Retailers and Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) made headlines this year for disputes regarding retailers’ search engine optimization (SEO) tactics. On one hand, Google penalized JCPenney and Overstock.com for their search tactics. On the other hand, corporations continue to hire SEO consultants, and startups are encouraged to employ SEO strategies. So where is the line drawn?
It may have to do with the type of SEO practice used. A number of techniques can increase prominence in search results. They generally fall into the following categories:
Link Management – The quantity and quality of links pointing to a Website play key roles in its search result rank. Cross-linking and URL normalization of Webpages accessible via multiple URLs improve the link popularity score.
Metadata Organization – Search engines use a Webpage’s metadata, such as the title and description metatags that summarize what appears there, to assist in indexing.
Content Planning – Adding frequently searched keywords and keyword phrases to the Webpage’s content tends to increase traffic.
SEO techniques also can be divided into white hat and black hat. White hat SEO optimizes a Website for search engine indexing. Researching what keywords clients may use to find a Website, and using these keywords effectively and honestly throughout the Website, would be a white hat technique. Using content stylesheets (CSS) to separate design elements from the actual content also makes it easier for search engines to determine the content available on a Website.
Black hat SEO attempts to improve a Website’s rankings by exploiting flaws in the search engine algorithm. Notorious examples of these techniques include hiding content and keywords in the metadata or text positioned off screen; “gateway pages” that are highly optimized for certain keywords but redirect the user automatically to another page; “cloaking” the page by providing different pages to human visitors and search engines; and “link farming,” which uses pages that serve no purpose other than listing links to unrelated Websites.
SEO is such an important aspect of marketing that violators include major international corporations. In February 2006, Google removed both BMW Germany and Ricoh Germany from its search listings for using gateway pages. More recently, The New York Times reported that JCPenney performed link farming by paying clients to create irrelevant links to the company’s Website, making it the top search result for a wide variety of keywords, including “dresses,” “skinny jeans,” “home décor,” and “furniture.”
Similarly, Google penalized Overstock.com in February 2011 for “encouraging Websites of colleges and universities to post links to Overstock pages so that students and faculty could receive discounts.” Educational sites that end with “.edu” are considered more authoritative than commercial sites, so links from colleges and universities can boost a Website’s rankings dramatically.
Adhering to Google’s Webmaster quality guidelines seems easy enough, but retailers often hire search agencies to perform SEO and are oblivious to their tactics until their search rankings are penalized.
There are also “grey area” tactics. For example, a company can pay Internet ad companies to display text links across a network of sites and bet search engine crawlers will misinterpret these ad links as signs of popularity.
With ever-changing SEO techniques and no clear guidelines, executives must exercise caution in hiring SEO consultants, and they must understand the tactics these consultants use.
— Alfred Wong is a software engineer by trade and received his MASc from the University of Waterloo in Canada and his MBA from Arizona State University.
"There are also “grey area” tactics. For example, a company can pay Internet ad companies to display text links across a network of sites and bet search engine crawlers will misinterpret these ad links as signs of popularity."
Doesn't this type of practice effect accurate search results? and how does social search play into more accurate search results when intertwined with the old?
but if you are looking for permanent solutions, the white hat seo is where you should start from and finish.
Yes, that's what I'm saying. If you are building a website for good, you should not want to be penalized and thus will use legal and acceptable SEO methods.
SEO is a patience. Search engine optimization is bringing major technologies pieces together. Building user and search engine friendly websites, and then developing and writing the unique content appropriate to your business. Then comes the SERPS. And the engines are no doubt quite very much generous while they generate the results. Anyway, when it comes to White Hat SEO, it is time taking, but if you are looking for permanent solutions, the white hat seo is where you should start from and finish.
White hat suggests creating content for users, not for search engines, and then making that content easily accessible to the spiders, rather than attempting to trick the algorithm from its intended purpose.
Aren't SEO specialists less and less inclined to use black hat methods because Google will penalize the violators? I think there are enough white hat ways to improve the page's ranking.
The desenitization to these kind of issues is just part of the whole process which has caused a lot of complacency regarding issues like SEO in the online world.
I am trying to work up some outrage about the ethics of this but I am failing. It reminds me of "puffery" - the amount of expected and tolerated exaggeration in the claims enterprises make for their products. This isn't exactly the same thing, but I do expect enterprises to use knowledge of search algorithms to improve their own results. Tagging articles with all kinds of keywords, even if the words are tenuously related to the article's content - white hat, apparently. Links which turn out to be unsubstantial? - black hat.
Yes, I see the difference. I am failing to be horrified by it.
Great post, Alfred. A lot of people share links of different websites on social networks. Does search engines take that into account or does it affect the website's search ranking in any way? If it does, would you put this SEO technique under White hat or Black hat?
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