SEO Ethics ~ Ethics & SEO Strategies ~ Ethical SEO Services ~ AIM

 

Ethics and Search Engine Optimization Strategies

There are many ways to optimize a web site for the search engines and there are Search Engine Marketing "professionals" who attempt to beat the system through certain unethical strategies at the expense of the client. If these hidden tricks are discovered, the client's website can be penalized with the website being removed from the search engine. This is not a position you want to be in.

 

Search engine optimization is more of an art than a science. While there are many factors to search engine optimization strategies and website promotion, there are no cut and dry rules. The nature of this field leaves a lot of room for interpretation; Consequently, there are some professional and some "not so professional" ways to optimize a website.

 

What makes one method of SEO professional and another unprofessional?

This is a subjective topic, with no straightforward answer.

 

There are a number of ways in which some try to outsmart the search engines, and there is even a term for it — Black Hat SEO. It is best to avoid these practices. A sampling of the most common tricks is as follows:

• Hidden text – that includes hidden keywords
• Hidden links
• Sneaky redirects - A form of spam, these are redirects that automatically take you to a page that you didn't necessarily want to go to.
• Multiple domains pointing to separate web sites with identical content
• Pages overloaded with keywords
• Cloaking – The creation of web pages that display different one set of content to users and another to search engines
• Use of link farms to create fake link sources for inflated link popularity

 

Black Hat SEO is a Gray Area

These Black Hat SEO methods in themselves were not always viewed as unscrupulous or unprofessional forms of search engine optimization. It was the manner in which they were used. Consequently, due of this poor use of site optimization, the search engine algorithms have increased in complexity, thus making search engine optimization and the promotion of web sites more complicated.

 

Sometimes certain SEO techniques and strategies can be viewed as Black Hat SEO while other techniques prove to be a good work around. Our policy is to offer our clients suggestions to make their sites search engine friendly with appropriate navigation and content so these methods are not necessary.

 

Falling back on tricks to artificially boost a site in the search engines is poor strategy to use in search engine optimization, not to mention a highly unprofessional way to build a business.

 

It takes as much time and energy to figure out Black Hat SEO strategies as it does to create strategies that are effective in generating a high return on internet investment (ROII). At Ascend Internet Marketing, we believe that time and energy are better spent focusing on creating strategies that are professional and ethical.

 

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