Ethics & SEO

There has been a lot of posts here about ethics and SEO. Is SEO supposed
to be ethical? SEO is a business and personally I can't think of too
many business's that are ethical, can any of you think of any? I pay $41
a month for my Cox cable TV bill which has hardly any decent shows to
watch, tons of commercials, and it keeps going up yearly just because
they are greedy. Is that ethical? I pay $170 at the gas pump, is that
ethical? My groceries cost me $100 a week, is that ethical? So why is
SEO suppossed to be ethical? We don't make 5 trillion dollars a year
like Exxon or AT&T or Dupont. Yet we're supposed to be ethical. Give me
a break!

Unless you have a true great content site and by content I'm talking
about a site that is so interesting and valuable to others that they
freely will add a backlink to your site at their site without asking for
one in return, then you have little to no chance of ever getting your
sites listed high up at Google.

Sites like yahoo, aol, microsoft don't need to post at guestbooks for
backlinks because they have true interesting content sites that have
become super popular. And there are smaller sites such as
www.submitside.com as one example that also don't spam guestbooks but
are interesting enough to get free backlinks from other sites.

But if you're doing the typical ecommerce site selling something like
adult lingerie, phone sex, discount cigarettes, clothes, shoes whatever
as an online business nobody is going to give you a free backlink at
their own website without expecting one in return.

I didn't start the posting to guestbooks, memberlists, blog comments for
pr and backlinks concept. It was already there when I arrived. The only
way I could get my sites listed high up was to post to these sites. All
the greatest on page coding in the world isn't going to get your site
anywhere without page rank and page rank comes from backlinks, primarily
from backlinks that have high pr.

So your choice as an seo is you can do the ethical thing and not post
and not have your site listed anywhere or you can post and be successful
and get it listed high up. Keep in mind here I am talking about very
competitive searches and not easy searches that anyone could get listed
high up with few backlinks and low pr.

If google didn't count guestbooks, memberlists, blog comments, add for
free link sites as backlinks then websites would have to exchange links
with each other and that would be the only way to get backlinks and some
pr. Essentially you would have lots of pr0-3 sites exchanging links with
each other and that's all it would take to get listed high up compared
to now where it takes a minimum usually of a pr4, 5 or 6 and sometimes
higher. I don't have any problem with this idea and think it would be
great if google actually stopped counting non sites as backlinks and
went back to the way things used to be when they wrote their guidelines
years ago. If you want to blame anyone for the mess on the net blame
Google who counts the backlinks from non sites and not the seo who uses
them. The seo has to survive and will do what it takes to do that. When
google changes its ways the seo will change with them.

In the meantime I will help people by telling them they need to post to
non sites if they want to get backlinks and pr to be competitive if
their site is in a highly competitive search. When google changes my
advice will change with them.

"Sam" <. (AT) mail (DOT) com> wrote

There has been a lot of posts here about ethics and SEO. Is SEO supposed
to be ethical? SEO is a business and personally I can't think of too
many business's that are ethical, can any of you think of any? I pay $41
a month for my Cox cable TV bill which has hardly any decent shows to
watch, tons of commercials, and it keeps going up yearly just because
they are greedy. Is that ethical? I pay $170 at the gas pump, is that
ethical? My groceries cost me $100 a week, is that ethical? So why is
SEO suppossed to be ethical? We don't make 5 trillion dollars a year
like Exxon or AT&T or Dupont. Yet we're supposed to be ethical. Give me
a break!

Unless you have a true great content site and by content I'm talking
about a site that is so interesting and valuable to others that they
freely will add a backlink to your site at their site without asking for
one in return, then you have little to no chance of ever getting your
sites listed high up at Google.

Sites like yahoo, aol, microsoft don't need to post at guestbooks for
backlinks because they have true interesting content sites that have
become super popular. And there are smaller sites such as
www.submitside.com as one example that also don't spam guestbooks but
are interesting enough to get free backlinks from other sites.

But if you're doing the typical ecommerce site selling something like
adult lingerie, phone sex, discount cigarettes, clothes, shoes whatever
as an online business nobody is going to give you a free backlink at
their own website without expecting one in return.

I didn't start the posting to guestbooks, memberlists, blog comments for
pr and backlinks concept. It was already there when I arrived. The only
way I could get my sites listed high up was to post to these sites. All
the greatest on page coding in the world isn't going to get your site
anywhere without page rank and page rank comes from backlinks, primarily
from backlinks that have high pr.

So your choice as an seo is you can do the ethical thing and not post
and not have your site listed anywhere or you can post and be successful
and get it listed high up. Keep in mind here I am talking about very
competitive searches and not easy searches that anyone could get listed
high up with few backlinks and low pr.

You could try advertising. That is what business is all about. You don't

have to spam, but you like to because it is cheap and easy. You are the
problem. without people like you, it woildn't be as hard as it is today to
get those good listings. You are a loser.

SoftData wrote:

You could try advertising. That is what business is all about. You don't
have to spam, but you like to because it is cheap and easy. You are the
problem. without people like you, it woildn't be as hard as it is today to
get those good listings. You are a loser.

I think you got that backwards buddy. People who pay $1,000 a month to
advertise because they are too dumb and lazy to figure out thow to get
their sites listed by themselves are the losers, like yourself and
you're jealous loser too.

SoftData


I think you should change your name to NoData which would describe you
better. Anyway enough wasting my time arguing with people like yourself
tonight. I'm wasting precious time that I could be blog spamming instead
so I'm off.........

"Sam" <. (AT) mail (DOT) com> wrote

SoftData wrote:


You could try advertising. That is what business is all about. You don't
have to spam, but you like to because it is cheap and easy. You are the
problem. without people like you, it woildn't be as hard as it is today
to
get those good listings. You are a loser.


I think you got that backwards buddy. People who pay $1,000 a month to
advertise because they are too dumb and lazy to figure out thow to get
their sites listed by themselves are the losers, like yourself and
you're jealous loser too.

I'm not your buddy, and I pay 15p a click for a product that sells for
£300.00 plus VAT. Income last year was more than you could ever dream about.
You are a stupid spammer, no different to those creeps who send emails
trying to sell viagra.

I've been making a very good living on the net for 7 years, and I expect to
coninue to do so.

I've never had to use the killfile on this group before, but you are such an
offensive twerp that you make the first.

"SoftData" <me (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote in
news:JvnWb.1802$5t2.16702659 (AT) news-text (DOT) cableinet.net:

There has been a lot of posts here about ethics and SEO. Is SEO
supposed to be ethical?

Whatever your views on 'ethics' (and I agree it's a rather odd term)
there are concrete objections to some forms of promotion because of the
potential for damage to a carefully-nurtured brand.

I understand that for your business, brand is not particularly
important, but most businesses really need to make the right impression
on their customers.

There is an element of trust in buying a holiday, a legal service, a
large-value item like a car, or something you need to rely on like an
email service, in advance over the web.

You don't advertise children's play equipment by putting up misspelt
handwritten posters on disused shop windows or in public toilets.

You advertise it in a context that makes people think it's safe and fun
to bring their kids to your showroom. That might mean spending a bit
more time, effort, money, but sales will justify it.

Stuff that damages trust can directly impact the bottom line.

Not all publicity is good publicity.

Whatever your views on appropriate behaviour or 'ethics' on the web,
that's important.

I suggest that anyone who is thinking of using the tactics Sam
recommends should *really* think hard about whether they are selling the
same kind of product to the same kind of audience first.

Victoria

Sam wrote:

There has been a lot of posts here about ethics and SEO. Is SEO
supposed to be ethical?

So who's being hurt by blog spamming?

1. Blogs/ Guestbooks
2. Google Results

1. Why would a blog be hurt? Because your comment is naturally not
adding anything useful to the site. The owner might have to shut it
down. I did with one of my comment sections because it got so much
spam. Then again, maybe that's the way of the Web -- everyone will
start their own blog and stop posting to other blogs. Technorati et all
still help to keep track. Damage done? Minor.

2. Why would a Google result be hurt? Well face it most SEO spammers
don't rely on honest to god backlinks because of quality content. And
trust me those can be achieved even by sites outside of the big ones,
e.g. Microsoft, Yahoo etc. There's no one stopping you from going to
PR6 or so with nothing but great content, even on small business or non
business sites. So basically what now ranks well are sites no one wants
to see really. And this destroys Google. Is it your problem? No, it's
Google's problem and the problem of its users. As long as you're not
spamming results like "Suicide Help", the damage done is not too big.


Now, ethics step in when laws fail. As soon as you are being hurt by
some sort of blog spam law, I would watch out. Then again it might be
impossible to hunt one down because someone else could have posted the
comments to hurt your business. But Google doesn't have to obey the
law. So as soon as they figure out dummy guestbook entries and ban the
sites, you will have problems beside ethics.

About your comments on "others do it" or "it's been done before", well
that's a lame one and they teach in philosophy 101 to not use that.
Yeah, people murder all the time, and murdering has been going one for
ages. That doesn't mean it's perfectly ethical to murder someone.

OK, back to work.

--
Google Blogoscoped
http://blog.outer-court.com

Victoria Clare wrote:

"SoftData" <me (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote in
news:JvnWb.1802$5t2.16702659 (AT) news-text (DOT) cableinet.net:

There has been a lot of posts here about ethics and SEO. Is SEO
supposed to be ethical?

Whatever your views on 'ethics' (and I agree it's a rather odd term)
there are concrete objections to some forms of promotion because of the
potential for damage to a carefully-nurtured brand.

I understand that for your business, brand is not particularly
important, but most businesses really need to make the right impression
on their customers.

There is an element of trust in buying a holiday, a legal service, a
large-value item like a car, or something you need to rely on like an
email service, in advance over the web.

You don't advertise children's play equipment by putting up misspelt
handwritten posters on disused shop windows or in public toilets.

You advertise it in a context that makes people think it's safe and fun
to bring their kids to your showroom. That might mean spending a bit
more time, effort, money, but sales will justify it.

Stuff that damages trust can directly impact the bottom line.

Not all publicity is good publicity.

Whatever your views on appropriate behaviour or 'ethics' on the web,
that's important.

I suggest that anyone who is thinking of using the tactics Sam
recommends should *really* think hard about whether they are selling the
same kind of product to the same kind of audience first.

Victoria

The answer to the type of seo you would need is simple. You do the same
thing in a round about way by doing all the posting for site A (not your
real site you want listed) which then links to your real site or you can
play it very safe and have site A link to another fake site B which
links to your real site. The pr will take longer to transfer through but
it will still work. Fot the link anchor text all you really need to do
is about 50-100 internal pages at your real site and site A and site B.
The 50-100 internal pages at site A and site B will also push up the pr
of your real site as well. Thus all the postings to blogs, guestbooks,
memberlists ect are hidden from plain view from average people and only
seo's would know what you were doing. Remember to have the internal
pages transfer the pr correctly at maximum power they all have to be
linking to each other.

SoftData wrote:

"Sam" <. (AT) mail (DOT) com> wrote

SoftData wrote:


You could try advertising. That is what business is all about. You don't
have to spam, but you like to because it is cheap and easy. You are the
problem. without people like you, it woildn't be as hard as it is today
to
get those good listings. You are a loser.


I think you got that backwards buddy. People who pay $1,000 a month to
advertise because they are too dumb and lazy to figure out thow to get
their sites listed by themselves are the losers, like yourself and
you're jealous loser too.

I'm not your buddy, and I pay 15p a click for a product that sells for
£300.00 plus VAT. Income last year was more than you could ever dream about.
You are a stupid spammer, no different to those creeps who send emails
trying to sell viagra.

I've been making a very good living on the net for 7 years, and I expect to
coninue to do so.

I've never had to use the killfile on this group before, but you are such an
offensive twerp that you make the first.

I know you've never made a dime on the net.

Philipp Lenssen wrote:

Another illogical no thought post to reply to:

1. Why would a blog be hurt? Because your comment is naturally not
adding anything useful to the site. The owner might have to shut it
down. I did with one of my comment sections because it got so much
spam. Then again, maybe that's the way of the Web -- everyone will
start their own blog and stop posting to other blogs. Technorati et all
still help to keep track. Damage done? Minor.

If someone posts to a blog comment and adds something intelligent and on

topic to the conversation and the only thing that is off is their url is
off topic how the hell in the world does that hurt the dam blog? Same
with guestbooks, message boards ect.

2. Why would a Google result be hurt? Well face it most SEO spammers
don't rely on honest to god backlinks because of quality content. And
trust me those can be achieved even by sites outside of the big ones,
e.g. Microsoft, Yahoo etc. There's no one stopping you from going to
PR6 or so with nothing but great content, even on small business or non
business sites. So basically what now ranks well are sites no one wants
to see really. And this destroys Google. Is it your problem? No, it's
Google's problem and the problem of its users. As long as you're not
spamming results like "Suicide Help", the damage done is not too big.

Again for the ten hundredth time business sites and adult porno sites

have no meaningful content, are not supposed to have meaningful content
and no one who visits those sites wants them to have meaningful content.
Your logic or lack of it holds no water. Whether you want to admit it or
be in denial business sites (small busines like seo Dave and porno sites
(mine) make up the bulk of sites on the web and it's why the web is so
big as it is and makes so much money. If you removed them all the net
would go back to just being usenet like it was 30 years ago. Maybe you'd
like that? Most regulars in newsgroups I've talked to over the years
would like that idea and acrtually hate the web.

But Google doesn't have to obey the
law. So as soon as they figure out dummy guestbook entries and ban the
sites, you will have problems beside ethics.

Google can't ban individual posts from a guestbook, they could only not

count all guestbook links as backlinks. It's an all or nothing type of
thing. I'm all for them banning the whole dam thing anytime they want
to. I hate posting and it would liberate me. I don't need guestbooks and
the like to get page one on an even playing field meaning non sites
don't count as links, never did. When google stops counting I'll stop
posting and I speak for most seo's incidently.

About your comments on "others do it" or "it's been done before", well
that's a lame one and they teach in philosophy 101 to not use that.
Yeah, people murder all the time, and murdering has been going one for
ages. That doesn't mean it's perfectly ethical to murder someone.

Google Blogoscoped

Others don't do they all do it. When you change the whole world and stop
greed give me a call. As long as Exxon, Dupont, IBM ect spam as a good
word for it I will too! Stop the big spammers like them and the little
spammers will follow suit. It starts from the top and since you're mr
rogers you go do it and get back to us when you're done.