SEO and SEM Ethical and Legal Considerations

There are many companies on the planet. There are big and small business in each country and city. Every day, businesses in different industries are competing with each other to get as many customers as possible. The Internet has facilitated businesses to reach customers faster than traditional ways. With the creation of business websites, companies try to gain new customers quickly and keep the loyal customers that they already may have. But, while trying to gain visibility on the Internet, some companies may commit unethical or illegal practices to rank on the first pages of a search engine result. Big or well-known companies are not exempt from the problems of “black hat” or unethical practices. Marketers who are hired to work for a company need to have high moral and professional values to not fall into unethical practices and damage a business reputation. And, businesses should choose to verify their marketers’ certifications, and experience to avoid conflicts or even legal problems.

Ways Organizations Engage in Unethical SEO/SEM Practices

Some ways that organizations engage in unethical SEO/SEM practices are when they use Keyword Stuffing, which means placing keywords everywhere or listing the keywords without being surrounded by any contextually relevant text. Also, Cloaking is used to serve the search engine bots different information than what is being served to the user. Then, Mirror Websites, is used to host multiple websites that have the same content but with different URL’s. Link Farming is used to substantially and artificially increase link popularity, among other unethical SEO/SEM practices that some people practice (Kumar, 2010).

If a company uses unethical SEO/SEM practices it could be penalized by Google, meaning that its search results will be very low. Or it could even face legal suits if there is clear evidence of using these unethical practices.

That is what happened with Local Lighthouse Corp. Google filed suit in the Northern District of California against that company. It’s a SEO marketing firm that was using robocalls claiming to be Google to get leads. It’s normally difficult for a company to take action against robocallers because they often use untraceable phone numbers, fake company names, and massive global networks of intermediaries. The law suit against Local Lighthouse Corp indicates that more legal action will be taken against robocallers that are impersonating other companies (Roesler, 2018). It is not correct to use someone else’s name to make calls neither or send sales messages without permission. So, this company may face problems with the Federal Trade Commission and the Consumer Complaint Center.

Distinction between Ethical and Unethical Practices

Ethical practices are commonly called “white hat.” It means accepted search engine optimization techniques or code of conduct (“Ethical SEO vs. Unethical SEO,” 2013). When using ethical SEO techniques, they are clear and obvious. They show who visits the website and there are no hidden tricks (“Ethical SEO vs. Unethical SEO,” 2013). In contrast, unethical SEO practices are called “black hat.” These techniques are not always illegal, but they are seen negatively by the SEO community. They are disliked by those who work as honestly as possible in the marketing field. Also, customers may question the integrity and quality products or services of a business that uses them. Unethical practices are manipulative and sneaky (“Ethical SEO vs. Unethical SEO,” 2013). For example, if a website tries to rank high quickly, an unethical SEO practice may be to have a high numbers of links, plus they are not good quality (“Ethical SEO vs. Unethical SEO,” 2013).

Benefits of Being Ethical

There are many benefits when being ethical in SEO/SEM practices. First, as a professional in marketing, you have the satisfaction of working as transparently as possible for giving the best results to your client or the company you work for. Then, the business credibility is not in doubt. It is not professional for a company website to rank first when it doesn’t deserve to. Sometime people search on the Internet for a specific service or product, and what they get back as a result is a website that has nothing to do with what was searched. Neither is it professional for example, to be on a page that has many “link farms.” Google can penalize those websites who are caught in unethical actions, they can be reported as spam, they can be ranked very low or they can be removed. It is important to follow the American Marketing Association code of professional ethical norms and values and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regulations. Additionally, businesses need to follow the rules of the search engines such as Google Webmaster Guidelines, Bing Webmaster Guideline, or Yahoo Content Quality Guidelines (Schmitz, 2014). Ethical SEO must be practiced as a normal habit in any marketer and company who want to provide their services to others.

References

Ethical SEO vs. Unethical SEO (2013). Optimus Online Thinking. Retrieved from: