The reason that people use the techniques and methods is to
help pages rank highly in the search engine results for their
topics. Nobody suggests that there is anything wrong or
unethical in trying to do that. Some search engines (including
Google) even suggest ways to improve a page's rankings. So
people are not against trying to improve rankings, but some of
them are against some of the methods that are used to do it.
We have seen that everyone approves of taking steps to
improve a page's rankings, so let's look at these search
engine optimization techniques and methods that people some
find questionable.
Before we do, I need to point out that, even though I will
show that these search engine optimization techniques and
methods are perfectly harmless, ethical and sensible, some
engines don't want some of them to be used and, if they spot
them being used, they may penalize the page or even the whole
site. Pages and sites are not often penalized. It depends on
the nature of the 'offense'. Generally speaking, search
engines are down an anything that adversely affects their
surfers.
I should also say that search engines are very poor at
spotting unwanted techniques and rely on people reporting
them. Whether or not you choose to use any of the techniques
is up to you but, if you do, it would be wise to hide them
from people and not talk openly about them unless you can talk
anonymously.
