photo credit: Noah Sussman
Today there is a lot of coverage of SEO Standards. If you want a list of some recent articles visit this post at SEOmoz and Slightly Shady. I think that most of the people talking about standards are coming from the wrong position. They are largely talking about it from an additive angle - defining what SEO is. Keeping track of techniques and a risk matrix of what is safe or best practices would be prohibitive and quickly obsolete. Many of the detractors of standards bring up this point and that getting agreement would be difficult. Standards are intended to protect consumers so they should be consumer focused, not industry focused. I assume that most reputable companies can agree on certain points:
- Monthly hand submission of your site to 100+ “search engines” is not SEO
- Making a copy of a clients site that is put into a proprietary directory is a scam
- Representing 1st position in Pay Per Click as SEO is unethical
- Electronically misrepresenting the content of a clients site is potentially damaging
- Breaking terms of service for search providers is considered potentially damaging
- Search Optimization is in general focused on national, international, or niche search engines that produce a legitimate potential traffic stream: Google, Yahoo, Live, Biadu, Yahdex, Business.com, etc.
Standards should not be a monstrous task. Simply by openly compiling the services that people are offering that are blatantly not in a customers best interest we can help keep everyone honest.
Site owners are free to engage whatever tactics or providers they want, but we (as an industry) know what tactics are more damaging than helpful. You don’t have to worry about letting out secrets if you just focus on openly publicizing the things that we know are in the best interest of potential clients. Standards should be about disclosing the Red List of tactics not about hobbling the industry with a white list.
Tags: content development · PPC · Search Community · Search Engines · SEO3 Comments
Related Posts
Stupid Comment Spamming>>Simple Cheap Reputation Management>>SEO Standards - Not A Laughing Matter?>>If I Had a Crowbar: SEM Theory>>Are You a Sellout?>>
3 responses so far ↓
Well first, thanks for the link
Second, I really wish that people could keep the rules you mentioned here. But I think it’s obvious that no beaurocracy(as it would be) would ever stop at those points. I have a feeling it would become an endless squabble about pointless crap like can you submit your own content to digg.
Well, I am not a fan of bureaucracy. Keep it simple and it will be easy for people to take part in.
I for one will not support anything that is trying to enforce arbitrary minutiae.
[…] I went in to moderate the comments on “SEO Standards Protect Site Owners” and I found the most amazingly stupid piece of comment spam. Someone had actually copied […]