A review of ethical and unethical Search Engine Optimisation practices

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) should constantly be done in an ethical way so that the Search Engine Placement of the client website will be on the initial page of a set of organic search engine results. These results will normally come after a list of sponsored sites that are relevant to the search keyword(s) typed in.

The method by which a search engine, e.g. Google, understands which web sites are significant to the keyword(s) submitted for search, is by having previously indexed the pages and stored the results in a database. Thus by searching the index for the keyword(s) a fast response is assured, typically in the order of under a second.
The search engines use a program to do the indexing, known as a robot or spider, and these robots have been built and refined to recognise unethical practices that they find on web pages, which they could well then leave out from the index. In some cases the web site may be excluded in it’s entirety.

The robot values the web pages by several means: The number of times a keyword is listed on a page, and the number of times other sites link to the page.

For clients operating Online Marketing services, it is important that their web sites are long running as they may well sustain a lot of other clients.

Keywords:
Unethical Practice:
Keyword Stuffing is an unethical practice of using a keyword lots of times in a web page, typically by using text that is the same colour as the backdrop so that it won’t be viewed by a visitor but will be seen by the robot.
This can also be used for keywords in Meta tags in the html head of the web page code.
Ethical Practice:
Ethical methods concentrate on what the user experience will be, so the page content should be pertinent to the page title and the page title should reflect the link that was used to reach it, as well as the actual content. Content should be carefully written in good English with no spelling or grammatical mistakes, and should stress the product or service that the page is concerning. Keywords should be part of the normal flow of text and repeated just as often as sensible reading allows. For keywords in Meta tags a unique list of keywords should be used.

Links to the page:
Unethical Practice:
An unethical developer may create what are known as Doorway Pages, where the content is probably just keyword stuffing and a link to the supported web site.
Ethical Practice:
The ethical method is to create useful pages that can be read by a user and have links to the client site.

If looking for a Search Engine Optimization Company, ascertain which methods they use before committing yourself to their services.

Filed under: About AskAME

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