If you read my SEO blog, or follow me on Twitter, you may have noticed that I’m a huge proponent of honesty and doing things the “right” way. I notice that both in SEO and in life, this commitment to integrity is a perspective I rarely find shared with me by others. Whether you have an opportunity to be honest with the guy who gave you too much change back (as coincidentally, I did today) for your lunch, or to take personal responsibility for an error you made, or to invoice for a reasonable amount even though you know your client has no idea how many hours it will or will not take you to complete their project, your answer to the question, “Would I do this the same way whether or not anyone was looking?” should always be a resounding, “Yes.”

Unfortunately, most of us are keenly aware of the fact that most people cannot honestly say they always do the right thing when no one is looking. I’ve contended before that many search engine optimization “experts” are shady; but, then again, a good amount of people working in almost every specialty field are. Why? Because other people (namely customers) don’t understand the work they do, and hence, these “experts” can get away with overcharging and under-working. Add to the niche/specialty nature of the SEO field variables such as ambiguous search engine algorithms, web jargon like “server side scripting,” and the concept that success is never achieved and done -i.e. you don’t hit a goal and then stop, as with other tactics-  and the average user/consumer of SEO services is lost, uninformed and easily misled.

In my mind, the SEO realm [and those who operate in it] is simply and obviously a microcosm of our society as a whole. A small percentage of people trying their best to make their way while doing good and honest work, while the overwhelming majority sees it a faster, more efficient and worthwhile cause to employ shady tactics and overcharge for work that in the same time, they could actually do well.

What do you think? Do you agree or disagree? Are you frustrated by shady business both in SEO and other fields? Will you share your example with me below?

First, let me start by saying that I regret to inform you that a site called SEOBlackHat.com even exists. I am even more regretful that sites such as this one have listed it as a top SEO blog. While their algorithm for ranking the top 25 SEO blogs has nothing to do with the credibility of the site’s information or integrity of its proposed tactics, and the rankings post is insanely old (2007), it’s still a shame to see such sites being referenced and given SEO link juice they clearly do not deserve. For this reason, I will not link to SEOBlackHat in this post. If you’d like to visit them, you’ll have to *manually* (that will be funny shortly) enter the URL into your browser’s address bar. Sorry for the inconvenience. Lastly, I would have posted this rant in the comments section of the particular blog post I’m about to discuss, but not surprisingly, comments are closed.

Now that we’ve gotten the disclaimers out of the way, if the site name isn’t enough, the particular blog post on SEOBlackHat I’d like to discuss here provides glaring examples pointing towards the overall shadiness of information you can find from SEOBlackHat and its writers, who I assume “do” black hat search engine optimization.

The post is called “Google Lied About Manually Changes.” Yup, you read that right, “Google Lied About Manually Changes.” I could stop right there. Are these the type of people you want writing your content? I’ll add that the post is the most recent one on the site and was added back in February of 2011. For more on why this is a bad sign, check out this post on breaking the SEO rules.

The post asserts that Google contradicted itself in saying that it has no ability to manually update rankings for a term, and then later saying they ran a test on synthetic queries that involved updating the top result with a page that had nothing to do with the search term. While this sounds like a contradiction, upon closer inspection, the way the information is presented is quite biased. What Google has said in the past is that its [production] algorithm does not feature the ability to manually update rankings. Instead, a change to the algorithm would theoretically need to be made to update listings to accommodate the specific change so improvements made are meaningful and benefit all sites in a similar way.

Does this mean that Google shouldn’t or isn’t allowed to change that algorithm in testing to improve upon it? No. It also doesn’t mean that if tomorrow Google decides it wants to allow for manual updates to their algorithm, they can’t. They’re Google, you’re not. So while yes, folks at SEOBlackHat, the biased slices of information you’ve chosen to present on this topic are in fact contradictions, you are in fact the liars by way of omission. I see this type of trickery a lot and I write about it often. I’m always curious how companies see this sort of behavior as supportive of a long-term business strategy. What do you gain out of accusing Google of lying? What do you gain out of writing this poorly constructed nonsense? I would have asked you on your site, but like I said, you closed the comments. Wonder why…

If you have more examples of shady SEO advice, posts, or sites, PLEASE leave them in the comments below. I’d love to write up a post on them.

Much of the time when I engage in dialogue about SEO and my experience, what it involves, or what is required of me on SEO projects, I often arrive at a discussion of the industry landscape and what people who do honest SEO are up against, both from a client and SEO industry perspective. From the client side, there is no shortage of people who request to have search engine optimization “done” to their site. They’ve heard so many guarantees of first page search rankings that they truly believe it’s just something done and achieved and walked away from. Unfortunately for them, that’s not the case. And because they have made an uninformed decision and employed a firm promising results without divulging technique, their sites are often penalized.

I’ve talked to many folks both prior to employing a grey or black hat firm of SEO bots and afterward. In either scenario, I tell them the same thing. SEO is not a one-time thing. Anyone who tells you that if given the option to choose an SEO project’s length and budget, that they would choose a short-term one-time gig with inadequate budget for anything longer, is either not doing good SEO work, or lying.

Unfortunately, many who work in the SEO field, even those who do employ honest SEO tactics when possible, are forced to often make it a one-time thing in order to stay afloat or stay competitive. Why? Because of client misconceptions, which can be partially attributed to the faulty SEO claims being made in the first place, it’s a seemingly never-ending cycle. A marketing person is convinced that to achieve first page results, all they need is some automated backlinks placed on content farms and scraper sites (although they don’t know that’s what they’re buying into) and from that point forward, they’re often under the impression that all SEO is done this way.

I know many folks who do content work and feel the need to justify why true SEO is not a package you buy one time. Forthe SEO landscape to change, it is our job as SEOs to educate our clients. It’s our job to take those extra few minutes to explain that SEO is not about placing 1000s of links on low quality sites. It’s our job to communicate that a long-term,  sustainable SEO strategy takes time, resources, and continued effort. Obviously, this does not imply that all short-term SEO work is dishonest, that’s just not the case. But as I mentioned, common misconceptions often lead to SEOs being forced into these types of projects.

If you do SEO work and you find yourself in this position, don’t turn the job down, take it. But take it also as an opportunity to educate your client on the necessary resources they should invest in future SEO projects. Educate them on the fact that ranking for any term on the first page is not the same as ranking for relevant and highly searched for terms (a distinction rarely made by shady SEO firms). Not only will they appreciate the honesty, but most of the time, when they do have the resources to embark on a longer-term SEO journey, you’re the person they’ll contact.

The other day I was at a coffee shop, where I intended to get some freelance SEO work done. While usually the set up of this particular coffee shop works out quite well– there’s community style library table seating–on this evening, it did not. Just as I sat down with my latte and cupcake piled 3 inches high with icing, opened my laptop, whipped out my iPad, and plugged up my android phone, I was immediately yanked in as an example in a conversation between two people sitting next to me who claimed to work on the Web.

You could tell that one of them, who later introduced himself as Greg, was actually a pretty bright guy. It was also apparent that he had some form of background in marketing and/or sales, as he immediately sounded like he was selling me a 1977 Volvo before he took his first breath. I’ll spare you the details (there are 2 hours of them..yes, 2 hours) but essentially, what it boiled down to was these two guys were working on websites and at least one of them, if not both, was immediately and noticeably unqualified to be doing so.

Now, to be fair, I’m not your average Web user. I’ve been working in web marketing for years. I spent the first half of my time in the post-college working world as a Marketing Director for a web content management software development company that’s here in Atlanta. I’ve done freelance work, I’ve done contract work, I currently work for one of the biggest companies in Atlanta doing web marketing, and am also building my own web-based application. So when I say noticeably, I mean by me. But since you’re reading this blog, it’s only fair that I share my insights with you so that you too can know how to spot an SEO counterfeit.

First of all, “hats” are not something that’s discussed amongst people who practice good SEO. Since good SEO is, by definition, white hat, it’s assumed that if you’re good at what you do, that’s what you’re doing. If you talk about hats, the people who do SEO will laugh at you, at least on the inside. Unless that is, if you’re criticizing black or grey hat techniques.

Secondly, anyone who talks about buying backlinks or leasing websites is also a shady character. To really do good SEO, you have to also commit to not only the techniques, but the performance and success of the product, website, and company that you’re marketing. How do you do that? By writing good content, managing a well organized, useful, and solid website, and committing to sharing that resource. Time spent on finding shady sites to place links on, which by the way, likely have no value, or creating websites to “lease” would be better spent dedicating yourself to the true success of the product or service you’re marketing and sharing that message using honest tactics on the Web.

That’s exactly why I’m hesitant when I meet someone who does SEO and has no long-term clients. How exactly, are you “doing SEO” then? SEO is not something you just do and walk away from. If you do that, you just don’t do SEO, plain and simple. Furthermore, if you’re willing to “do” this SEO for any number of clients yourself, once again, how exactly are you “doing SEO?” It takes time, it takes commitment, it takes dedication, it takes intelligence. It does not, take shadiness. And that’s exactly what this guy was, an SEO shadester.

It’s also worth noting, this guy’s blog wasn’t even managed within his site. If you clicked “blog” from the top navigation menu, it popped out to a new window with a new domain and a completely different look and feel. (HUGE red flag that I’ll address in a separate post).

So dude, next time you’re trying to get in with people who actually care about clients and web content, don’t talk about hats, leasing, volume of clients, short term gigs, or buying links. Us legit folks are laughing, and it’s not with you.