Are There Ethics in Internet Marketing and SEO?
Ethics is loosely defined as, a branch of philosophy which seeks to address questions about morality; that is, about concepts like good and bad, right and wrong, justice, virtue, etc.
Though this subject often falls into the gray area of right and wrong, ethics are the moral backbone of some, and the complete folly of others. In the world of business, there are accepted practices of right and wrong, which are generally governed by personal intentions rather than defined principles.
Many people have questioned whether there are actual ethics in business and there are significant debates about black hat SEO and white had SEO consultants for Internet marketing. In the wake of huge corporate busts such as Enron and Halliburton, it may be more important than ever for businesses, employees, and customers to enforce more checks and balances than we have seen in the past.
On the flip side, there are areas such as sales, marketing and advertising that do not find it necessary to follow any ethical guidelines, since they are merely trying to sell a product, or make a buck. When it comes to SEO and Internet marketing, there are very fuzzy lines between right and wrong, good guy and bad guy. Is it SEO consultant against Google, or site owners against other site owners?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is not always about getting the attention of potential customers, it is often about getting the attention of the search engines. When you do a good job of getting them to like you, they will put you on their top search results and other people see you. It is similar to being endorsed by them or like being found in the phone book. When people say black hat or white hat SEO, the group who make these so-called rules is Google. Is it wrong to trick Google? Is it wrong to fight to get to the top of search engine results pages (SERPs)?
It seems that ethics and morals are strong terms for people just trying to get their site or business noticed. While it is probably wrong to spam sites and blogs, as long as you have valuable content, you are not hurting any other sites, and you are providing quality services to your clients, you should be in the clear.