On the Right Side of the Law
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When you are trying to promote your website, it's very tempting to use unethical techniques to score high in the search engine rankings. But there are plenty of reasons why you shouldn't -- not the least of which is that some of those techniques will get you banned, exactly the opposite of the result you want. So how do you stay on the right side of the law? (This article was originally published in the April 2004 issue of Plug-In).
Trying to stay on the right side of the law in terms of web promotion can be extremely difficult at times. The rewards of being found at the very top of the search engines can sometimes force Search Engineers and web designers alike to step over the mark using dishonest methods and both spoil the search engine results, and ultimately have their own sites penalized.
Being unethical is something that almost every Search Engine Optimizer has been guilty of at least once, and for some Optimizers, for most of the time. Methods used have changed over the years from same colored text as backgrounds, to doorway pages to IP filtering. Each has served a purpose, and some still do, but eventually, using only these methods and not laying foundations with good old-fashioned SEO will be the death of most sites.
To combat unethical web sites, search engines have updated their methods of finding and eradicating the sites that are guilty of cheating the system. As many people will know, the recent updates from Google, most noticeably the Florida update, have not only changed the way that Google uses commercial web sites, but also helps in a large way to rid the web of many sites that were abusing the system.
This is of course excellent news for the searcher, who can now find what he wants much more easily, but what of the clients of SEO companies whose websites have disappeared? What do they do now? Companies that have enquired about our own services since these recent Google updates have been alarmed at the tricks used by previous SEO firms on their own sites that ultimately got them banned or punished.
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