Do We Need SEO Standards?

[inertia]

Originally Posted by Peter (IMC)

That's not fair... And it's like saying that if the police would respond more if people called them there would be less crime. (which is not true unless you want to live in a police state).

If Google responded more efficiently to black hat techniques (whether algorithmically or when webmasters reported them) then there would be far fewer people attempting to employ black hat techniques. That would level the playing field for us all. I agree that we don't need a "police state" but how many sites do you see in the top ten that don't even comply to G's guidelines?! G could tighten the net a lot more before it gets anywhere near to a "police state".

The argument about building a site for the SE versus the user comes up on a regular basis here. I don't really understand why? None of us make sites purely for one or the other, we make sites for both! Whats the point in building a site purely for the user if you haven't got any?

[1dmf]

we make sites for both! Whats the point in building a site purely for the user if you haven't got any?

Exactly!

But I do beleive there needs to be standards, and it doesn't need to be policed persae.

If you created content / a site, that failed the standards, quite simply the SE's should fail to index it *until* it meets the minimum standard requirements.

If you did some DIY building on your house, it MUST meet standards, be it building regs or what ever.

If you fail to meet this standard it doesn't mean the police come arrest you, and sling you in jail does it, it simply might mean you cannot inhabit the property until they meet the minimum standards, and so you have to keep changing things until they do.

Then when you finally meet the standards required they get passed off as OK and everone's a winner.

Makes simple sense to me, but I always seem to find myself at loggerheads with the general SEO community, so what do I know!

[janeth]

Originally Posted by inertia

That would level the playing field for us all.

The playing field is level. Black hat and white hat has nothing to do with it. What method do they use they you are unable to out rank them?

[inertia]

"Make pages for users, not for search engines."

That really should be quite obvious, given that SEs are designed for users and not for SEs.

I think it can get quite confusing for people who are new to SEO when the advice they get is - "make a site for your users, don't think about the search engines". They must think "ay?! i thought id join WPW to learn how to make my site search engine friendly and i get told not to think about it??".

Obviously we know what people really mean...think of your user 1st then think of the search engines 2nd, but that sometimes goes unsaid. Anyway... I am digressing a little!

The playing field is level. Black hat and white hat has nothing to do with it. What method do they use they you are unable to out rank them?

The playing field is as level as you want it to be? If you choose to use the same unscrupulous tactics as a competitor then you are on the same level. The "line in the sand" and tactics used are eternally debatable, which is why seo standards will never work!

[janeth]

Originally Posted by inertia

The playing field is as level as you want it to be? If you choose to use the same unscrupulous tactics as a competitor then you are on the same level. The "line in the sand" and tactics used are eternally debatable, which is why seo standards will never work!

Name one tactic that is used in black hat that is so powerful you can not get around it using white hat?

[inertia]

Come on Janeth! You know there are many sites and practices which don't comply with search engine guide lines! I'm not saying you cant compete with them but it will take more time and therefore money.

Here's a thread from last week which sums up my point about Google not responding well enough to guideline infringements - Google in 2008 - Still susceptible to white on white text Spam!

[Peter (IMC)]

Originally Posted by inertia

If Google responded more efficiently to black hat techniques (whether algorithmically or when webmasters reported them) then there would be far fewer people attempting to employ black hat techniques. That would level the playing field for us all. I agree that we don't need a "police state" but how many sites do you see in the top ten that don't even comply to G's guidelines?! G could tighten the net a lot more before it gets anywhere near to a "police state".

The argument about building a site for the SE versus the user comes up on a regular basis here. I don't really understand why? None of us make sites purely for one or the other, we make sites for both! Whats the point in building a site purely for the user if you haven't got any?

Show me one SERP that is completely dominated by sites that are blackhatted into the top 10. You won't find any.

Not complying with the G-guidelines doesn't imply that you're thus a blackhatter.

The argument about building a site for the SE versus the user comes up on a regular basis here. I don't really understand why? None of us make sites purely for one or the other, we make sites for both! Whats the point in building a site purely for the user if you haven't got any?

If you build a site you should follow the HTML standards. You do that for your users and you make life for a search engine a lot easier too. The thing is that often SEO's say that they use better link structure, titles, etc. for the search engines, but in reality you do that for the user. And if you do that for the user, search engines will reward you. Not because you´re doing it for them, but because you make it easier for them to index and understand the content of your website.


Blackhat sites are exceptions in the SERP's of the search engines. If you can't get a high ranking that doesn't mean it is because of blackhat sites. Sure you can find examples of a blackhat site having a top 10 position, even in first position. But if your main conceren is that 1 keyword at that specific position, then you´re missing out on a lot of search engine refered visitors.

[inertia]

Originally Posted by Peter (IMC)

But if your main conceren is that 1 keyword at that specific position, then you´re missing out on a lot of search engine refered visitors.

That could be a huge sacrifice for some people?

Exactly! You CAN find examples of black hat sites occupying the top ten search results. Why is this? Why doesn't Googles algo pick this up and penalise them? Why don't they respond to reports from Webmasters? If they did this there would be far less black hatting and a level playing field. That would be enough to not need regulations?

[janeth]

Originally Posted by inertia

That could be a huge sacrifice for some people?

Exactly! You CAN find examples of black hat sites occupying the top ten search results. Why is this? Why doesn't Googles algo pick this up and penalise them? Why don't they respond to reports from Webmasters? If they did this there would be far less black hatting and a level playing field. That would be enough to not need regulations?

Show me five.

[tenkiya]

bj is right - follow what Google has put up for guidelines.

As far as standards go: We don't need no union thugs.

[Peter (IMC)]

Originally Posted by inertia

That could be a huge sacrifice for some people?

Exactly! You CAN find examples of black hat sites occupying the top ten search results. Why is this? Why doesn't Googles algo pick this up and penalise them? Why don't they respond to reports from Webmasters? If they did this there would be far less black hatting and a level playing field. That would be enough to not need regulations?

No, not exactly,..... but exactly the opposite. You can not find SERP's that are completely dominated by blackhat sites. Don't turn my words around,.

Show us one SERP where each site is a blackhat site.

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by inertia

The argument about building a site for the SE versus the user comes up on a regular basis here. I don't really understand why? None of us make sites purely for one or the other, we make sites for both! Whats the point in building a site purely for the user if you haven't got any?

An organic listing is but one of many means by which a potential visitor might learn of your site. And, obtaining a sufficiently high SERP so as to attract an adequate numbers of visitors may not the most cost effective way of reaching ones goal.

For example, sales sites may find that various forms of advertising provide a ROI that greatly exceeds that of investing in SEO for the purpose of securing a high enough SERP. An example of such would be TicketsNow, the largest online secondary market ticket broker, and currently in the process of being acquired by Ticketmaster for the sum of $265 Million. Their success did not come by way of organic listings.

[james113]

I agree that SEO standards are simply Search Engine standards and that the search engines themselves should be policing their search engines. I was hired by a guy to do some SEO/SEM work on his drywall services website. I got the job by responding to an ad on craigslist and a so called SEO specialist replied to the ad after I had been hired. After not being hired(since the job was taken), he then used some kind of black hat trick to make another drywall service website (my boss' competition) to rank higher than my boss' website when users search my boss' company name(doesn't have the word drywall in it!). So then my boss' website ranked #2 when you searched his company name instead of #1. If there was a way to report this stuff to the search engines I sure would.

[janeth]

Originally Posted by james113

I agree that SEO standards are simply Search Engine standards and that the search engines themselves should be policing their search engines. I was hired by a guy to do some SEO/SEM work on his drywall services website. I got the job by responding to an ad on craigslist and a so called SEO specialist replied to the ad after I had been hired. After not being hired(since the job was taken), he then used some kind of black hat trick to make another drywall service website (my boss' competition) to rank higher than my boss' website when users search my boss' company name(doesn't have the word drywall in it!). So then my boss' website ranked #2 when you searched his company name instead of #1. If there was a way to report this stuff to the search engines I sure would.

There is a way to report it but it sounds like all he did was through a couple links at the other site.

[1dmf]

Show us one SERP where each site is a blackhat site.

Well if i'm to understand part of SEO to be link building, and alot of these links are from either paid links, companies with access to 1,000's of websites to add links, network of blogs, social networking sites etc. etc..

then most SERPs are black hatted!

The only true genuine PR vote (link) is someone off their own back, with no knowledge of PR or what an inbound link does for SE's, puts a link on their website, because they genuinely like the site they are linking to.

as soon as a webmaster, deliberately does anything what so ever to encourage a link to their site, that under G! guidlines is BLACK HAT!

be them paid links, recipricol, insentive based, auctioned, rewarded by some other method to make them look 'non-paid' , what ever.

So sorry, 99.9% of sites on page 1 for any given search phrase, is there through SEO , not because a million people on the planet genuinely love the site!

I don't recall any one but myself adding our site to directories!!!!!!

i don't recall a member of the public requesting I be included in DMOZ or paying for my site to be in the Y! Directory.

Jezus you SEO's really have your head up your ass sometimes!

[janeth]

Originally Posted by 1dmf

Well if i'm to understand part of SEO to be link building, and alot of these links are from either paid links, companies with access to 1,000's of websites to add links, network of blogs, social networking sites etc. etc..

then most SERPs are black hatted!

The only true genuine PR vote (link) is someone off their own back, with no knowledge of PR or what an inbound link does for SE's, puts a link on their website, because they genuinely like the site they are linking to.

as soon as a webmaster, deliberately does anything what so ever to encourage a link to their site, that under G! guidlines is BLACK HAT!

be them paid links, recipricol, insentive based, auctioned, rewarded by some other method to make them look 'non-paid' , what ever.

So sorry, 99.9% of sites on page 1 for any given search phrase, is there through SEO , not because a million people on the planet genuinely love the site!

I don't recall any one but myself adding our site to directories!!!!!!

i don't recall a member of the public requesting I be included in DMOZ or paying for my site to be in the Y! Directory.

Jezus you SEO's really have your head up your ass sometimes!

Anyone that tries to get traffic to their site is blackhat. I'll just have to be blackhat. And blackhat should be a good thing and blackhat's should be rewarded with top rankings.

I'd much rather see a site in the top where a guy has tried to work with the site and get people to link to him. He has studied what works and what does not work with the search engines, site visitors and competition.

He has earned the right to rank in the top of the search engines vs the lazy ass that has done nothing.

[1dmf]

Don't get me wrong, Janeth, I agree, which is why there needs to be standards, and some real honesty in the SEO world.

And i'm not tarring you all with same brush, I have met some genuine, ethical SEO's, who are definately experts in their field, but part of their arsenal, is 'technically' black hat, if we all followed G! guidelines to the letter.

we try to game the SE's by trying to understand how the SE's work, and then make changes, or do things to improve our SERPs.

But while the industry burries its head in the sand and makes ethical claims of 'never do anything for SE's', it's just pure nonesense.

I believe if there was a true SEO consortium, like W3C for HTML/XML/CSS standards, who could actually liaise with the SE's and truly build ways in which we can all play the game , following the same rules and utilising the same 'accepted' techniques, being open and honest.

This would hopefully weed out the real 'black hatters', give everyone a chance, and somewhere to turn.

Now I know that there are forums like this, enabling us all to discuss and learn from each other, but we all have different ideas at times, there is so much SEO 'myth' it's unbelievable and sometimes it's purely 'it used to work till algo update xyz'

I'm a member of many forums, some for techy stuff while programming and some like this one for webmastering, but I still find it hard to decipher everything I read on these forums and see so much contradiction with many people having different views, or simply not seing the true 'cause vs effect'

If there was a place , recognised by the industry and 'endorsed' by the SE's I could go, like W3C, wouldn't you think this would be better than the current situation we have.

I'm bombarded every day from compaines via email or even telephone wanting me to pay for links in their directories and i'm not talking obscure link farm black hatting SEO, i'm talking BT local bussiness, Thompson, Yellow Pages, SE's such as Excite & Ask.

Not to mention the SEO companies claiming to have access to 10's of 1,000's of website and place 'keyword rich' text links on these site, in a manner that leave no (and i quote in their words) 'footprint', which SE's can pick up as spammy, paid or any other 'shady' method.

So do I beleive them, do I report them, is reporting them to the SE's going to help improve my ranking, or is taking them up on their offer a better approach if I want to make money, is it possible to place links on 1,000's of website without breaching any rules or being blackhat or leaving a footprint. Is this perfectly acceptable fair game as far a simple business is concerned.

should companies that have 1,000's and 1,000's of websites be allowed to offer SEO ? or inbound links, at the end of the day, we can all pretend we are 'ethical' and doing it on releated websites, purely for the related visitors it brings and PR never crossed our minds EVER, hhmmm, yeah right!

And hey, it's only those who try to understand SEO and investigate it, that really understand potentially what these companies who ring us really might be offering.

So Joe Bloggs gets a call, hasn't got the first clue about SEO, they have a simple website they paid someone to write and it serves their purpose.

The caller offers to get them to page 1 of G! with a months free trial to proove they can do it, the company is purely offering to put relevant links on their network of websites, to bring them traffic and increase ranking.

Mr Bloggs, didn't understand half of what was said, but likes the idea of a month FREE trial, they trial it, it works, now their no.1 for their keywords, because of the phenomenal amount of inbound links this company has gained for them on their network of websites, and we are not talking link farms, steath , article / blog spam or any of the other methods, which every 'ethical' SEO considers REAL BLACK HAT.

Now Joe Bloggs doesn't know his site might be no1 purely through gaming the system and PR juice, they just assume this company knows their stuff and lets them get on with it, and if we the 'Ethical' SEO'ers don't employ similar methods, how on earth are we meant to compete.

Hey are you telling me all you SEO professionals only have clients that you beleive in their website, because you love their website, the companies ethics, the products they sell

Some of you perhaps yes, but most, hey we are all in business and a paying customer is a paying customer.

So all i'm trying to say is as the point of this thread was all about - Do We Need SEO Standards, I say 'Yes', and hopefully i've explained my reasons why.

I did not mean to offend anyone in particular by my comment, @ the end of the day I am 1DMF!