During these discussions the subject of paid links came up – they have a budget for them. I’ve probably knocked myself out of the process by saying that I’d find it difficult to use this budget for this purpose – with Google being so anti-paid links. I explained that the links I’d build would exist permanently and would not be rented, there would be no threat of links going up in price etc. Or that when we’d finished the work that any further payment would be needed to maintain the links.

When I said this I got the response that ‘other companies‘ had mentioned it was ‘not approved‘ by Google but that it should be something they should use. At this I pressed the issue, being a nosey little so and so, to see if they’d tell me who these ‘other companies‘ were.

They did even better than that – they sent me the proposal. Which indeed lists paid links as a way of forming links that were acceptable and should be used to improve positions. I was slightly surprised by the company in question – as they’re a well known brand in SEO. A company who I know bits about and have generally seen in publications etc.

My interest in this is that this company could be putting their clients search engine positions in jeopardy. I’m what I consider to be an ‘ethical SEO’. Part of this, I feel, is not to endanger the long term stability of any clients online business. Paid links may not always give you problems – i.e. they may not get you removed from Google for using them, but they could. The risk is there and by using paid links I would be endangering the long term prospects for a client.

Anyway – let me know what you think.

White Hats, Black Hats and Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft

SEO is not magic. It can be complicated but it not magical. SEOs have tried to split themselves into two distinct camps: White Hat SEO and Black Hat SEO. White Hats SEOs act in ways that are within the terms and conditions of thesearch engines and Black Hat SEOs act outwith these. Unfotunately for you as a website owner these ‘terms and conditions’ are vague – leaving no hard and fast rules as to what is ethical and what is unethical.

What is Ethical Search Engine Optimisation?

Ethical SEO can best be thought of as giving search eninges the information they need to rank your site effectively in the way that they want it. Search Engines want you to have content from which they can understand what you sell. They want other web pages to reinforce this through links. So if you talk about a product/service/subject on your website and other web pages reinforce this with links you’ll rank better.

Unethical SEO will ‘game’ search engines and use this to drive traffic to your site. If you’re caught you could get kicked out of the major search engines. Don’t believe me? You know BMW, that huge company, they got kicked out so dont think Google or Yahoo! won’t when they find you’ve been up to things that are dodgy.

Protect Yourself against Unethical SEO

The first thing to do when you decide to get an SEO company working for you, or you start doing it yourself, is get a grip on SEO. Go to Google and do a search for “search engine optimisation tutorial”, “SEO forum” or other related things. You see the parts where every site you read agrees – it’s probably safe to do these things. If you see something that looks too good to be true such as 1,000′s of links for a couple of pounds it probably is and stay well away.