SEO Ethics: Which Hat To Wear - Conclusion
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Search engine ethics is a complicated and difficult to resolve issue.
Along with concerns for the desires of the customer to achieve high search engine rankings, and search engine optimization professionals to provide them, there are issues of ethics in relation to the search engine themselves. It’s not as simple as saying the website owner is the only concern. Other legitimate websites are part of the equation as well.
The search engine terms of service state that the SERPs don’t have to include any or all Web pages or sites. The search engines are entitled to remove any sites that violate those terms of use. On the other hand, the search engines are slow, and often highly erratic in their levying of penalties and bans. Because of that weakness, many SEOs believe the guidelines aren’t even followed by the search engines themselves.
My opinion is the search engine is a business, like any other. As such, it has its terms of service, and also has the right to refuse service if violations occur. Because of that right on the part of the search engines, it’s important for website owners and search engine optimization professionals to follow those guidelines.
While it’s a bit idealistic to believe that all websites will follow the published guidelines, keeping one’s own house in order will prevent any penalties or bans landing at one’s own doorstep. Taking care to use only generally agreed upon best practices, in effect using only “white hat” techniques, will win out in the end.
While white hat methods might appear slower at first, they provide long term staying power that can survive any shifts in the search engine algorithms. White hat techniques also let a person rest easy, knowing the site is safe from penalties and banning, while providing useful information and products to the site visitors.
Instead of worrying about other sites, take care of your own site, and you will do well in the search engines. You can then safely ignore any shade of hats.
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