Improving The Reputation Of The SEM Industry

[dannysullivan]

It's not been a good couple of weeks for the reputation of the SEM industry. Some examples:


Seth Godin posts (http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2004/07/the_problem_wit.html) recently that "I didn't think that most SEO was worth the money"
Anil Dash also wrote (http://www.dashes.com/anil/2004/06/04/nigritude_ultra) recently, "I've always had a pretty low opinion of the Search Engine Optimization industry. Though there are of course legitimate experts in the field, it seems chock full of people who are barely above spammers, and they taint the image of the whole group."
The allegations (http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=431) against Traffic Power no doubt will make many wary of whether they should trust an SEM firm.

I think it's fair to say that there are plenty of great SEO/SEM firms. They do good work, and it's unfortunate that the entire industry gets tarred with the same brush.

What's the solution? Clearly we need to have standards that SEM firms will follow, right? Just like the same standards that PR firms all agree to follow.

Oops. I don't know of any approved standards that all PR firms are supposed to follow. I don't know which resource lists all the "ethical" or "white hat" PR firms. I can tell you that having been a target of PR firms, I've seen a range of responses. I've seen small, tiny agencies have done a great job in getting a message out to me. I've had large, well-known agencies be completely clueless and even do some things that I'd consider to be PR spam.

That's just one example of an industry that lacks standards, yet I don't often see people writing that that all PR is a waste of time or that all PR firms are a rip-off artists.

SEM has gone through downturns in its reputation before, and it will probably go through them again. But personally, I'm tired of the entire industry being beaten up. This is, after all, the industry that almost certainly has generated a significant part of the income that search engines like Yahoo and Google are earning -- in turn making those companies able to offer search for free.

Again, what's the solution? I don't know. I do know that anyone trying to start out and define what's "ethical" begins from a point of weakness. That's because the search engines each define for themselves what they consider to be acceptable. So others trying to say what's right and wrong, on behalf of the entire SEM industry, don't stand on firm ground no matter how good the intentions or even whether they are generally correct. They still cannot speak for the search engines themselves.

That's one reason I didn't think SEMPO should start out trying to set rules, and still don't. If the search engine won't be public in part out of fear, a brand new industry group is supposed to? But as SEMPO is turning a year old, I did recently suggest to the board in my advisory capacity (http://www.sempo.org/sempo-board-of-advisors.php) that perhaps it is time for it to explore some type of solution that involves the search engines themselves.

Perhaps the way to a solution is to ask what's the problem? To me, the problem for the entire SEM industry is that there are clients who don't know who to trust. That means a lost opportunity, both for SEM firms and for search engines themselves, because some of these lost clients would spend money on ads.

OK, how do you know who to trust? One solution would be a blacklist, where search engines publish firms accused of bad behavior. But search engines have been hesitant to do this, as I've written before.

Right, how about a whitelist? Perhaps SEO/SEM firms voluntarily agree to participate with each major search engine in a public reporting service. You'd tell your clients that they can easily check if you've done anything a search engine considers wrong by using a database the search engine provides. If you don't participate, nothing would be published.

So let's say we've got three firms -- ispamlikecrazy.com, pureasthedrivensnow.com and getyouconversions.com.

Ispam doesn't register. They spam, Google acts, but there's no public record of this action. So why bother? A consumer considering ispam could ask ispam why they aren't registered with the Google program, which may spur them to investigate ispam more. In the end, they may still decide they like ispam's aggressive technique -- but at least they can't come back and say they didn't get a warning.

Pure does register. They do nothing to get into trouble, so you can find they've got a clean bill of health.

Getyouconversions does register. Google comes across something really
spammy they've done for a client. Getyou is told that an action report is being filed. Getyou has agreed to accept this as taking part in the program. Getyou can perhaps insert their own response into the report but stay in the program. If potential clients see this, they can explain perhaps they've learned their lesson, and that it can be seen there's no further reports over time. Alternatively, perhaps they can withdraw from the program, putting them in the same situation as ispam.

That's one idea. It's not perfect. In particular, it leave the search engines with the ability to be, as Jill Whalen put it recently (http://www.cre8asiteforums.com/viewtopic.php?p=76906#76906), "as the boss of me." Jill's a pretty well-known "white hatter," so if she's got reservations, you can only imagine what proud "black hatter" SEOs might think about such ideas.

I have my own reservations about it as well. But the search engines are the boss of us within their own borders, as my Spam Rules Require Effective Spam Police (http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3344581) article from earlier this year explains more. And for the consumer seeking an SEM firm, this is one of the key issues they want to know: will the work you do get me into trouble with a particular search engine?

Here's a twist to consider. Perhaps the search engines themselves might also take part in a public reporting program. If someone is dinged on public spam reporting they provide, perhaps an appeal could be made to a program that reviews search engine actions. And perhaps such a program could also be used to investigate any wrong-doing that are aimed at search engines -- I think they boosted this particular web site, they failed to act on the clickfraud allegation and so on.

I'd also come back to the whitelist idea I've pitched and stress that it is voluntary. No one would have to take part. It is not even designed to say "good SEM, bad SEM." Instead, it's meant to help potential SEM clients figure out whether a particular firm has done anything wrong with a particular search engine. No doubt, there will be some inherent "goodness" attached to those who participate in the program and have clean records. But right now, everyone is getting a bad rep, frankly, no matter how clean they may claim to be.

So that's the long post. Thoughts on the idea, good or bad? Or even better, completely new ideas on a way to improve the reputation of the SEM industry, in a way that will gain the support of many of those already in it?

[bwelford]

I guess you and I, Danny, were both thinking and writing on this issue about the same time this morning. Your thread is most timely.

I believe no para-legalistic system with "laws", police-ing, outing or whatever will be easy to implement. Any system that tries to prevent bad habits is always tough, if the bad habits can make you money.

I suggest it's better to look for an encouragement system, where folk gradually realize that following Best Practices is the way to succeed. I've set out one way it might be done here (http://www.cre8asiteforums.com/viewtopic.php?p=77154#77154).

[dannysullivan]

What you describe effectively happens, in some ways. Google (and Yahoo, and others) already have guidelines, and they do pass judgement on pages that don't seem to pass those guidelines. It's also important to note that this does include NOT taking action in some cases. They might find a page using invisible text or even cloaking but still may allow the page to retain, if they ultimately feel it is causing no harm.

What you don't get is the ombudsman idea, that they notify someone that a URL has been removed. That Spam Rules article I referenced suggested that one way this might happen, at least with Google, is to do something similar to DMCA removal notification.

Google in particular, however, has been wary of providing any type of spam notice or verification option for fear of helping people better spam them. In other words, the less they say, the less potential spammers are uncertain of what may be caught. Of course, that also means plenty of people not doing spamming may assume they've done so if they get dropped for a variety of perfectly innocent reasons.

I guess that's the reason I like the voluntary and public approach. At least with that, Google and the other search engines can establish a direct relationship with SEM firms (and ad agencies or anyone else who does promotion on behalf of others). The search engines potentially are giving some "spam tips" away, but I think that would be offset by better understanding and relating to some of these companies.

[Incubator]

I can really only see the major search engines building relations with SEO/SEM firms depending on the the purchasing power the SEM firm brings with the client to the table. Organic natural index listings do not provide google or Yahoo any direct income. Those "free" listings everyone wants to appear on the top pages with, do not send Google and Yahoo any sort of income, but the buying potential Adwords, Site Match and so on...will naturally be given a second look if the budget is in an area where Google and Yahoo like to see. What we should ask the major engines, is what do they have in plan for companies or individuals that bring a revenue stream to THIER business by using the programs offered. Lets face it Google will not pat you on the head and say" you have been a good ethical markerter" so here is your reward, natural index is only governed by complaints and not neccesarily good work.

Another large draw back are those companies offering submissions to 300,000 search engines for 99.00, these companies infact our doing more harm to our business as well as anyone who signs up for it. Forums like this one hopefully will bring the industry to a point where de-education becomes a helpful path by letting ppl know the facts.

[Daria_Goetsch]

I don't think the in fighting between SEM's helps the industry as a whole. I'm not talking about obvious spammers who have a scam going to rip off a client, everyone needs to be aware of those companies. I'm talking about variations on methods SEM's use in the industry, and how we often have extreme conversations about what is an absolute in "right" and "wrong". I don't think this does a service to the SEM industry. If we're reading all about it online, it is there for potential clients to read as well.

Standards idea: all SEM companies are required to have an agreement between client and SEM stating the client was informed of all potential SEM techniques that might cause problems with the search engines, with those techniques listed in the agreement. Those companies not providing the agreement to the client could be cited and/or fined. In this situation, the client is fully informed of best practices, and the decision to proceed using questionable techniques is between the client and SEM.

[NFFC]

Oh boy, my favourite subject!

>Improving The Reputation Of The SEM Industry

I think firstly we have a lot of confusion about who the SEM/SEO industry consists of.

It seems whenever these discussions arise the focus seems to fall on a very small but very vocal group. For want of a better example many of the members of SEMPO fall in to this group, I don't believe they represent anything more than a tiny fraction of a % of "our" industry. Let me give an example using today's announcement concerning Marketleap:

"Digital Impact expects the acquisition to result in approximately $1.5 million in additional net revenues and approximately $300,000 in EBITDA(1) for fiscal 2005"

That is a tiny, tiny company by any measure and yet is touted as one of the market leaders. I know SEO's that work from their back bedroom that earn more and webmaster/SEO's that do more in a month AND there are 10's of thousands of them!

So we have a mismatch about where the real power and influence lies and where I believe it actually lies. Just because the SE's marketing departments find it easier to deal with these so called "large" companies doesn't make them important, some would say it just makes them easier to use.

So with the proviso that I think we are focusing on the wrong "group" in looking for a lead in these matters my suggestion is very straightforward:

We need to attack, expose and stamp out hypocrisy whenever we see it.

Let me give some specific examples from both sides of the coin.

As we have mentioned SEMPO already have a quick scan of the member list. Many good companies there, some great ones, personally I recognise a few labelled by the SE's as very bad boys, spammers par excellence breaking every rule in the book. Others, which I know from personal experience are page jackers, some would call them thiefs. My belief, as stated earlier in this thread is as far as the SE's are concerned the main difference between a dirty spammer and a vauled partner is how much they spend on PPC, I think that is a very poor state of affairs.

Lets have a look at the SE's, they too play their part in this dirty game. Taking Yahoo as an example [for no other reason than they are an easy target] look at how on the one hand they say you must show the same content to us as you show to the user, contrast that with the fact that they will allow you to cloak a feed as_long_as_you_pay_them. Take Yahoo again and the statement that site match does not affect ranking, they are weasel words. Lets look at the facts, sites that pass a human review get a boost, ALL site match URL's get a human review... ergo and so on and so forth.

If we are looking to improve the reputation of our industry I believe we have a very, very long way to go and are currently headed in the wrong direction. I believe the current "leadership" is doing a very poor job, I believe that by listening to them the SE's are doing a very poor job.

Short term I only see things getting worse.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=hypocrisy

[Incubator]

"Digital Impact expects the acquisition to result in approximately $1.5 million in additional net revenues and approximately $300,000 in EBITDA(1) for fiscal 2005That is great for "DI" .....showing that SEM can lead in a traditional marketing venue....GGGEEEZZZ I should head to the great USA for our VC funding :)

Cheers

Wc

[Wail]

We need a watch dog and a watch dog with teeth. An independent organisation of sufficient size and prominence to investigate "dodgy SEO agency" reports, to have some support from search engines (who should want to be seen cooperating with a watch dog of suitable status) and with enough above the line presence for consumers to be aware of.

I'm thinking more along the lines of Interactive Advertising Burea (http://www.iab.net) than an SEO organisation created by SEO agencies, for SEO agencies and which sells off PageRank. The IAB is an example, please note.

A decent watch dog would allow some form of accreditation in addition to any warnings. Agencies would need to register valid contact details (and more, perhaps financial assurances too) to score the accreditation and so the watch dog would not have to hunt down shadowy figures in attic bedrooms as the customer complaints started to come in.

The watch dog would be in a position to keep track of the SEO agency's reputation.

I think this would make things tough for the smaller SEOs and it would increase the barrier to entry on the market place but this might not be a bad idea.

[NFFC]

>so the watch dog would not have to hunt down shadowy figures in attic bedrooms

I think you will find they consist of the best and most ethical SEO's you will be likely to meet.

Of course if they are you will never be able to find them anyhow.

[Bernard]

I think it's fair to say that there are plenty of great SEO/SEM firms. They do good work, and it's unfortunate that the entire industry gets tarred with the same brush.

You make one customer happy and he might tell another person about your service/product. You make one customer mad and he will tell ten people to avoid you like the plague. That's a paraphrase of an old saying.

Are all used car salesmen dishonest? No, but their industry has that reputation because of the perceived abundance of less than honest salesmen. IMO, SEM is facing a similar problem.

What's the solution? Clearly we need to have standards that SEM firms will follow, right? ...

Standards - would be a good start
Certification - would be better for consumers
Licensing - I doubt anyone wants to go this far

Having a Professional organization for SEM that means the same thing to SEM as (for example) PMI means to project management would be a good thing. Any organization that promotes a minimum standard that members are expected to uphold will help consumers.

SEO Consultants and SEOPros have made a good start with standards and certification, IMO. I would like to see search engines support a non-profit Professional organization like them.

... I do know that anyone trying to start out and define what's "ethical" begins from a point of weakness. That's because the search engines each define for themselves what they consider to be acceptable. So others trying to say what's right and wrong, on behalf of the entire SEM industry, don't stand on firm ground no matter how good the intentions or even whether they are generally correct. They still cannot speak for the search engines themselves.

I doubt any search engine will support an organization that does not prohibit violations of their guidelines (or allows violations within the standards being promoted). The arguments of whether or not it is ethical to do so are moot in the context of developing support for an industry Professional organization IMO. Without search engine backing, a Professional organization will lack the necessary credibility to drive the industry.

While interpretations of guidelines may drive debates over what is acceptable practice, ethics and standards within a Professional organization would necessarily require members to comply with the guidelines of any search engine that is being targeted IMO.

[Incubator]

Interesting idea....but how would you govern the 10,000's of affiliate marketers out there that use the shady side of SEO, lets face it they still deliver forms of doorways, hallways and enterance pages. Depending on the industry you are in those may account for the largest range of your competition for a client. Case in point, we do some work for online casinos...they have 25,000 affiliate re-sellers that will implement " any coding necessary" for conversions. When we have a team of 4 on the account competing with 25,000 affiliates, the company (client) always turns to us to say"how come our affiliates are ranking better then us....we dont want to keep paying 35% comission for life to the affiliates" ?

Controlling organizations is the easiest part of all,looking at the whole picture though, may lead to more drill down tactics needed buy all organizations to say "one off splash pages are no good", then again that train of though can lead to banner ads as well,they are intrusive also and dont care any weight anymore as well

Cheers

WC

[bwelford]

All these suggestions re some type of watch dog with teeth imply huge efforts on the parts of lots of people.

My simple suggestion in the second post to this thread would require very limited efforts but these efforts would be applied by those who are most directly affected. To my mind, the most important stakeholders here are the search engines who are being spammed and those website owners who are delisted by the actions of disreputable SEO's.

[For those who do not have time to go to read the link (http://www.cre8asiteforums.com/viewtopic.php?p=77154#77154) I put in there, here is a short synopsis of the important points. I suggested that a search engine like Google should appoint a 'Best Practices Judge' who would review and perhaps de-index those URL's that were not following Best Practices. The owner of a URL that had been de-indexed would receive notice of this de-indexing but without reasons. This is a great way of rapidly empowering such URL owners who may have been "assisted" by a disreputable SEO. A 'Best Practices Ombudsman' process would allow those who had unfairly been indexed to appeal the de-indexing.]

Whatever process is adopted should be simple and have a high probability of working effectively. I fear that the debates that have swirled around SEMPO show the difficulties of trying to set limits on behaviour rather than suggesting a good direction to follow.

[I, Brian]

Nice topic here - SEO ethics is one of more own personal favourite discussion points.

The trouble is, the whole industry is so diverse, from the clients to the SEO individuals & companies to the search engines themselves. There is no level playing field from which to make straight and clear rules that can equally apply to any field.

How ordinary local businesses are served best is going to be very different to how adult businesses need to be promoted - and the different search engines and directories being targeted is also a pertinent issue: though Google has been king of the hill for a while, there are always the Yahoo! Slurp and MSN bots snapping at the heels, to mention Teoma and other established alternatives.

Ultimately, SEO is a business that anyone can set themselves up with minimal initial layout costs. However, this effects many other fields of internet business, not least web design and webhosting. Any kid with HTTP access can theoretically lay claim to mastery of any such field - ultimately, it is up to the peers to be able to help distinguish who are the people worth taking serious - for example, as like WebHostingTalk has done for the web hosting industry.

However, the diversity of SEO client is reflected in the diversity of the SEO industry - some just want link exchanges, some want links, others are more concerned with content - and, ultimately, they are all chasing search terms of different degrees of competitiveness.

A "whitelist" I think is a bad idea, because it cannot reflect the needs of clients, merely the preferred standards of search engines. And as you've rightly pointed out, they're not keen on working with us.

More specifically, most search engines probably wish the whole issue of SEO would crawl under a large rock and be crushed there - they want results on their own terms, not on the terms of the consumer, or the consumer’s representatives.

Ultimately, search engines are oligarchies who insist on being obeyed, but refuse to provide clear rules for SEO because that would mean condoning the practice of usurping their authority over their own SERPs.

Of course, in looking to circumvent the authority of search engines, SEO's become like the rogue - a rogue who must look to choose (not exclusively) to serve themselves, their clients, and the search engines. Which presents it's own problems. Ideally, each master will be served well, but there is always a balance required.

Any attempt to whitelist the industry ignores its complexities - and previous attempts, in my opinion, have simply served as mockeries. SEO consultant is a good example - it's effectively a list of copywriters claiming the SEO crown.

Which in itself denigrates the entire industry to text-pushers, when high-volume high-quality content works so well for non-commercial sites - and artificial link-building has proven time and time again to be the definitive power of commercial SEO.

Danny, if you would like a definitive answer on how to give respect to the SEO industry, then I would personally suggest a place like searchenginewatch models it's forum as like WebHostingTalk, and what that has done for the webhosting industry.

Nowadays, across the webmastering community, when someone asks for a recommendation for webhosting, somebody at some point is going to recommend a search on webhostingtalk.

Although the general confidentiality required in SEO means that few clients are going to be able to be too open about who's doing what for them, a place like SEW could fulfill some form of that non-partisan authoritative role for commentating on SEO as an industry, as well as individual firms and personnel.

However, it's never going to be that unless you allow members to be able to identify themselves more openly, in my opinion. For example, single line one-link signature links are a good idea.

Heck, if you want to be a PR hog then use a jump script and then people aren't going to be posting about for apparent backlinks. But allow the members of the SEO community to identify itself.

The current system of "profiles only" continues the tradition of trying to keep the SEO industry low-key, and the lack of identifier is a good reason why a lot of SEO's will not take a place like the SEW forums as a serious place to post. That's precisely why WebMasterWorld is so crowded with chatty amateurs - having professional visibility means something to most professional people. And profiles simply do not fulfil that role for many.

If you want to bring reputation to the SEO industry as a whole then you could use the SEW forums as a non-partisan place to bring the peers of the industry together - all of us looking at one another, meeting on neutral and authoritative ground.

That way, although you couldn't dictate terms of "ethics" to the industry, you could serve as a place for people to look for information on SEO - whether practice, business, or reputation of specific companies. You become an authority on the SEO industry because the SEO industry would be more thoroughly represented here than anywhere else on the net - and that authority is something that people would look for. It’s a key principle of “natural” link-building, and ultimately a possible way forward to giving the people of the industry a single central face.

In my opinion that's one of the most accessible ways to let the SEO industry improve it's reputation – but, ultimately, it’s your call on whether you dare aspire to that.

2 very long cents. :)

[NFFC]

>While interpretations of guidelines may drive debates over what is acceptable practice, ethics and standards within a Professional organization would necessarily require members to comply with the guidelines of any search engine that is being targeted IMO.

Oh boy Bernard I had you down as an intelligent guy, going to have to give a negitive reputation vote on that one.

So are you saying that the main driver of ethics on the www should be the search engines? Looking at past, recent and very near future business practices I believe they should be the last group to be in charge of any ethical debate.

[Wail]

>so the watch dog would not have to hunt down shadowy figures in attic bedrooms

I think you will find they consist of the best and most ethical SEO's you will be likely to meet.

Of course if they are you will never be able to find them anyhow.

I'm not saying that attic SEOers are shadowy. I'm saying that shadowy figures can be even tricker to track down if they're not tied to a commerical bricks and mortar investment. It's all about having a list - and ways to contact SEOs - who wish to be able to say that they're "Registered with [Watch Dog X]".

"Registered with" - by the way, not necessarily "Approved by". It's a first step to reassurance but an important one.

[Incubator]

I dont think you can apply any " ethics" to the current situation until the playing grounds are all fair to begin with...this I do not see happening in the near future



Cheers

WC

[dannysullivan]

I doubt any search engine will support an organization that does not prohibit violations of their guidelines (or allows violations within the standards being promoted).

SEMPO, IAB, The International Association Of Work From Home SEO Companies -- I'm not looking to any of the existing groups or some new organization to come along and "certify" SEM firms. Others might think that will work. I do not. That's because as I said before, the spam rules any organization would claim to enforce wouldn't have been set by that organization. They're set by each individual search engine.

I had a email correspondence with one such group recently, that wanted to define the use of a Dublin Core title tag in addition to an HTML title tag as spam. Not in my opinion. DC tags aren't indexed by major search engines that I know of, have a completely different use and a purpose to coexist with regular title tags. Yet according to this group, that's spam?

Each search engine defines spam. Some things they say publicly not to do, they may still sometimes allow, depending on the exact intent. Some things they don't itemize, they may consider spam. So if you come back to this:

Standards idea: all SEM companies are required to have an agreement between client and SEM stating the client was informed of all potential SEM techniques that might cause problems with the search engines, with those techniques listed in the agreement.

Well, I couldn't even list each and every technique. The situation is also going to just get worse. We've lived in a nearly pure Google world for some time. End of the year, we'll be dealing with four major crawlers: Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask Jeeves. The days of multiple and conflicting rules may return.

That's why I return to the idea of skipping past the standards idea, which has never gone anywhere, and suggest the voluntary reporting program. If a search engine spots something seriously wrong with a firm, they can let the public know with the cooperation of that firm, after a review.

Interesting idea....but how would you govern the 10,000's of affiliate marketers out there that use the shady side of SEO

I'm not proposing that anyone who does SEO be governed. I'm not even suggesting we set up a watchdog group, though others may want that.

Like NFFC says, I agree there's no organization that can claim to speak for the entire industry. It's massive, ranging from individual practitioners to large companies. It involves companies that do nothing but improve free listings via pure SEO to ad agencies who have a unit dealing with nothing but paid listings.

What I am saying is that there are consumers who want the help of SEM firms. Right now, they have no authorative way to check out whether a firm has had problems with a particular search engine. So perhaps the search engines themselves should allow for reporting of SEM firms who agree to be monitored.

This doesn't prevent other firms who don't want to take part from still doing SEM. This doesn't accredit SEM firms, which is an impossible task -- are search engines going to approve each and every person who may decide to do SEM work for someone else? But it will give the SEM firms that want it an opportunity.

As a side benefit, I think it would help improve the industry's reputation. Instead of various pundits saying SEO is useless or full of scam artists, the fact you could check up on some firms and find out they'd had no reports would be helpful, IMHO.

[dannysullivan]

However, it's never going to be that unless you allow members to be able to identify themselves more openly, in my opinion. For example, single line one-link signature links are a good idea.
We're not changing the signature policy for the immediate future. If you want to add your dissent about that, the Signature Policy (http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/forum/showthread.php?t=135) thread is the right place. It also provides a lot of explanation about why we think you can be plenty visible without a signature showing up at the bottom of everything you post. As a reminder, if you want more visibility, you can put whatever you want to have underneath your name in the profile. You're choosing to be shown as "UK SEO." It's perfectly fine to make that your URL or company name, if you want.

If you want to bring reputation to the SEO industry as a whole then you could use the SEW forums as a non-partisan place to bring the peers of the industry together - all of us looking at one another, meeting on neutral and authoritative ground.
Well, that's what I hope people perceive it to be. And one of the reasons we have this particular forum is to let people freely talk about their experiences with particular firms, as relevant.

[Wail]

SEMPO, IAB, The International Association Of Work From Home SEO Companies -- I'm not looking to any of the existing groups or some new organization to come along and "certify" SEM firms. Others might think that will work. I do not. That's because as I said before, the spam rules any organization would claim to enforce wouldn't have been set by that organization. They're set by each individual search engine.

The watch dog doesn't define what spam is. Search engines do. The watch dog simply compiles and collects complaints made against SEOs. Clients can make complaints and I suppose the search engines themselves could too.

A consumer looking for an SEO agency can check with the watch dog. "Does [agency Y] have a legacy of customer complaints?" and the watch dog will be able to answer.

It's not certification. It's registration at an organisation significant enough for businesses to approach and trust.

[NFFC]

I'm struggling with the motivation of the thread.

>What I am saying is that there are consumers who want the help of SEM firms

Sure.

>But it will give the SEM firms that want it an opportunity.

From my very limited experience the firms that "want it" may be the very ones that are a poor choice to the consumer.

Thats a very big circle to square.

[Jill Whalen]

Just to clarify, my "search engines aren't the boss of me" comment meant that I don't need search engine guidelines to know the different between right or wrong, and to know whether I'm spamming them or not.

It's easy to know if you're spamming an engine without reading their guidelines.

But aside from that, Danny, wouldn't the search engines be opening themselves up to law suits if they started putting out names of companies they've banned, to the public?

I would imagine this is why they will never do that. I seem to remember other organizations such as MarketingSherpa and SEOPros being sued for putting out names of alleged "spammers."

Now, perhaps the search engines would win the law suits (I think they would) but why would they open themselves up to that if they don't have to?

Nope, we need an organization that will set standards and those that want to agree with them can, and those that don't, won't. But at least they will be out there and people can decide if those standards make sense for them and for the company that they eventually choose to work with.

If SEMPO won't step up to the plate (they won't) then it's time of others to do so. Because I agree with you, Danny, it's just not right that we have to be looked upon with distain because we're part of the same industry as scammers, spammers and thieves.

[Bernard]

>While interpretations of guidelines may drive debates over what is acceptable practice, ethics and standards within a Professional organization would necessarily require members to comply with the guidelines of any search engine that is being targeted IMO.

...

So are you saying that the main driver of ethics on the www should be the search engines? ...

I think you need to re-read the entire post. You are not taking that statement in context. What I said is that, IMO, a Professional organization that promotes minimum standards and certifications with search engine backing will need to require adherence to guidelines (to gain the backing in the first place).

Of course, I could be wrong. Google may decide to publicly promote an organization that promotes members who violate their guidelines as professionals in the field. If it happens, I'll accept your comments on my relative intelligence as warranted.

[NFFC]

>with search engine backing

That is where we diverge, I believe that the SE's are not fit and proper people to define how we as SEO's impact the user experience.

If there are rules to be set there is only one party with the authority to set them, that is webmasters.

Imagine this, we decide what is spam, we decide what is acceptable, we decide what is "ethical" and act appropiately.

>I'll accept your comments on my relative intelligence as warranted.

I was only joshing you, but yes that neg feedback is me.

[Jill Whalen]

Imagine this, we decide what is spam, we decide what is acceptable, we decide what is "ethical" and act appropiately.

That's what we already do (most of us who care), but obviously it's not working.

People are getting scammed every day, and eventually their sites are getting banned.

[David Wallace]

Nope, we need an organization that will set standards and those that want to agree with them can, and those that don't, won't. But at least they will be out there and people can decide if those standards make sense for them and for the company that they eventually choose to work with.

If SEMPO won't step up to the plate (they won't) then it's time of others to do so. Because I agree with you, Danny, it's just not right that we have to be looked upon with distain because we're part of the same industry as scammers, spammers and thieves.
I agree and the job of that organization should be to educate to public about what spam is and why it is the wrong road to venture down.

I just don't see the need to "spread the good news about search engine marketing (SEM)" as SEMPO is trying to do. People are going to learn about the value of SEM with or without SEMPO. If anything, people like Danny Sullivan have already contributed more to the promotion of search engine marketing as a valuable marketing avenue to the world than anyone else.

What the industry needs is an organization to step up and warn consumers about un-ethical SEO/SEM practices, much in the same way the BBB does. With education, buyers of SEO and SEM will have more knowledge of what to avoid. Right now, I don't think they really understand what spam is and what it isn't, so they don't know what to watch out for. As the general public becomes more educated about what spam is and how it can negatively impact their businesses, I believe spammers in large will fall by the wayside.

[dannysullivan]

I'm struggling with the motivation of the thread.
Pretty simple. I'm tired of our industry being seen as full of scam artists and dissed as "black arts" or something that should simply be avoided.

I think it's unfortunate that it's made out like there are only a "few" good apples in SEM for a crate full of rotting ones. I'm tired of headlines like:

Schmoozing with the Enemy
How does Google deal with folks who try to trick its search engine? By throwing them a party, of course.
That was Fast Company about (http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/article.php/3115471#enemy) those who attended the Google Dance last year during SES.

[NFFC]

>That's what we already do (most of us who care),

I ain't part of your "we" and trust me I really care.

>People are getting scammed every day, and eventually their sites are getting banned.

Then those businesses need to make better decisions. So called SEO's running around shouting "spammers, spammers" is hardly likely to enable that process, all it seems to do is re-enforce that particular style of "SEO's" business model. It saddens me that some people can be so caught up in their own view and bottom line that they are unable to see the bigger picture.

Once again, we need to attack, expose and stamp out hypocrisy whenever we see it.

[David Wallace]

Right, how about a whitelist? Perhaps SEO/SEM firms voluntarily agree to participate with each major search engine in a public reporting service. You'd tell your clients that they can easily check if you've done anything a search engine considers wrong by using a database the search engine provides. If you don't participate, nothing would be published.
In some ways, this is like the Better Business Bureau but whether a member or not, they will publish whether a company has a satisfactory record or not and if you being a consumer want to get the dirt on why a company has an unsatisfactory record, you can buy a report with all the details.

I don't think it should reside at the search engines however as I don't really think they care. I think they care about search relevancy but I don't think they care if some one gets scammed or not. It is not their job to care. It is the job of BBB.

So to take your 'whitelist' idea and incorporate it into one organization would be a better option. SEOs and SEMs can join, which of course will give them more credibility. For those who join, they must resolve any disputes with customers that involve spammy techniques in the same manner that members of the BBB must do the same. At the same time, the organization continuously educates the general public about spam, scams and the like.

[I, Brian]

Heh, the sig links issue isn't something I'm signing up to - merely a suggestion, and I'll leave it at that, before I leave again. :)

As for ethics overall - if the client is being intentionally or unintentionally misrepresented - such as practicing "black hat" without warning the client of the consequence - then that s unethical. It's unethical because it is effectively defrauding the client, as per Traffic Power seem to be alleged to have been doing.

The whole "whitehat" vs "blackhat" argument is a strawman, though - it artifically divides the industry, and fails to appreciate that a range of client requirements in this dynamic industry.

But let's not try and claim that people who claim they are "whitehat" are therefore "ethical" - many who have built themsevles up on "ethical" pillars are clearly involved in practices that others may quite justifiably claim are "unethical".

Ultimately, so long as the client is informed, then SEO ethics boils down to relative morality: what "I" am doing is ethical, what "others" do is unethical.

And that is truly the final argument.

[David Wallace]

Ultimately, so long as the client is informed, then SEO ethics boils down to relative morality: what "I" am doing is ethical, what "others" do is unethical. And that is truly the final argument.
Yeah but the problem is that many times the client 'is not informed' or if they are informed of what the spammer is doing (doorway pages, JS redirects, etc.) they are not made aware of the dangers (getting site penalized, banned, etc.).

True there were probably a few people that hired a company like Traffic Power because they knew they would spam their way to the top but I would venture to say that the vast majority of people simply fell prey to their slick sales pitch.

[dannysullivan]

Just to clarify
Thanks for that, Jill -- I did take it the other way.

Wouldn't the search engines be opening themselves up to law suits if they started putting out names of companies they've banned, to the public?
I would assume not if the companies agreed to the reporting. That's the point to it being voluntary. Not everyone will want to take part, nor have to. And it may be that if you do get a bad report, you could still choose to opt-out.

I seem to remember other organizations such as MarketingSherpa and SEOPros being sued for putting out names of alleged "spammers."
Yes, it involved MarketingSherpa, SEO Guide Expands, But Ratings Upset Some Firms (http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/article.php/2164711) explains more0 And I'd agree such things scare the search engines. And since they are scared, why SEMPO or some other group is going to enforce search engine standards on their behalf is unworkable to me.

I believe that the SE's are not fit and proper people to define how we as SEO's impact the user experience....If there are rules to be set there is only one party with the authority to set them, that is webmasters.
Maybe they aren't fit, but that's almost not the point. They do set the rules. They do enforce. And right now, you and others have no public recourse for appeal.

To return back to my original idea, it could very well be that should a search engine post a negative report about a company (that voluntarily participates), a webmaster group might be a source for appeal and review. And also again, there are things search engines do that a webmaster group might want to have reviewed.

People are going to learn about the value of SEM with or without SEMPO.
Yes, they learned this week from Seth that practically no one in the industry is worthwhile.

Then those businesses need to make better decisions.
Yes they do. They need to be checking references, and they don't, for one. But if they want to find out if a firm has trouble with a search engine, they also need a better way to do that.

What's the advice now? Hmmm -- type in the name of the firm into Google. Did you find them? No? Oh, they're probably bad. Wait, check the Google Toobar's PageRank meter. You know what that is, right? OK, is it zero or gray bar? Yeah, probably banned.

My suggestion is one attempt to avoid this reading the tea leaves scenario. And I welcome it being knocked about -- perhaps it is entirely not workable. But what I would ask is can anyone think of anything new or different or unique. What we don't need is more:


We should have standards, enforced by some third party body.
We should have a whitelist the search engine publish of accredited firms.
We should have a blacklist the search engines publish of bad/evil firms.

OK, if you love those ideas -- go on, keep pushing for them. But they've all been discussed over the years and gone nowhere. That's why I'm looking for something new, and ideally something that would gain some agreement by a variety of people across the spectrum. It also needed be comprehensive. It doesn't have to solve every single problem SEM is perceived to have.

[rustybrick]

At the time I write this post, 7 out of the 11 members live in this forum are reading this thread. This is probably one of the most interesting threads I have read in a long time. Ok...

SEMPO is just about awareness and getting more money in the SEM firm's pockets.

There are directories of SEM firms, such as SEO Consultants and the others mentioned here.

BUT, is there a policing body to review those firms that do not volunteer to be listed in a directory? Not that I have seen.

[Bernard]

That is where we diverge, I believe that the SE's are not fit and proper people to define how we as SEO's impact the user experience.

By "the user experience" are you referring to SE search results or the experience of browsing/using a 3rd party site? I do not recall anyone claiming that SE's were fit and proper to "define how ... SEO's impact the user experience" in the latter meaning. The user experience on a 3rd party web site is entirely beside the point. The subject is marketing through the search engines. They are clearly fit to decide what content they choose to show their visitors.

[dannysullivan]

Is there a policing body to review those firms that do not volunteer to be listed in a directory? Not that I have seen.

Sure, Black Hat SEO Directory (http://www.blackhatseo.com/)! But it's not going out of its way to find firms.

I think there's always going to be firms that don't want to be reviewed. Some will do things that they know won't pass muster. Some will simply disagree with whatever standards are setup, and not always simply because they want to spam. Some may simply think it's not worth the bother. If you're a consulting doing well with word-of-mouth traffic and referrals, with a good reputation, it just may make no sense.

I guess that's why I come back to the voluntary idea. It sidesteps the difficult issue of trying to be all inclusive.

[NFFC]

>Maybe they aren't fit, but that's almost not the point. They do set the rules. They do enforce.

Infoseek, Northern Light, Excite, Web Crawler, Altavista, Alltheweb, Inktomi etc etc, those boys set the rules.

Honestly, don't you think its time for another group to set the rules?

>The subject is marketing through the search engines.

I was under the impression that the subject is "Improving The Reputation Of The SEM Industry".

[I, Brian]

Yeah but the problem is that many times the client 'is not informed' or if they are informed of what the spammer is doing (doorway pages, JS redirects, etc.) they are not made aware of the dangers (getting site penalized, banned, etc.).


I think you used the word "spammer" when really you meant "scammer". :)

The one single point about SEO ethics that most people could agree upon, is that if you risk your client's site being penalised, without informing them of the possible consequences, then this is "unethical" - not because of search engines rules, but simply because it is a form of misrepresentation: bad business practice, and even possible fraud.

[Nick W]

They are clearly fit to decide what content they choose to show their visitors.

...absolutely. Let 'em do just that with their algo's. They're a somewhat naive choice for involvement in any more than they already do.

It'll end in tears...

Nick

[Daria_Goetsch]

The whole "whitehat" vs "blackhat" argument is a strawman, though - it artifically divides the industry, and fails to appreciate that a range of client requirements in this dynamic industry.

The one single point about SEO ethics that most people could agree upon, is that if you risk your client's site being penalised, without informing them of the possible consequences, then this is "unethical" - not because of search engines rules, but simply because it is a form of misrepresentation: bad business practice, and even possible fraud.

I agree with you I, Brian, well said.

[massa]

What if this all-powerful, all-knowing SEO watchdog organization really worked and for all intents and purposes, the day of search engine spam was gone? All we would be left with would be poor search engines.

The part of this question we seem to be missing, (except NFFC), is that you can't expect to hold one group accountable without holding the other just as accountable. Search engines play a part in this equation. They are not God. They are not some kind of law-giving body. They are just a search engine and should be held responsible for their own content the same as any other webmaster should be held responsible for theirs.

What if this watchdog group was successful in putting out of business every webmaster who did not agree with the watchdog's definition of spam? Does anyone really think that Google would then tell potential investors that a threat to their investment was the fact that their technology had a long way to go instead of trying to lay the blame of a stock price gone bad on those nasty spammers.

The search engines have a vested interest in perptuating the image of this techno-elite sub-culture having the ability to destroy all the good work of the search engine. Without the percpetion of spam, it is just a search engine who never should have indexed what they don't want.

What if we all agree that no one would use cloaking, build networked domains on different IP's, generate multiple pages using the same terms or break any guideline of any search engine and we all redeemed ourselves in the eyes of Google. What if no one did anything with search engines in mind and all content was provided only with the surfer in mind? Is that the end of the debate or the industry black eye?

Or is it possible that the engine would simply make new guidelines leaving any problem with their results the fault of the "new" army of spammers re-born of the new guidelines being broken?

[David Wallace]

What if this all-powerful, all-knowing SEO watchdog organization really worked and for all intents and purposes, the day of search engine spam was gone? All we would be left with would be poor search engines.
As long as there is a human race, that would never happen. There will always be those who will try to cheat the system.

What a watchdog group (don't really like that term) could do if it was something like the BBB is to educate and protect consumers. The BBB doesn't stop companies from scamming consumers. We still see that happening everyday to consumers that don't conduct the proper research before buying or hiring.

But for someone who does want to conduct some research on a company they are hiring, the BBB is a place they can go to do that. Or if they do hire a BBB member and then have a problem with them later, the BBB can mediate between the two. This process still does not stop all the scams that go on out there, just tries to provide a way to avert getting scammed and a non-biased way for a company to represent themselves as one who will not conduct unethical business practices.

[seobook]

my personal problem is that with a heavily influential watchdog type group I would have never got to the point where I have the freedom to type this sentence right now. I would have most likely failed.

There are also certain things you can not possibly grade an SEO on.

creating a better idea that naturally wants to spread has some intrinsic value, but how do you judge my ability to do that?

knowing more people or having powerful social connections makes the job of an SEO way easier, buy how do rate that skill set?

knowing a good bit about psychology or being outgoing makes it far easier to acquire links, but how do you rate that skill set in my seo rating?

being able to decode patterns makes it far easier to be a good seo, but again that is not something many people would probably rate on an SEO rating system.

there are so many things that you can not rate. In my opinion many of the things that you can not rate have a far greater implication into how successful you will be than the things you can rate do.

when links have some intrinsic value we are all essentially multi level marketers selling ourselves or our clients websites.

[Bernard]

... But what I would ask is can anyone think of anything new or different or unique. What we don't need is more:

We should have standards, enforced by some third party body.
We should have a whitelist the search engine publish of accredited firms.
We should have a blacklist the search engines publish of bad/evil firms.

OK, if you love those ideas -- go on, keep pushing for them. But they've all been discussed over the years and gone nowhere. That's why I'm looking for something new, and ideally something that would gain some agreement by a variety of people across the spectrum. ...

IMO, the only way to improve an industry's reputation is to clean it (the industry) up. If SEM wants to adopt a professional image, SEM companies will need to take the yoke of responsibility upon themselves. Joe Public does not expect to have to learn all about the law, medicine and engineering to choose a professional when they feel sick, have a toothache or need something designed/built. Putting the onus on Joe Public to learn about SEO/SEM in order to evaluate a potential company's offerings removes SEM from the realm of a profession as Joe Public is required to know almost as much as the firms it encompasses. Welcome to the world of used car sales. If you want to leave it to caveat emptor and absolve yourselves of all responsibility, you will always be stuck swimming among the sharks and there will be little you can do to improve the industry's reputation IMO.

[Jill Whalen]

IMO, I don't see a watchdog group working.

I also don't see a blacklist from the search engines working if you have to sign up to possibly be on that blacklist. The spammers obviously aren't going to sign up.

I also don't think that simply telling your client the risks involved with your spamming on their behalf solves any problems in our industry. In fact, it just makes them worse. It's exactly what Seth Godin was talking about.

Yeah, we'll cheat for you sir, but we have to tell you first that you might get caught.

Absolutely not. Cheating and taking risks with client's sites should not be an accepted practice in our industry. Until or unless some SEMs take a stand and just say no to cheating, we will always have the Seth Godins of the world rightfully calling us scumbags.

Why is it that most other industries are able to have a code of ethics or standards of best practice and SEM isn't? They all have to deal with the same kinds of problems and they were able to overcome them to come up with a code.

It's true that there will be a good portion of people that will refuse to work within the paremeters of any standards or code of ethics. There's nothing we can do about that, but it doesn't mean that one shouldn't be created for those who don't believe that cheating should be an intregal part of our industry.

Cheating isn't an intregal part of other industries, why is it accepted in ours?

[donut]

Because one person's "cheating" is another person's "positioning" in the "best interests of the client".

It all boils down to the fact that there isn't a clear definition of what "cheating" is. Some things are obvious- anything hidden from users but visible to spiders.

But what about linking? If I create 12 mini-sites instead of 1 big site, is that "cheating"? If I buy links from a major traffic source just for the link pop, it that "cheating"?

[David Wallace]

It all boils down to the fact that there isn't a clear definition of what "cheating" is. Some things are obvious- anything hidden from users but visible to spiders.
I think it is those "obvious things" that we are referring to. Most of what people consider to be spam is deceptive. This article (http://www.searchrank.com/resources/art003.htm) written awhile ago explains some of the deceptive spamming techniques. There is no other way to describe those techniques listed in article than deceptive. Even candy-coated wrapped in a ribbon, they are deceptive.

But what about linking? If I create 12 mini-sites instead of 1 big site, is that "cheating"? If I buy links from a major traffic source just for the link pop, it that "cheating"?
'Maybe' on the first and if not, it may be at least "Internet littering" and 'no' on the second. ;)

[donut]

'Maybe' on the first and if not, it may be at least "Internet littering" and 'no' on the second. ;)

Hmnn... says you. ;) I doubt the entire SEM community would be in agreement with your assessment.

That's the problem- who decides? Who's going to draw that line in the sand and say this stuff is cheating and this stuff is best practice?

And what do you do if the cheating site beats the best practice site? Before that stirs up too much controversy, I firmly believe that in most any instance, best practices done well can beat out the tricks of the trade. Unfortunately, best practices require more time, effort, and creativity than cheating and there are more people doing "best practices" wrong then there are doing it "right", IMO.

It seems many people want to follow a formula or set of rules instead of assessing each site and its unique needs. So, a site can follow best practices and be a victim of stuffed copywriting and formulaic keyword-here, keyword-here, keyword-here "optimization". That may work in low competition situations, but won't win the marathon over time.

[seobook]

Cheating isn't an intregal part of other industries, why is it accepted in ours?

in other industries "cheating" is illegal. is SEO it may be against the guidelines, but I bet if I focused all my energies on cheating with a collection of pharmacy websites there is a pretty good chance I would make a large sum of money.

if you are really into money that first 4 or 5 figure affiliate paycheck is enough to keep you huntin for more.

on the same token many of the clients who get "taken" have unoriginal ideas in oversaturated markets which prevent them from ranking well using standard by the book type seo techniques.

[Jill Whalen]

What about cheating in school? Cheating on your SATs? Cheating on an exam? Cheating on your taxes (okay that one is illegal).

Don't you believe that cheating is a bad thing whether it's illegal or not?

So the lure of money is a good excuse to cheat? It's no wonder our industry has a bad rep.

[Jill Whalen]

That's the problem- who decides? Who's going to draw that line in the sand and say this stuff is cheating and this stuff is best practice?

And that's exactly why we need an organization to spell it out. You don't have to agree with it and you don't have to even work within it's parameters, but at least there will be something out there.

I've resisted this whole thing forever too, just like Danny has, but enough is enough.

[seobook]

What about cheating in school? Cheating on your SATs? Cheating on an exam? Cheating on your taxes (okay that one is illegal).

Don't you believe that cheating is a bad thing whether it's illegal or not?

So the lure of money is a good excuse to cheat? It's no wonder our industry has a bad rep.

I am not saying that the lure of money is a good excuse to cheat, just that many people are driven by greed and often society view success in terms of dollars.

do I think cheating is wrong? it depends on who defines what cheating is and how and why they define it.

I generally do good work for people I work for, but I try hard not let other people's ethical guidelines guide my actions since I often am confused enough just trying to figure out my own guidelines to live by.

[Jill Whalen]

I am not saying that the lure of money is a good excuse to cheat, just that many people are driven by greed and often society view success in terms of dollars.


That's right. And they should choose a new industry.

[donut]

And that's exactly why we need an organization to spell it out. You don't have to agree with it and you don't have to even work within it's parameters, but at least there will be something out there.


Agree 100%. At least there would be a framework to start from, even if everyone didn't agree with it.

I am not saying that the lure of money is a good excuse to cheat, just that many people are driven by greed and often society view success in terms of dollars.

I don't think "society" as a whole agrees that greed and dollars equal success. I don't see anyone cheering Kenneth Lay of Enron in his fight to clear the charges against him, do you?

[Chris_D]

And that's exactly why we need an organization to spell it out

As many of us have said on numerous occassions - the 'rules' are made by the search engines - the rules are already there. We don't need them spelt out!!

The problem is that the search engine's don't actually police their own rules.

<step onto soapbox>

And - if the search engines do 'enforce' the rules - the delay between 'break' and 'enforce' is so long - people actually forget they broke the rules one Thursday last October..... so they scream and yell.

The crimes are defined - the actual punishment and the timeliness of the punishment are the problems. So much so - that most now believe there is no punishment.....

Google's PHDs should read a good book on training puppies. A lot of the same lessons apply. The puppy training books all say never come home and smack a puppy for something it did hours before - or it will just resent you.

Well - look at the resentment the belated 'enforcement' Florida et al have caused Google.

The sooner that Google & Yahoo! etc. actually contract some SEOs to show their PHDs how the rules are being broken - and the sooner the SEs use this knowledge to ENFORCE their published rules - the sooner the serps will be cleaned up - and the sooner the industry will become legitimised.

We don't need 'more' rules; we don't need 'new' rule makers. We just need timely enforcement of the 'existing' rules.

</steps off soapbox>
:)

[seobook]

I don't think "society" as a whole agrees that greed and dollars equal success. I don't see anyone cheering Kenneth Lay of Enron in his fight to clear the charges against him, do you?

that is because he is accused of helping to ruin the retirement and lives of thousands and thousands of people in an extremely visible way. often the mear speculation of wrongdoing makes people guilty in many eyes.

whenever people ask me what I do and I explain it they say "ok"

then they ask me how much I make and they often say "wow"

money really means nothing to me, but it means alot to many many people.

[JohnScott]

Pretty simple. I'm tired of our industry being seen as full of scam artists and dissed as "black arts" or something that should simply be avoided.


I really don't see why you'd want that perception to change when in fact it is a rather accurate perception. The first SEO I hired took $3,000 to start, changed a few page titles and stop returning my phone calls after a month.

That's not a rare occurence, either. Most "SEO Professionals" simply target cheap, two-cent keywords that nobody ever searches for, and then when they get top rankings for "low cost moving company in Phoenix Arizona USA" they expect a bonus.

SEO is filthy (http://www.internet-marketing-blog.com/filthy.php) most of the time. Top ranking on extremely productive search terms aren't going to be had without link building, and link building costs and takes time. Most SEOs are too busy pocketing the money to care about the fact that they just ripped off some hard working business person.

If SEOs are thought of as scam artists, it's a reputation well-deserved.

[searchengineblog.com]

What value does an SEO bring to:

a) a search engine
b) a search engine user
c) the webmaster who is hiring the SEO
d) other

[seobook]

What value does an SEO bring to:

a) a search engine
b) a search engine user
c) the webmaster who is hiring the SEO
d) other

ideally the SEO brings lots of the correct B from A (and other sources) to C. if D competes with C then hopefully the SEO help take traffic away from D.

since different people have different definitions of what an seo is and how they work it is hard to decide on the actual product delivered to A B or D though.

[I, Brian]

What about cheating in school? Cheating on your SATs? Cheating on an exam? Cheating on your taxes (okay that one is illegal).

Don't you believe that cheating is a bad thing whether it's illegal or not?

So the lure of money is a good excuse to cheat? It's no wonder our industry has a bad rep.
Jill, you're choosing an emotive word to hide the argument. You are trying to force your own (somewhat contentious) ideals of right and wrong on a relative argument.

Ultimately, SEO ethics boils down to a single statement:

What "I" am doing is ethical; what my competitor is doing is "unethical".

There is a terrible stink of hypocrisy about the entire "ethics" debate.

[Mikkel deMib Svendsen]

> There is a terrible stink of hypocrisy about the entire "ethics" debate.

That is probably the single statement in this thread that I agree the most with. Another good quote - in same line - is one that David Turner gave at SES in London a couple of years ago in a session about cloaking, doorway pages and SEO-ethics: Ethics is just cloaked hypocrisy! :)

This whole discussion reminds me of the the extreme religious people that want to take over our schools. They too think they have the moral right to tell the rest of us what is "ethical" in the schools. I like the response I once saw: "Please don't pray in my school and I won't think in your church!" I would say the sime to the moralists of this business.

Trying to define some kind of higher moral we should all follow is not going to unite this business or generally do any good, in my oppinion. Have religion united the world? No, it has created wars - and still does. Will the extreme moralists of this business be able to create a ethical platform the majority of our business will sign up to? I am pretty sure they will not.

The moralists are free to make a club with likeminded friends. But to think this will have any major impact on anything is in my mind very unrealistic. But please go ahead, I think such a club will in fact only create more work to people and companies like me. The more narrowminded the moralists get the more room it leaves for me (and others) to be creative.

[Wail]

Mikkel's post has inspired me to try and make my point again.

We shouldn't try and organise ethics. We can debate ethics until we're blue in the face.

We should try and bring some professional accountability to the industry. We won't be treated like professionals until we act like professionals.

I like the watchdog idea because the watchdog can collect complaints (made by customers; for whatever reason, spam, billing, holding on to domains, blackmail, etc) and can inform members of the public who go there to research. SEO's don't have to register with the watchdog (they're a start-up, say) but then they can't reassure would-be-clients by saying that they're a registered member.

I don't think the search engines need to be involved in this watch dog. Companies which make TV sets aren't involved in the TV Advert complaints procedures either.

Here's a question; if you don't do anything naughty, if you treat your clients well, why wouldn't you register with a neutral third party and record that fact?

[Mikkel deMib Svendsen]

> Here's a question; if you don't do anything naughty, if you treat your clients well, why wouldn't you register with a neutral third party and record that fact?

For one simple reasen: The way you define "naughty" may not be even close to what I think it is. Or the engines, for that matter. Show me a set of rules to follow that the majority of engines, SEO's, SEMs and SEO/SEM companies will sign up to and I may start to believe in the project. I just do not see that happen.

Maybe it's easier to illustrate it this way: Why would you not join my church/religion - we are all so ethical here? :)

What happens if a member of this group follow all the rules and still get a client's site removed from the indexes? (we all know this happens sometimes) Who is unethical then? Who is to blaim? And who is liabel?

As I said, I do not think this project is going to unite the business, only make us fight more and give the press more bullets. I will actually claim that the moralists continious hunt for ethical standars is one of the very reasons we see all that bad press. I think you are feeding them. It makes me wounder what your real goals are and the reson I brought religion into this discussion: Is the goal ethics, just for the sake of it, or a healthy business?

[seobook]

Mikkel's post has inspired me to try and make my point again.
We shouldn't try and organise ethics. We can debate ethics until we're blue in the face.
agreed, ethics is typically a poor thing to guage SEO by.

We should try and bring some professional accountability to the industry. We won't be treated like professionals until we act like professionals.
I think this kinda happens somewhat on its own. When tons of people want you to work for them obviously they are viewing you in a favorable light and as a professional.

I like the watchdog idea because the watchdog can collect complaints (made by customers; for whatever reason, spam, billing, holding on to domains, blackmail, etc) and can inform members of the public who go there to research. SEO's don't have to register with the watchdog (they're a start-up, say) but then they can't reassure would-be-clients by saying that they're a registered member.
I do not think you need a watch dog organization for this. hint: search any major search engine for traffic power and read through the top 30 results. the internet as a whole is a watch dog...

I don't think the search engines need to be involved in this watch dog. Companies which make TV sets aren't involved in the TV Advert complaints procedures either.
odd that if people effectively used them to do research prior to spending money that there would be no need for a watch dog organization.

Here's a question; if you don't do anything naughty, if you treat your clients well, why wouldn't you register with a neutral third party and record that fact?
perhaps I do not want to pay any review fees or live in a country where review fees would be prohibitively expensive.

perhaps I do not want my competitors to know I exist.

-----

I am sure Danny would like to improve the general viewpoint of SEO but many of the people who complain about it are stuck on the us vs them concept and may actually be complaining as a sort of self promotion or just to hear themselves type.

it does not matter if you or I use cloaking. it matters if we cloak without telling a person that is what we are doing.

almost every sticky point falls under about a dozen different ideas at the most. if many people really want to help and really would be interested in pointing at it then a simple 20 question questioneer would suffice.

I think if a large portion of the SEO community really wanted to get back behind some organizational type idea then a completely independant completely free website (with no "hosting provided by" or "maintained by" type preferential connections to any seo) which should host a list of questions that people should ask their seo provider prior to paying money.

it should state something along the lines of

"when you buy a car there are lemon laws. seo is something where there are no exact rules to. some call it an art, some call it a science. no matter what it is called there is a certain level of risk associated with ANY SEO.

it is important that you understand what risks are associated with your SEO provider and we feel the following questions should be asked to your SEO provider BEFORE SPENDING ANY MONEY.

q1
q2

in addition feel free to search major search engines for feedback on your potential SEO provider. also ask to contact clients and perhaps ask various forums for opinions of your prospective provider..."

[Alan Perkins]

The topic of the thread is "Improving the reputation of the SEM Industry".

At this point, SEM consists broadly of PPC, paid inclusion and SEO, and the SEM industry consists broadly of search engines, marketing companies and consultancies, and some ancillary product and service providers such as PositionTech or Clicktracks.

IMO search engines are in a position to self-govern the aspects which they control and for which they receive an income - namely, paid inclusion and PPC. It's possible for search engines to fail in this role, leading to complaints by people and organizations such as ConsumerAlert, and investigations by organizations such as the FTC and ASA.

However, it is not possible for search engines to govern the aspects which they do not control and for which they receive no income, and here I'm talking about SEO. It is not the search engines' role to dictate how to create Web sites. It is the search engines' role to react to how Web sites are created and crawl, index and rank those sites accordingly. If you want a search engine to tell you how to create a site then you have the wrong idea about SEO, IMO.

I would guess that less than 1% of SEOs in the world actually perform SEO in a way that search engines would find acceptable. So why ask or expect search engines to regulate the industry? The simplest response is to close the industry down!

IMO, if there is to be an acceptable SEO industry then the industry has to make itself acceptable. That means that 1% has to draw a clear dividing line between itself and the other 99%, then try to get other SEOs to cross that line.

In the past, I've laid out my opinions on what's acceptable and what's not in the form of broad principles. Some of those principles ended up being published in search engine guidelines. But blindly following guidelines is not the answer. If all of the guidelines were removed today, nothing would change in terms of what could get you penalized. And you could be doing things today that aren't in the guidelines that will get you penalized in future.

Some people, IMO, use the guidelines as a crutch to compensate for their own lack of understanding (I don't mean to sound harsh when saying that :)). Those people may then blame search engines for their own failings when they are penalized for doing things that weren't mentioned in the guidelines at the time they were doing them. It's time those people who want to do things right learnt to do them right without needing guidelines. Then the industry reputation would improve because it would consist of people who knew what they were doing, rather than needing to be told.

As for people who insist it is their right to attempt to deceive search engines into providing a placement/position/prominence than the search engine would provide in the absence of deception - good luck to those people. The problem for the SEM industry is that those people claim to be a part of the industry. If their claim is valid, then the industry deserves its reputation because there are a lot of people like that!

IMO, deception of search engines to achieve enhanced placement/position/prominence in search results constitutes deceptive advertising in those search results. Deceptive advertising is not an activity I would want to associate with the industry as a whole. It could even lead to an FTC investigation of the SEO industry, if there was an industry to investigate. :)

[Alan Perkins]

[LOL - This post is in response to Mikkel's post below. I'm not a clairvoyant .. something has gone wrong with the server!]
It would probably be a good place to start to bring this to the attention of the engines. Just take a look at what you see across the various paid programs - this is all stuff they approved. A lot of that would any of us call spam if we found it in the edtorial results. :)
Agreed. :) If you had an SEM industry body (as opposed to just an SEO industry body), then part of its remit could be to regulate search engines themselves - to attempt to avoid the involvement of external regulators such as the FTC.

The FTC has already investigated the SEM industry once and found that it was possible to advertise deceptively in search results using paid inclusion or PPC.

IMO it is also possible to advertise deceptively in search results using SEO and this is partly responsible for the bad reputation of the SEM industry.

[Mikkel deMib Svendsen]

> Deceptive advertising is not an activity I would want to associate with the industry as a whole.

It would probably be a good place to start to bring this to the attention of the engines. Just take a look at what you see across the various paid programs - this is all stuff they approved. A lot of that would any of us call spam if we found it in the edtorial results. :)

[bwelford]

However, it is not possible for search engines to govern the aspects which they do not control and for which they receive no income, and here I'm talking about SEO. It is not the search engines' role to dictate how to create Web sites. It is the search engines' role to react to how Web sites are created and crawl, index and rank those sites accordingly.
The Search Engines must be responsible for what they publish. IMHO it would be naive and incompetent for them to say we merely apply a mathematical search algorithm and publish the results. If they do, then they are part of the problem. The other part of the problem is the group of website owners who use "Worst Practices" rather than "Best Practices".

As I said earlier, the simplest solution is for these two groups who are creating the problem to interact in such a way that the problem ceases to exist. Why all the rest of you need to spend enormous efforts on 'Improving The Reputation' is beyond me. In some ways it's very much like the way a good set of Moderators ensure a Forum has the right stuff. If they do it well, they're hardly visible, as I suggested elsewhere (http://www.cre8asiteforums.com/viewtopic.php?p=77323#77323).

[Wail]

The Search Engines must be responsible for what they publish. IMHO it would be naive and incompetent for them to say we merely apply a mathematical search algorithm and publish the results.

That's exactly what they do.

Google didn't take out the JewWatch site from its results for that very reason.

If search engines were responsible for what they publish would that mean Google was a pornographer?

If I find a building company in a search engine, who don't build my garage correctly is Yahoo then legally responsible for that?

[Alan Perkins]

The Search Engines must be responsible for what they publish. They are. That doesn't mean they should dictate how to create Web sites. :)
As I said earlier, the simplest solution is for these two groups who are creating the problem to interact in such a way that the problem ceases to exist.Disregarding paid inclusion and paid placement for a moment, only one group is creating the problem - the group you call website owners who use "Worst Practices". That group is not going to respond to any call to improve the reputation of the SEM industry. They don't care about the reputation of the SEM industry. If the SEM industry cares about its reputation, it has to distance itself from that group.

[I, Brian]

only one group is creating the problem - the group you call website owners who use "Worst Practices".
Would these "worst practices" involve cloaking -> the delivery of significantly different *content* to human users and specified search engines, such as Googlebots? :)

http://www.webworkshop.net/seoforum/viewtopic.php?t=2196

[dannysullivan]

A comment on this:

Joe Public does not expect to have to learn all about the law, medicine and engineering to choose a professional when they feel sick, have a toothache or need something designed/built.
Of course they do. Every profession you named is a big problem. Need a lawyer? How do you know who is the quality one is? Need a good doctor? Where's the master list of all the best ones in your area?

People are always asking each other for recommendations because there are great differences in ability. And yep, you do have people in other professions who may cheat their clients, as well. SEM is hardly unique in this.

The discussion has been really great, but I want to highlight what I think are three key issues.

1) Some SEM firms may have unsavory business practices. They may charge a lot for little actual work, or work that has no real impact, for example.

This issue is NOT unique to SEM. Pick an industry, and you can find examples of this. It would be helpful for potential clients to consult with a centralized complaints database -- but actually, you can argue that things like the BBB and other organizations may already encompass these firms.

2) Some SEM firms may be successful in getting clients quality traffic; some may not. Forget the "how they do it" part. Who is simply good and bad from a traffic point of view -- consumers might like ratings like that.

3) Some SEM firms may undertake actions that cause clients to get banned by search engines. This is something that ONLY the search engines can speak with authority about. Providing consumers with a list of rules to ask their SEM firm about isn't a solution. That's because even if we all universally agree that "gibberish doorway pages" are a spam tactic, as Jill has said well before, a firm just says, "oh no, we don't do that. we use highly targeted zebra pages. those are perfectly ok!"

It's the third point I'm most interested in. It's the third point that I think makes the most sense for a starting point and would argue is most necessary.

Want to find out about 1 and 2? Talk with some references. If you do that, you should get a pretty good idea if the firm will be suitable to you. People can lie about references, of course -- but both 1 and 2 have starting places.

Want to find out about 3? Only the search engines will be able to say. In large degree, it doesn't matter whether you agree with Google or Yahoo's rules or not. If they throw you out, your out -- and if you are considering a third party firm to help you, you might want to be able to verify any history of this.

I don't know that any one group is going to provide 1, 2 & 3 -- plus other things I've named.

Let me flip things back to PR, because I think that's most akin to SEO. There aren't rules. Sorry, there aren't. There are what many people might consider some acceptable standards of behavior. But PR and marketing firms have been successful in getting great publicity (ie: wins) but not always following the rules (oops, Janet, sorry your top slipped off on national TV. we know it was just an accident).

Again, I get bad PR coming at me all the time. Bad, bad, bad. And some of the people who have these firms doing their PR, heck, they might be getting totally ripped off. But who set the rules for PR? Where's the licensing board to oversee if you can send out a press release?

We act like SEO needs to be regulated because we think it's something special. It's not. It's just another industry. It has things unique to it, bad and good.
SEO is filthy most of the time.
According to what? Which survey? What numbers? I couldn't say this. I don't even know the extent of the SEO industry. Are we counting in anyone who just does submission? And if it's so filthy, why do the search engines offer advice to people on how to do it? Why do they let people advertise their services? Why have some even hired SEO firms to help them promote themselves?

I'm not disagreeing SEO has a bad reputation, and there's plenty of people who hang a shingle that you should be wary of. But there's plenty of good with SEO. Yes, plenty of good people who do a real service helping others get found on search engines.

Check out theHave I been bad??? (http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/forum/showthread.php?t=558) thread. You've got someone who just wants his book web site to show up on Google over there. No domain name of his own, hosted on GeoCities, built in Frames. These are easy SEO fixes. It's a mystery to him. For someone who knows SEO, you're a savior for making some of these simple fixes. And they seem simple to you because you KNOW this stuff. We dismiss it as easy. It's not easy. It something you've learned, knowledge you've gained and something that many, many people with web sites appreciate when you help them get listed.

So to bring it back -- SEO is just another industry, and what I'm tired of is the idea that since it is not held to higher standards than other industries, it needs to be called useless, horrible, filthy or simply dismissed. In many ways, it's an unfair burden being placed on it.

But unfair or not, I do think the industry has to shoulder it somehow. It does need to come up with some ways to reassure would-be clients, lest everyone be dismissed as a scam artist. And item 3 to me remains a starting place.

[Mikkel deMib Svendsen]

Disregarding paid inclusion and paid placement for a moment, only one group is creating the problem - the group you call website owners who use "Worst Practices".

I think that is a very limted view on the case. As mentioned by many other posters search engines is as large a part of this "reputation problem" as anyone else in this industry.

As long as search engines do not remove spam that has been reported to them, as long as they continue to place spammy sites at the top of SERPS (even the ones easy to identify) and as long as search engines kick sites for no apparent reason that are not spamming they sure do take a very active part in the reputation problem, i must say.

What I really do not understand is why ethics should play such a big role in this industry. As others have mentioned, where are the ethics in PR? There are the PR agens that get you continous good media coverage and there are the ones that don't. Thats it. Why should we be so bothered with ethics at all.

Maybe, as I suggested, it is the very fact that we keep bringing up this, shooting at ourselfes that fuel the bad press ... I do not see many other industries where all the major players constantly talk about all the bad seeds in their own business.

[massa]

BRAVO! >standing ovation <

It's just business.

[Alan Perkins]

3) Some SEM firms may undertake actions that cause clients to get banned by search engines. This is something that ONLY the search engines can speak with authority about.

It's the third point I'm most interested in. It's the third point that I think makes the most sense for a starting point and would argue is most necessary.

...

Want to find out about 3? Only the search engines will be able to say. In large degree, it doesn't matter whether you agree with Google or Yahoo's rules or not. If they throw you out, your out -- and if you are considering a third party firm to help you, you might want to be able to verify any history of this.

...

But unfair or not, I do think the industry has to shoulder it somehow. It does need to come up with some ways to reassure would-be clients, lest everyone be dismissed as a scam artist. And item 3 to me remains a starting place.
You seem to be wanting search engines to regulate and assume responsibility for an industry they are not part of - the SEO industry. Search engines are part of the SEM industry. SEOs are part of the SEM industry. But search engines aren't part of the SEO industry.

I disagree that only the search engines can speak with authority about what might cause clients to get banned. I wouldn't be capable of doing my job properly if I couldn't speak with authority about what might cause my clients to be banned.

IMO, the SEO industry has to take responsibilty for itself and not expect to be nannied by search engines.

[Wail]

A comment on this:

So to bring it back -- SEO is just another industry, and what I'm tired of is the idea that since it is not held to higher standards than other industries, it needs to be called useless, horrible, filthy or simply dismissed. In many ways, it's an unfair burden being placed on it.

But unfair or not, I do think the industry has to shoulder it somehow. It does need to come up with some ways to reassure would-be clients, lest everyone be dismissed as a scam artist. And item 3 to me remains a starting place.

Item 3 deals with those SEO firms who have had clients kicked out of search engines.

Item 3 is specifically search engine related, it's the SEO ticket on the list in fact.

I think we should treat SEO like any other industry. That's why I don't see item 3 as the natural starting point. If you start here then you're making the assumption, or leading others to believe, that there's something different about the industry.

Here in the UK lawyers who break the rules loose the bar - are kicked out by their in-house watchdog. Bad doctors are struck off the list - by their in-house watchdog. I don't think these watchdogs first started to find lawyers who said something stupid in court and got their client an even worse sentence or those doctors who made their patient worse. In both cases the watchdogs were set up to protect the profession as a whole and any "crime" committed by a member which would threaten the image of the professional was investigated and recorded. Okay, the difference is that we're never going to see a situation where you have to register with a watchdog in order to practise SEO.

I think the starting point is a place where clients can go - and SEO firms can invite them to check - which says, "This SEO has not had any complaints made against it".

It's also worth stressing that the SEO industry shouldn't draw its own line in the sand. Saying, "As long as the SEO firm hasn't had its own web page kicked out of an index" as a measure is a bit like a lawyer saying, "As long as the firm hasn't had a Type 23 Writ leveled against it".

[Alan Perkins]

think that is a very limted view on the case. As mentioned by many other posters search engines is as large a part of this "reputation problem" as anyone else in this industry. Spam wouldn't be in the results if there was no spam created. It's up to search engines how they deal with spam, and they live or die on the quality of their results, so how they choose to deal with spam is literally their business. The fact that it is created by people who claim to be SEOs is our business if we are concerned about the reputation of our industry.

What I really do not understand is why ethics should play such a big role in this industry. As others have mentioned, where are the ethics in PR? There are the PR agens that get you continous good media coverage and there are the ones that don't. Thats it. Why should we be so bothered with ethics at all.
Who mentioned ethics? :D

However, most professional industries do have a code of ethics, so why shouldn't our industry have that?

[Wail]

IMO, the SEO industry has to take responsibilty for itself and not expect to be nannied by search engines.

Agreed.
For lots of reasons.

Why should the search engines have to deal with the costs of queries from would-be-clients. Who decides when a search engine has enough status to assume the position of Judge. I've a small search engine on my hobby site you know! It uses MySQL and LIKE="%keyword%".

What if Google wants to promote 301 and Yahoo wants to promote meta refresh. If Google wants to promote Atom and Yahoo RSS? There a commerical incentive for search engines to back SEO firms who do things their prefered way too. "Dear client, you spend too much on AdWords. This organic campaign will cut your Google bill by 30% - and you'll be able to invest that in Overture's new Local Match! Trust us, we're certified by Yahoo's Good SEO program!"

[Mikkel deMib Svendsen]

Sorry, but I fail to see many similar industries with global codes of ethics that works. Not just local or country codes but true global ones that really works.

I came from the music industry before I junmped on the web . In the 15 years I was making my money on music I do not think I ever heard the word "ethics" once (except for a few hippie songs).

One of the reason I like the SEO business is the same as why I loved the music business: It's a good place to be creative. You get honored by creativity and I like that. Codes of ethics or best practise rules that everyone is supposed to follow tend to do most good for the less creative minds.

[Alan Perkins]

Codes of ethics or best practise rules that everyone is supposed to follow tend to do most good for the less creative minds.Yes, those creative accounting types at Arthur Andersen did a lot of good for Enron - before they were discovered.

Nobody is saying that creativity has to be stemmed. It's just creative deception that is a problem.

[Andy AtkinsKruger]

Wow what a thread. The industry does need to clean up its act - but it's not going to happen overnight because there are always new twists and it's wishful thinking to expect a white knight to make everything better. :mad:

Most of our new clients have had a bad experience with someone optimising their site. They come to us by referral - usually - looking for someone to help.

In a new industry, where there are lots of sharks, the only answer is to stick to your guns and offer professionalism and quality all the time and to build reputation. In the end it will win out - even if there are tough turbulent times.

How does Traffic Power feel about reputation at the moment?

I'd personnally like Google et al to flag sites that have abused and put them at the bottom of the listings - so its clearly visible that there's a problem - but I can also see there are lots of issues with that - so I don't think it will happen.

Then I'd like Yahoo to stop tinkering about with it's paid inclusion and to get back on the ethical path. I do think that will happen because in the end they'll have to protect their reputation - otherwise people like Danny will keep writing about them critically!!!

And I promise we'll be good - of course. But long term our clients will know that too.

[Mikkel deMib Svendsen]

> Yes, those creative accounting types at Arthur Andersen did a lot of good for Enron - before they were discovered.

There is a huge difference. Even the most spammy SEOs are not braking any laws. Search engine spam is not illegal and will most likely never be.

As far as I understand (not being a lawyer) the types Enron did illegal things. I do not suggest anyone should do anything that is illegal

[Alan Perkins]

There is a huge difference. Even the most spammy SEOs are not braking any laws. Search engine spam is not illegal and will most likely never be.That's your opinion. Some forms of SE spam have been found to be illegal, e.g. bait and switch from disney to p0rn, passing off, etc. IMO many other forms of SE spam are illegal, in some countries at least. It just hasn't been tested yet.

Also, as the TrafficPower case shows, there is also the question of the legality of claims made to clients and methods of marketing to new clients. These factors all affect the reputation of the industry, even though the legality hasn't yet been tested.

[Bernard]

Of course they do. Every profession you named is a big problem. Need a lawyer? How do you know who is the quality one is? Need a good doctor? Where's the master list of all the best ones in your area?

People are always asking each other for recommendations because there are great differences in ability. And yep, you do have people in other professions who may cheat their clients, as well. SEM is hardly unique in this.

Choosing the best practitioner (what you argued against) is a wholly different subject than whether or not the practitioner is a member of a respected profession. There is a difference between an industry and a profession. IMO, real professional organizations offer respectability for their industries. Even taking law, where here in the states the profession is the butt of many jokes, the American Bar Association is respected. Right now, SEM is just an industry. One way to improve its reputation is to elevate it to the level of a profession. As Alan mentioned, the process for doing this cannot be all inclusive.

The discussion has been really great, but I want to highlight what I think are three key issues.

1) Some SEM firms may have unsavory business practices. They may charge a lot for little actual work, or work that has no real impact, for example.

...

2) ...

3) Some SEM firms may undertake actions that cause clients to get banned by search engines. ...

IMO, #1 is just as important to the reputation of the industry as #3. Not so much the ones who overcharge for actual, useful work, but moreso for those charging for services which they know will have no effect. This is fraud IMO and contributes immensly to the negative reputation for the industry. A professional organization could solve both problems IMO (because the bad apples would not be professionally accredited, the industry does not get tarred with every victim).

So to bring it back -- SEO is just another industry, and what I'm tired of is the idea that since it is not held to higher standards than other industries, it needs to be called useless, horrible, filthy or simply dismissed. In many ways, it's an unfair burden being placed on it.

I do not perceive the industry as being held to a "higher" standard than others. I think the problem is that the industry has too many sharks and Joe Public does not know enough to differentiate them from the fish.

[dannysullivan]

Just some more fuel for the fire. Now we've got a Google representative at Ad:Tech saying according (http://www.searchenginelowdown.com/2004/07/googles-patrick-keane-afraid-of-search.html) to Andy Beal:
[Google] basically replied that there is no way to improve your rankings on Google and that any claims by a SEO company were false

Wow. Right there with Andy in saying that this just absolutely isn't the case. SEO companies can't guarantee a ranking boost, but they certainly can improve rankings for some sites.

FYI, Google on its own web site provides guidelines (http://www.google.com/webmasters/seo.html) for those considering SEO services but says from the outset:
Many SEOs provide useful services for website owners, from writing copy to giving advice on site architecture and helping to find relevant directories to which a site can be submitted.

And, of course, Google provides a number of tips (http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html) that indeed are intended to help people rank better, which runs contrary to this recent statement that SEO firms can't help. Yep, plenty of them seem simple -- at least, to those who deal with this. But again, if you are coming into things from outside the industry, this stuff can seem scary -- and you may prefer to have someone help you.

[I, Brian]

So, ultimately, the consumer needs some form of assurance that the company in question is professionally capable of representing their interests in a faithful and skilled manner.

That would mean not trying to muddy the debate by the old chestnut of "unethical" versus "ethical" practice - by way of distinguishing between methods that may help a relevant site/page gain elevated relevant results in search engines.

Traffic Power seems to be a rather extreme example of clients suffering as a result of their sites being penalised - but the majority of my clients have suffered former SEO work in the manner of John's Scott's experience - spending thousands of pounds for basic SEO copywriting, under the promise of high rankings. Automated software submission systems seem to be a particular common practice in this vein - easy promises never realised.

So what would the solution be there? A reputable directory of SEO practitioners?

The trouble with that is that someone ultimately tries to force the definition of SEO to exclude relevant SEO practices they do not personally agree with. SEO consultant is probably a good example of that.

Presuming we got past that red-herring, and offered a rather inclusive directory of "professional" SEO companies, then how would inclusion be realised, maintained, and demonstrated?

How would anybody be able to judge whether a company may or may not be involved in practices that ultimately defraud the client?

And how would companies otherwise decided favourably in this manner therefore protect themselves from malicious complaints and reports (in that regard, I think Google has it right to have an official policy on penalising via algo, not reports).

And then, presuming the previous two hurdles were overcome, how does someone then lay claim to such an accredited group? A graphic on the website? Ah, but then some fly-by-night cowboy is regardless going to copy/paste such a graphic to their own website, make money on easy promises accredited by such an organisation. And the consumer can hardly be expected to be any the wiser - excepting to know not to trust online accredited SEO logos.

OR perhaps that's all part of the learning process- maybe no system is infallible, nor expected to be infallible. But, as a basis for increased consumer awareness - may work in the medium to long term.

Of course, such an idea is always going to have it's own problems - a headache indeed. And it would require someone with real authority and impartiality to implement such a project. Search Engine Watch is very well placed for something like that, of course.

However, would anybody take it seriously? Would it be seen as a "pure-as-the-driven-snow whitehat" list? Or as an unnecessary complication? And who is going to care to start shunting their PR to a site just because they are accredited? :)

If an inclusive system of SEO - on the basis of working relevant method, no matter the form - is practical, then for the most part it might well be acceptable to the larger part of the SEO industry. But no matter how hard you try, there is always going to be someone left out. It's a case of how many, and will that ultimately flaw the project.

If nothing else, drop a couple of grand on Seth Goldin's lap and ask him to devise a marketable, if not entirely practical, method. :)

[Mikkel deMib Svendsen]

> That's your opinion.

Yes, Allan, thats all we are discussing her: Oppinions. You have one, I have one and others have their own. We are all just arguing our stand point. This is not about facts, it's about different valid points of view

:)

[I, Brian]

Just some more fuel for the fire. Now we've got a Google representative at Ad:Tech saying according (http://www.searchenginelowdown.com/2004/07/googles-patrick-keane-afraid-of-search.html) to Andy Beal:
to quote from the article:


Oh, how I wish it had. [tick....] Patrick basically replied that there is no way to improve your rankings on Google and that any claims by a SEO company were false. [tick...tick] He suggested that a few simple "design changes" were all that could be done and that a SEO firm wasn't needed. [tick....BOOM!!!!]
Well, I guess it's in the interests of search engines to spread misinformation, keep the industry disreptuable, in the hope that no one will buy.

After all, to claim that any good SEO can manipulate a billion dollar company's rankings, I guess is like claiming to be able to open bank vaults. And with Google turning so much to AdWords as an income stream, that potentially pits SEO's directly against Google's financial interests - SEO or Adwords for online profit.

[Mikkel deMib Svendsen]

Some may think search engines do not have a stake in the SEO business but with a statement like that from Google they apparently seem to think so.

[Alan Perkins]

Some may think search engines do not have a stake in the SEO business but with a statement like that from Google they apparently seem to think so.
Anybody outside the industry can comment on the industry. That's what got us started, wasn't it [Seth Godin].

FWIW, I completely disagree with the Google rep's comments. As do the people who filed Google's SEC filing for their IPO (http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1288776/000119312504073639/ds1.htm#toc16167_3):

We are susceptible to index spammers who could harm the integrity of our web search results.

There is an ongoing and increasing effort by “index spammers” to develop ways to manipulate our web search results. For example, because our web search technology ranks a web page’s relevance based in part on the importance of the web sites that link to it, people have attempted to link a group of web sites together to manipulate web search results. We take this problem very seriously because providing relevant information to users is critical to our success. If our efforts to combat these and other types of index spamming are unsuccessful, our reputation for delivering relevant information could be diminished. This could result in a decline in user traffic, which would damage our business.

[Brad]

There are legit 'professions' and phoney ones. Law, engineering, medicine are examples of legitimate professions where a high degree of knowledge is required.

There are also a lot of industries that try to professionalise only to create an artificial barrier to competition and to create artificial scarcity - read that 'keep prices high.' "I've got mine, but I don't want any old person horning in on my action."

SEO is not rocket science. Anyone can learn how to at least do basic SEO so there is no highly technical knowledge just a lot of time and the ability to learn and notice patterns. The point being you are never going to make SEO into a real profession until it really