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Rules for Ethical Optimization
Published 3 years ago, mid-October under Standards
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Many “search engine optimization� techniques wander into ethically uncertain territory through practices such as link farming and keyword loading. I’ve never thought much of so-called “SEO experts� – for the most part they’re hawking snake oil solutions and “gaming� search engines to acquire un-merited rankings. I’m a firm believer that quality content, not SEO tricks, should be the only factor in your search engine rank. Although SEO ethics is a topic wrought with subjectivity, my goal with this post is to provide a black-and-white map of ethical and unethical SEO practices that you can implement yourself - without hiring an “expert�.
Ethical
Meta tagging
The keyword and description meta tags are the proper location to designate the search engine keywords you want to target. Quality is much better than quantity with keywords, so make sure you choose the right keyword(s) - search engines will (and should) penalize sites that jam too many keywords into meta tags.
Meta tagging
The keyword and description meta tags are the proper location to designate the search engine keywords you want to target. Quality is much better than quantity with keywords, so make sure you choose the right keyword(s) - search engines will (and should) penalize sites that jam too many keywords into meta tags.
Page title formatting
Page titles should reflect the content on the current page, with less emphasis on the name of the site. This also helps users select the correct page when windows are minimized to the tray (page titles are concatenated).
Alt tags
Provide descriptive alt tags for your images. This is a great practice, as it aids blind users, text-only users, and search engines alike. Do not abuse alt tags by jamming them with keywords.
Proper use of <h1> - <h6> tags
Use the <h1> - <h6> tags to organize your pages and documents by section. Do not jam keywords into your headers.
Build a site map
A complete site helps users find your content and helps search engines relate content on your site. Do not litter your site with multiple cross-linking maps.
Provide relevant “cross-links” and quality navigation
It is acceptable and appropriate to provide links to related articles at the bottom of your content and to use breadcrumbs and other navigational techniques to help users and search engines find other content. Do not abuse this by littering pages with irrelevant cross-link spam.
Quality link text
Don’t use link text like “Click Here” - make your link text descriptive of the page being linked to. Do not jam keywords into your link text.
Clean URLs
Clean URLs are easier for users to remember, and won’t choke search engine spiders.
Web Standards
Separate content and style/structure using well-formed (X)HTML and CSS. This aids both accessibility and search engine spidering.
Unethical
Re-writing content to match keyword preferences
NEVER edit your content to include higher keyword concentrations. This reduces the quality of your content and undermines the ranking algorithms search engines use to rank sites. The goal of any SEO technique should be to achieve an appropriate rank that reflects the quality of your content, not mutilate your content with keywords that may increase your ranking, but will ultimately piss-off your visitors.
Re-writing content to match keyword preferences
NEVER edit your content to include higher keyword concentrations. This reduces the quality of your content and undermines the ranking algorithms search engines use to rank sites. The goal of any SEO technique should be to achieve an appropriate rank that reflects the quality of your content, not mutilate your content with keywords that may increase your ranking, but will ultimately piss-off your visitors.
Keyword “loading” of any kind
NEVER jam keywords into alt tags, link text, or use CSS to hide blocks of keyword text. This makes your content useless to text-only or disabled users and will likely result in lower rankings - search engines look for this technique and will penalize your ranking for using it.
Link-farming and “Doorway Pages”
NEVER generate link-infested sites designed to boost the ranking of your site, and NEVER pay an SEO firm to increase your rank by linking to your site from “Doorway Pages”. This garbage pollutes the web and the results of many search engine queries. You will be penalized by search engines if they find you using this tactic.
Subdomain spamming
Similar to link-farming and “Doorway Pages”, NEVER abuse subdomains on your site to “trick” search engines into raising your rank. Again, this is a blatant and egregious scheme to raise your rank irrespective of the quality of your content.
Buying Your Rank
NEVER pay for inclusion in a text-link Pagerank-boosting ring. If you use advertising, the links to your site should include the ‘rel=”nofollow”‘ attribute, which informs Google and other engines to not associate the linking page to yours in the calculation of rank. Indiscriminately paying sites to link to yours without including ‘rel=”nofollow”‘ on the links is not only wrong (you are attempting to boost your rank above other, more deserving pages), you also risk being penalized by search engines. If a known spam site links to your site, you risk losing your ranking or being “black-holed”.
Sound Off!
Hey Rob, I don’t disagree with what you have said, some SEO tactics go to far. But, the act of optimizing pages in an effort to rank better in the search engines is simply a way to improve business. All business do what they can to get a leg up.
You should read this, I think its a good follow up to your post: http://www.search-this.com/website_promotion/why_SEO_matters.aspx
[...] I am just amazed at Rob Goodlatte’s lack of insight on search engine optimization. Surely there are a few useful tips in there, but it’s so basic that there’s not a chance in hell anyone would be able to rank for any even remotely competitive terms. [...]
[...] Rob Goodlatte zorgde een tijd geleden voor een hetze met zijn artikel “Rules for Ethical Optimization“, op zich een leuk artikel, volgens mij wel redelijk kort door de bocht. Maar Sverre Sjøthun van seobomb.com ging helemaal uit zijn dak; “Black & White SEO - That Just Ticks me Off!“, herrie in de keet! [...]
I agree with you Rob. Well said! :-)
What you called ethical + good contents gives a very good position on search engines.
Doorway pages are specially created to fool the search engines algorithm and
draw search engine visitors to a website. Doorway pages are Web pages
designed and built specifically to draw search engine visitors to your
website. They are standalone pages designed only to act as entry or door to
your websites. Usually these pages are theme based. They are also known as
portal pages, jump pages, gateway pages, and entry pages
Doorway pages are considered to be part of black hat and should not be used,
although many of seo companies use these pages for gaining more traffic.