What does "Ethical SEO" actually mean?
"Ethical SEO" applies to SEO techniques, not to individual SEO practitioners. It's important to make this distinction between people and techniques. SEO practitioners may behave ethically (or what they believe is ethically) towards their clients. This does not mean that their practices are ethical or in anyone's ultimate interests but their own.
A range of strategies and tactics are available in order to perform search engine optimization. Which are ethical and which are unethical?
It is for this reason that arguments about the way clients are treated by SEO’s, although important in other contexts, are redundant when evaluating ethical optimization techniques – because, as far as other stakeholders are concerned, the site owner and their SEO are the same entity. Site owners have something to gain by attracting searchers (self-qualified, relevant traffic) to their site, and they have the most to gain if those searchers convert into something meaningful.
Roles and Responsibilities of Searchers
• Locate and use search engines with results that best match their requirements and personalities
• Use search modifiers and tools in order to tailor search results to their exact requirements
• Be able to recognize clearly labelled advertising in search results
• Obey terms of service of the search engines they use and the sites they visit
• Crawl and index the Web
• Represent Web sites fairly in search results
• Obey and further develop robots standards
• Obtain a market of searchers
• Determine relevance of resources to queries made by those searchers
• Provide good quality, trustworthy search results with clearly labelled advertising (if any)
Roles and Responsibilities of Site Owners
• Provide a good quality Web site designed to appeal to particular target markets
• Correct any fundamental problems with architecture, accessibility, usability
• Write or rewrite the content to ensure suitability for the target markets
• Make good use of the available robots standards
• Market the site using links designed for people to see and follow
• Obey the terms of service of the search engines and directories that site is submitted to
Within this ethical framework, search engines are allowed to improve their search results or die, to be replaced by better search engines; the quality of Web sites in the search results improves, benefiting the owners of those Web sites to the detriment of lower quality Web sites; searchers obtain better results from search engines and are not deceived by advertisements masquerading as search results; and the Web as a whole is a better place. That is the outcome of ethical search marketing. When unethical, deceptive practises are deployed the opposite happens. It is partly for this reason that I believe the SEO industry is sleepwalking towards disaster.
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