As the nature of online promotion alters, to the point where some search marketing experts are suggesting that search engine optimisation itself may have a limited future, it could be the time for some unethical search optimization experts to have one final flourish using bad methods to influence the organic search engine positioning of the pages of the websites that they are promoting. With many search marketing experts forecasting the dominance of social media in future online marketing then it could spell the end of unethical habits – but then again, even as online publicity methods change, newer unethical methods will inevitably deveop.

There are so many prospective consumers who rely on conventional search platforms used directly or from an affiliation with a website such as a newspaper that the relevance of a good organic search engine positioning still matters, and while it does then using ethical search engine optimisation techniques still has its place. Many websites have used unethical methods and may still rank highly but this is more through age and longevity having a greater effect on the positioning especially when the website itself has little competition. Enterprises with newer websites and fresher content will succeed in achieving higher rankings by using ethical search optimization, as the standing of the organisation develops with the search engines.

Even if search engine algorithms do start taking greater notice of the influence of social networks, the basic website will still exist and the pages should still be built to best practices. There are still websites that locate keywords on a page in such a way that overstates the relevance of those keywords by overloading the page, or including completely irrelevant keywords, often buried in the area referred to as “below the fold” where many visitors will not notice them, as a way of attracting visitors from a search results page. Even if the selected keywords are relevant to the given page, this sort of keyword loading can appear messy and dissuade potential consumers.

Backlink accumulation still plays an important part in search engine rankings. Some search marketing experts question the usefulness of articles designed for distribution to article banks and blogs as a way of building backlinks, or even how ethical a method it is, but it still remains an accepted way of developing backlinks. The accumulation of backlinks through exchanges is equally hard and more prone to bad habits. Some optimization specialists can be very aggressive in their attempts to acquire backlink exchanges, and this is bad for the reputation of the relevant organisation. Some backlinks gathered through exchanges may prove expensive in pure financial terms as well as reputational. Search platforms consider the quality of a backlink from both sides of the connection.

Older optimization methods still have their place. Many methods that most search engine optimisation experts would regard as unethical are still being tried even though the search engine algorithms try to downgrade the effect of such old habits. It is still better to stay ethical in your own search optimization and reduce the chances of being punished by the search platforms leading to a lower search engine positioning.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, July 25th, 2010 at 2:27 am and is filed under Business and Management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.