Good advice on how to tell ethical from unethical search marketing firms from Mike Moran and Bill Hunt in Search Engine Marketing, Inc., Second Edition. Rather than boost your site, a glib operator, or spammer, can actually get it banned from search engines. 
In search marketing, “spam,” explain Moran and Hunt, is “any technique that is designed mainly to fool the search engines to gain an untoward advantage:”
• Be wary of firms that guarantee high rankings. “No reputable firms will promise you top results–too many variables are out of their control.”
• Be wary of firms that promise that top rankings require only…
Here are some good thoughts on not attempting to trick search engines – futile – but catering to them – promising.
Great thoughts about SEO sites, practices, community, etc., and do please read the comments. Very good peek. The latest post however makes this pretty poignant. To this post let me just add that I too am no-one in particular, and that’s an important attribute.
Social Media and Web 2-3.0 being what they are, should I use my graphic design skills to make a “No-one In Particular” logo we can use on our sites to celebrate good practices and humility within the biz? If there are YES comments I’ll do it! With enthusiasm!
— Abigail
- - - - -
Abigail Hamilton is a professional with over…
Like everyone else these days, I see a lot of SEO pitches. This one was particularly frightening:
Our in-house professional writers will provide you with three to five blog postings per week that are 200 to 500 words deep. These postings are infused with fresh, current, relevant, consistent, keyword-rich content. These entries will contain hyperlinked keywords that are related to and pointed at your site.
My skin crawls at the idea of widespread blog abuse by SEO experts; enough people do this and blogs will become so suspect that people won’t bother reading any for fear of being manipulated, bored, or…
