Ethics of Search Engine Optimization

There are various techniques of Search Engine Optimization. Broadly, these are referred to as White Hat, Black Hat and Grey Hat.



According to various definitions available, ethical SEO would be:

• a technique that does more good than harm



• one that keeps in mind the dignity and rights of all involved



• one that treats all parties involved fairly



• looks out for the overall benefit of all concerned



• enhances the participant experience in all aspects

But why is this needed? Why should there be ethics defined for something like searching on the Internet? Given the fact that this is an ever-growing area of revenue and traffic generation, the interest in best practices is increasing. And just as well, the ethics that are being discussed and adopted widely are not restricted to the big corporate search engines. In fact, they apply more to those who are optimizing their pages so that they will show up on these engines' results.



People using a search engine expect to find accurate results when they search. But usage of underhanded (Black hat or Grey hat) techniques, may return a page that does not have the relevant information. This counts as bad user experience and the search engine stands to lose out in its audience. Moreover, a web page that does have the information being searched by a user also loses out. Over a period of time, if there are too few people linking to a misrepresented link, its ranking will fall anyways, but not before it has done some damage to the user's experience.



One of the most unethical practices is deception of a search engine. This can be achieved by keyword stuffing where only keywords relating to a particular topic are placed on an HTML page. By doing so, the search engine bots index and rank the page but when someone visits it, they find only a list of keywords or content that is not relevant to their search.



Another technique that is often implemented and has been universally termed as Black hat is the practice of hidden text. By putting keywords or text into a web page with the same color as that of the page background (e.g., white text on a white page), search bots will pick up the page as containing 'x' content. In reality, though, the content may be entirely different from what the keywords claim it to be.



Both examples have and continue to lead to the banning of companies and their pages on the search engine results pages. Almost all search engines have their techniques by which they identify pages which are fooling their bots. Once found, action is swift and often, severe.



Just to be clear, here is what is expected of the three main parties involved in searching on the Internet:



Search Engine:

• To return the most relevant resources based on the keywords entered by the user



• Index and maintain an index of web pages



• Be honest about links that are sponsored on its search results pages

Web page and site owners:

• Provide content that is relevant to the search made by a user



• Change the content or keywords but remain honest about it



• Adhere to the Terms and Conditions as laid out by various search engines

Users:

• Search only with those search engines that return relevant results and are clear about what they do on the results pages



• Be somewhat aware of what happens on the Internet



• Be fair in case of minor mismatches in search results unless they appear to be done with malicious intent

Yes, the above are ethics but as in the real world, black will continue to co-exist with white and in some cases, overlap to offer the gray areas!