Here is the plate, you want to step to it?

[NFFC]

I must admit to being both bored, frustrated, angry, confused and generally unhappy with a lot of the current threads regarding ethics and SEO. It seems to me that we have a lot of different viewpoints, some fixed which is a shame, about how "we" go about the business that is SEO.

Personally I really don't think a central organisation that will "approve" SEO's will ever flourish, our "industry" is just too new and way too divirse.

I'm a great believer in people taking responsibility for their own actions, I think it is up to us as SEO's to define and shape the space we operate in, if there is a moral high ground I think we need to claim it.

Here is the plate, you want to step to it?
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Don't ever take a job unless you absolutly 169% believe in it.

Interview the people, establish if they have the vision that you have.

Do you like the company, are they "good" people?

Will they reward you in a manner that your expertise demands?

Are they, or do they have ambitions to be, best of class?

If the answers to the above are yes then move forward.

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Lets be 169% clear here, I'm calling SEO's out.

If you have a White, Black or Dumber than Dumb hat you are held to the exact same standard. If, as I believe, we have the knowledge to exert a significant influence on the www then we need to accept that we also need to use that influence in a responsible way.

Time has come to stop blaming others, time has come to accept responsibility , time has come to cut the hyprocrasy, time has come for this tin-pot industry to move up a level, time has come to turn cheap words in to action.

<imagineinallcaps>Only accept work from sites that you believe in. If you won't crawl over broken glass to promote that site, if you won't give your all, if you won't use whatever methods you think would get that site the visibility it deserves then walk away</imagineinallcaps>

So, anyone want to step?

[littleman]

I've been doing this since the days AV was Google, and one thing I've leaned is that there is no blackhat and whitehat, that's all bull****. It's all the same game. Those who pretend to be on a high horse are either scouting for clients, or too ignorant to implement anything that they then judge unethical.

As far as believing in a client 100%, I never have believed in a client 10%.

[littleman]

Should add for you 'whitehats', AV is Altavista. It use to be a search engine.

[Nacho]

Should add for you 'whitehats', AV is Altavista. It use to be a search engine.
The best search engine . . . once upon a time. ;)

[Daria_Goetsch]

Here is the plate, you want to step to it?
---------------------------------------

Don't ever take a job unless you absolutly 169% believe in it.

Interview the people, establish if they have the vision that you have.

Do you like the company, are they "good" people?

Will they reward you in a manner that your expertise demands?

Are they, or do they have ambitions to be, best of class?

If the answers to the above are yes then move forward.



That's a pretty good list NFFC. Sounds like common sense to me.

I think all the arguing leads us nowhere. Different methods, plain and simple. Agree or disagree with each other. Just do right by the client, keep them safe and do good work for them. Sometimes the client doesn't want to play it safe, not my style, but then I don't work with those type of clients. I do object to those who outright scam someone, or who don't tell clients of the possible consequences of a method.

The industry needs to step forward at this point.