Client Website Footers - Including Your Link (bad SEO?)

[kathiemt]

I only bought into the discussion because I didn't really know what was meant by 'black hat' and thought I should look it up. Now I know, so it's been educational for me, and possibly others too.

[NickMorris]

Originally Posted by Cesar

Nick buddy, the conflicting issue you have here, is that you are offering a "Black Hat" service that has credible risks and you specify you don't recommend, but at the same time you are prepared to charge a fee for it. From a customers point of view it does not sound credible and would tend to make them a bit sceptical about your other services.

In saying that Nick, I know you have your customers best interest at heart.

Its often hard to get into the mind of the customer so this is all very interesting - I will definitely have another look at the wording on my website. I believe I expand on the 'not recommended' by saying its not recommended for building a long term website, meaning that it still has value for say a lead generation website.

However, just because there are "credible risks" I still don't think its unethical to offer it given that the client understands those risks. All marketing techniques have some degree of risk, not to mention all activities in every day life. Its not up to me to decide what people can and can't do.

Drinking is certainly an activity with known "credible risks" but most people wouldn't consider hotel owners to be unethical because of that.

[lnsy]

Originally Posted by Aidan

Guys before making a judgement on your own hat colour you should know that just about all link building is done with the aim of improving a page's SERPs position and pagerank and it is therefore against Google's guidelines.

True 'Black Hats' would dismiss the stuff Nick talks about as normal practice, not black hat at all, just another form of link building to help improve rankings (though all link building done to improve rankings appears to be outside the guidelines).

The true Black Hats are actually into much scarier stuff: cloaking, header response manipulation, IP hijacking, link bombing, botnets, identity swapping and more...

If you want to go completely white hat then you'll need to stop thinking about SEO in the first place and remove your signature links from your profiles here at Flying Solo.

You can sit there and keep replying in Nick's defence, but you're missing the point entirely. It's great that you're educating the people on this forum, but your average business owner doesn't know the first thing about true "Black hat". And just for the record, neither myself, or anyone else, is labelling Nick himself as unethical. And I'm sorry if you took offence Nick.

In fact I think it's great that he's taken action and set up a business offering his services.

And yes, I understand SEO, and I understand that even "link building" could be perceived as non "white hat" by search engine standards.

The only reason I brought the whole issue up, is to give some feedback Re: "growing a successful and reputable business". You have to remember that the average internet user/business owner doesn't understand SEO, and have most likely browsed upon websites while looking for SEO, that clearly state to watch out for "Black hat" methods and services.

Furthermore, remember that you are dealing with people's businesses here. You might get one person out of 20, who decides he wants your "Black hat" services because they're cheaper, and then a couple months down the track his site plummets in rankings, or even gets de-indexed. You don't want to take the chance in losing your reputation.

I really don't like the idea of having such strong negative feelings about certain services, yet still offering them to potential clients. It isn't good practice.

Anyway, each to their own. I'm all for educating potential clients about about the dangers of "Black hat" SEO, although I don't think you should then be offering those "dangerous" methods.

[Aidan]

"How ironic... I find it funny that you are talking about what is ethical and unethical, while at the same time offering legit business owners "black-hat" SEO services."

I don't believe I missed the point at all Insy, just reacted to what looks to me to be a very clear suggestion that Nick is acting unethically. That was why I chimed in with a little education on what the difference is (between ethics and hat colour) and also on the degrees of black.

I'm glad that you have now clarified that you didn't really mean it.

[lnsy]

Originally Posted by Aidan

"How ironic... I find it funny that you are talking about what is ethical and unethical, while at the same time offering legit business owners "black-hat" SEO services."

I don't believe I missed the point at all Insy, just reacted to what looks to me to be a very clear suggestion that Nick is acting unethically. That was why I chimed in with a little education on what the difference is (between ethics and hat colour) and also on the degrees of black.

I'm glad that you have now clarified that you didn't really mean it.

Well that's one way of interpreting it. I was actually referring to the fact that Nick is offering services which are (in nearly all cases), unethical techniques to influence your rankings in the SE's. Regardless of whether he is using "true blackhat" methods or blasting links, or even just automating his standard SEO method, I still don't believe it looks good to a potential client.

Anyway, I'm done here and good luck with your business Nick.

[NickMorris]

Originally Posted by lnsy

I was actually referring to the fact that Nick is offering services which are (in nearly all cases), unethical techniques to influence your rankings in the SE's.

Just to clarify, I don't offer or use any techniques that I think are unethical. If your definition of 'unethical' includes 'any technique that violates Google's webmaster guidelines' then I think we're operating on different ethical systems. Google is a company, not a source of moral or ethical guidelines.

Under my ethical system I have an obligation to my clients to make them aware of all the techniques that I can use to improve their website's SEO and explain any risks associated with each of them so they can make an informed decision about which strategy to pursue.

It seems I have been using terminology which some people find confusing or misleading and this is something I'm looking at improving.

[Cesar]

Originally Posted by NickMorris

It seems I have been using terminology which some people find confusing or misleading and this is something I'm looking at improving.

Nick buddy, nothing confusing, just don't offer services you don't recommend. I never offer products to my customers that I wouldn't recommend myself, or that I know won't have long term benefits for them.

Also, try avoiding using the following terms:

High Risk
Low Quality
Short Term Benefits
Not Recommended

[Cesar]

Originally Posted by JohnW

Hi David,
Forget SEO.

Perfectly said John: 10/10

Originally Posted by JohnW

There is more to online promotion than SEO.

Another Perfectly said John: 10/10

[Divert To Mobile]

Aidan is spot on with the money with the definition of true black hat.

Nick, we all talk about business needing a point of difference. I believe your point of difference is that you are willing to perform risky "techniques" to improve a sites google rankings. It would be unethical to do this without the concent of your client but since you explain it to them beforehand your business practices are in fact ethical.
Your duty is to your client and if theyre willing to risk rank by not playing by googles 'rules' then so be it. Googles 'rules' are not in any way a definition of ethical conduct.
Im sure you would have attracted at least some interest to your business based on that point alone.

Steve

[Cesar]

Originally Posted by Divert To Mobile

Your duty is to your client and if theyre willing to risk rank by not playing by googles 'rules' then so be it. Googles 'rules' are not in any way a definition of ethical conduct.
Im sure you would have attracted at least some interest to your business based on that point alone.

Steve

In the current status of the Internet, that is a recipe for disaster. Successfully minded business people are in for the long-haul, not the short-haul.