When Bad SEO Happens to Good People

At Search Engine Strategies last week, I heard the sad story of a small business owner who handed over his website to a shady SEO service company. He shared the following incidents that were warning signals of dealing with a “black hat” SEO provider:

• They wouldn’t reveal how they were building links for him.
• Said they would do SEO for his main competitor when he terminated the contract.

This small business owner clearly learned from this bad SEO experience, and he attended the “site clinic” workshop at SES to have his site analyzed live by real SEO experts - of the white-hat kind.

The proof in is the practice

For folks not in the SEO indusry, the whole “white hat/black hat” issue can be pretty confusing. In a nutsell, White Hats (good guys/gals) …

• Are completely transparent about all aspects of their work for the client
• Don’t make empty promises about “guarantees” of page rankings
• Integrate SEO strategy with your specific business goals and objectives
• Clearly outline client and service provider expectations
• Don’t buy, or trade for, bad links (from spam sites)
• Don’t reuse the SEO work they did for you on your competitor’s site
• Don’t get into keyword stuffing or other practices that Google no longer tolerates.

No SEO standards or certification

Lately the idea of having standards for SEO has come up - an idea that I personally favor. As Ron Jones writes in Search Engine Watch:

“If we have standards in place, we can knock out those folks who want to make a quick buck at the expense of the industry, leaving a sour taste in the mouth of every improperly-treated client, and every person they talk to, when they might actually benefit from a true and proper SEO campaign.”

With any luck, that website owner at I met at Search Engine Strategies will get himself a true and proper SEO provider and reap the benefits of ethical, methodical work: great page ranking and great customer service.