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We adhere to a code of
conduct when it comes to the SEO services we offer and the following
statements reflect our business position.
 In
the area of General Ethics, we shall not:
Engage in
any behaviors that will intentionally harm a client or a competitor.
This includes performing black-hat techniques that may get that
client’s site banned from the search engines, or purposefully
interfering with a competitor’s site as to try and get their site
dropped from the search engines in order to get our client’s web
site into a better position.
Intentionally engage in activities in direct violation of a search
engine’s guidelines. These types of behaviors can impose
penalties by search engines, or banning from the search engine
indexes altogether.
Purposefully
engage in behavior that breaches a client’s confidentiality or
privacy. An SEO many times has access to sensitive materials on a
web site, including documents, logins, passwords, product
information and other items. It is not acceptable for an SEO to make
this information public, nor is it acceptable for the SEO to discuss
your account with other SEOs that are not particularly working on
your account.
Deliberately
violate any laws, including but not limited to trademark or
copyright laws. SEO’s that use copyrighted names, like Google or
PayPal or Sony or even misspellings of trademarked names, in order
to inflate a site’s ranking is considered illegal, and punishable by
law.
Falsely
claim another’s work to be our own. SEOs sometimes do this in order
to make their portfolio look impressive, especially when they know a
client probably can’t or won’t follow up on their portfolio
examples.
Intentionally mislead, harm, or offend a consumer. This includes
bait and switch tactics intent on bringing traffic to the web site, or
making a visitor believe the site is something it is not.
Disparage
other SEO consultants, SEO companies, or former and current clients
in public, even if they have engaged in unethical techniques, or
treated the SEO badly.
Fail to stay
current on search engine updates, changes, news, training or
education. It is in your best interest that your SEO know what’s
going on today in the search engine world, due to the fluid nature
of search engine changes which occur very frequently.
In the area of Customer
Service, we shall not:
Misrepresent
our abilities, education, success rates, certifications, performance
or affiliations.
Set
unreasonable expectations for success, including providing iron-clad
guarantees that cannot possibly be reached or maintained, timetables
that cannot be met, etc. As much as anyone would like to believe,
there is no one that can guarantee you number one results in a
search engine results pages. If they do, save your money, and then
run the other way really fast!
Make
promises that cannot be kept.
Encourage a
conflict of interest between two clients’ web sites which pertain to
the same keywords without notifying both parties of the conflict.
Treat one
client better than another based on payment, work involved, or any
other reason. All clients are regarded equally, without giving
preferential treatment to one over another.
Intentionally provide confidential client information to the public.
Fail to
protect sensitive client material that could have easily been kept
private with a Robots Exclusion Standard file.
Charge a
client for information that we cannot provide or do not know, such
as when Search Engine updates will occur. No SEO can tell you
exactly when an update will occur, or what will be covered in an
update.
Employ false
or misleading advertising regarding a client’s products or services
for the purpose of inflating search engine ranking or traffic.
Intentionally keep a client from understanding the risks
involved with SEO. SEO is not an exact science, and it is impossible
to guarantee number one rankings. There is always a risk that SEO
efforts will not be as effective as a client wishes, especially in a
saturated market or with very general keywords. We make clients
aware of all risks regarding SEO efforts.
Fail to
comply with a contract with a client, or be truthful about
methodology involved.
Place hidden
links within a client’s web site to send traffic to our own web
site.
In the area of Search Engine
Guidelines, we shall not:
SPAM THE
SEARCH ENGINES – in other words resubmit a site to thousands of
search engines repeatedly. Not only is this not necessary, it is
also considered spam. It also may delay natural search engine
crawling of a web site.
Attempt to
manipulate indexing or enhance domain saturation by employing
machine generated web pages from specialized "optimization" software
applications. Optimization software, while in and of itself is not
the issue, should not be used to manipulate the search engines. This
includes continually "pinging" the search engines to make them aware
of your site’s web presence.
Falsely
represent the contents of a client’s web site. This includes
presenting one set of information to a visitor, and another to a
search engine. This pertains to hidden text, CSS layers, cloaking,
IP delivery techniques, redirects, and hidden scripts or links.
Generate
doorway pages with the sole purpose of propagation or interlinking
content that is mirrored or duplicated from a separate domain. The
new term for doorway pages is "specialized landing pages". Beware
that if these pages are stand-alone, or on another server with the
intent of redirecting the visitor towards a different web site, then
these landing pages are nothing more than doorway pages, and this
practice is strictly prohibited by search engines.
Make
excessive use of search engine resources. This includes using remote
services to query the search engines. Overuse of search engine APIs
or queries not only overload the search engine servers and slow down
crawls, but search engines do attempt to locate the source of the
problem, and ban the IP. If this happens on an IP that your web site
is on, then you could be banned from the search engine index.
Use
non-compliant HTML in an effort to enhance relevancy for targeted
search phrases, including the use of multiple titles. This usually
refers to using titles or descriptions that contain highly popular
keywords or keyword phrases, but have nothing to do with the actual
context of the page.
Participate
in link farms or pages featuring user added link systems, deceitful
linking strategies, or other linking schemes, which include
interlinking differing client web sites. |
