Ethical Search Engine Optimization

What exactly is ethical search engine optimization? SEO or Search Engine Optimization has two different faces. On one side you have tricks and tactics that intentionally try to manipulate how search engines view your page or website. This is considered “black hat” search engine optimization and uses common tactics such as spamming, link farms, cloaking, redirects, and other black hat techniques. The other side or “white hat” side of SEO is dedicated to providing the easiest site structure that is well organized and attempts to create consistency between what is actually on the page and what you are telling the search engines is on the page. Determining what is black or white is similar to determining right from wrong. Once you understand SEO you can use your conscious to know whether something “feels” like you are trying to trick the search engines.. If so, you are probably in the black area if not grey.

Sometimes it’s not so clear as to whether what you are doing is black or white. We call these areas “grey hat”. Google is attempting to draw a harder line between the two in an attempt to clear as much of the grey area as possible. I expect their next Google Algorithm change will have new factors in the algorithm to try to establish a clear definition between the black hat areas and the white hat areas. I expect they will attempt to do this with new smarter logic that can distinguish between spam links and valid links. I also think that the new algorithm will attempt to remove some of the grey area by discounting the same class C IP backlinks. The reason for this is to discredit the companies that are benefiting from hundreds if not thousands of links from the same website.

It will be interesting to see what happens with this and how the upcoming changes will impact both black and white hat SEO.

Google has recently updated their Page Rank and Backlink Information. How will this impact your site?

The Google Page Rank and Backlink update started in late September and from what I can tell is still happening. I have recently noticed that the Google Toolbar Page Rank has dropped for one of my clients. When I check the separate datacenters I find that it is about split between two separate scores. This means that the update is still in progress and I still have hope that I can get the client’s overall Page Rank back to where it was and then continue to move forward with it.

Does this new Google Page Rank updated include the new Class C link detector? I am not really sure yet. I know they are planning on discounting a lot backlinks that were all on the same Class C IP address sometime in the near future and this may be the beginnings of that. Because I work for a firm that develops multiple projects we host on a couple of servers, we should feel the impact of the Class C regulator but surprisingly, my company has not seen a drop in Page Rank. We have new pages on the site that have been there about a month and they still have not been assigned a Page Rank yet. I am expecting their new Page Ranks to display within the next week or so and I will have a better view into what is going on.

How will this impact your website? For most site’s that have a very SEO friendly structure and have implemented white hat SEO tactics in the past for the external link structure, you should not see too many negative impacts. The sites that need to be worried are those that are tied into any types of link farms, or link networks because that is what Google is trying to get smarter at being able to identify and discount. There are multiple new tactics for gaining high volumes of credible links which I plan on writing about in the next couple of weeks.

If you did see a hit in your backlinks or Page Rank, don’t fret, there are still options you can take to get back in the game. As with any search engine optimization, it takes time but doing it the right way is going to guarantee you long term success.

I will be starting a new SEO tutorial that will contain multiple sessions on how to design a white hat or ethical search engine optimization strategy from beginning to end. This will be your opportunity to learn a lot but you have to start at the beginning and I would recommend you subscribe to this feed here to be sure you receive the sessions as they come out. Click here for this feed.