| Ethics in search engine
optimization is a hot topic mostly because it has been hard
for any SEO organization to define what behaviors are considered
ethical and what are considered unethical. Barring any well-defined
criteria, we have tried in this section to lay out what we
believe to be some ethically questionable practices in search
engine optimization.
Cloaking
Cloaking is the practice of creating one page of well-optimized
text for the search engine/s and serving up a separate page
for the visitors. Through cloaking, your visitors can see
a great design with lots of graphics and little text. They
will never see your ugly page of highly-optimized text. On
the other hand, your search engine will never come in contact
with your beautiful, prize-winning page of dazzling graphics.
What is wrong with this? Well, first is creates an uneven
playing field among the competitors for the top position.
Most web designers and web site owners do not know how to
cloak and thus are at a disadvantage for those who do. Second,
cloaking breaks the WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get)
rule that most webmasters cherish. One, web page, one URL
is seen the same by all the same way. Third, because most
people view this as an unethical practice, it is an unethical
practice. If a search engine discovers you are engaging in
cloaking, many will bury your site deep in the results never
to be found again.
Optimizing For Low-Ranking Keywords
An SEO company needs to offer suggestions to newbie customers
for the highest ranking keywords that will work for their
site. Some SEO companies let their customers choose there
own keywords (or keyword phrases) which are low-ranking and
not likely to attract their target audience and do not offer
any alternative keyword suggestions to their customers.
Misrepresenting The SEO Company
Some search engine optimization companies do not call themselves
search engine optimization companies, but some other wording
in order to pick up a different set of customers and to avoid
going head-to-head with other higher-ranking search engine
optimization companies. This is both understandable and ethically
questionable.
Here is a theoretical situation. There is an SEO company
that calls itself Potato Peddlers Optimization Services. This
company ranks in the top 10 in the major search engines for
the word "potato peddler" and then claims because
it is in the top 10 (of an unrelated keyword) it is good at
optimizing other people's websites and should get your business.
This website is avoiding going head-to-head with other sites
vying for the very competitive keyword phrases. Yes, it is
in the top 10, but no, not with a viable keyword phrase.
Doorway or Gateway Pages
Doorway or gateway pages as they are sometimes called are
a part of another ethically gray area. These pages also violate
the WYSIWYG fair play or even playing field rule. The part
that is ethically questionable is not that they exist, but
that they are hidden from the visitors with an invisible link
on the homepage. If this were an ethically acceptable practice
then why hide the pages? The doorway pages are hidden because
they are ugly pages laden with keyword heavy text, which have
two reasons for their existence. First, they are used to get
to the top of the search engines. Second, when a visitor clicks
on these pages, he or she finds little real content and directed
to venture back to the homepage or further into the site.
Doorway pages have been very popular for the last several
years. Some people see the practice as ethically acceptable
and so be it. It certainly does not rank up with cloaking
as an ethically questionable practice. A better way to build
a website, however, is not to have hidden links and pages.
Why not make every page on your website a visible doorway
page that visitors will want to spend time on and that search
engine spiders will easily index?
Check out Avoiding
SEO Scams and Reciprocal
Link Scams for more information on this topic.
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