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Every website owner has different goals for the site and for its future. Some webmasters are in the business for the long term, with the intention of building search engine rankings that will have staying power. The desire to build a reputable site, using only best practices optimization techniques is one such long term plan.
Other webmasters want to remain the search placements for the longer term, but are far less concerned about the techniques used to achieve those rankings. Thinking that most sites slide through the various spam filters anyway, there is little concern about penalties or outright bans from the search engines. In fact, many webmasters are blissfully unaware that some optimization techniques are not acceptable to the search engine guidelines.
Still other website owners have no concern at all about the long term implications of their website. To those webmasters, any technique that raises their rankings is fine with them. If the black hat methods get the site penalized or banned, then a new domain name is acquired and the process started all over again. In many cases, the abandonment of the banned site is even part of the planning involved.
Many SEOs believe their first responsibility is to their webmaster client. What the client wants is what gets done, in the way of optimization techniques. This theory is based on what the customer wants, the customer gets. In such cases, however, it's also important for the SEO to provide complete information, as to the potential consequences, of using methods counter the published search engine guidelines.
Failure to inform the client, of the potential negatives of a grey or black hat practice, is not acting in anyone's best interests. In fact, a lack of full disclosure of possible filters, penalties, and outright banning as a result of proscribed actions, is not acting in the interest of the client. Many website owners are completely new to optimization, and some are entirely unaware that SEO even exists as a profession. To not fully inform newcomers to SEO of every side of the issue, is not giving the client complete information, on which to base a reasoned decision as to the potential risks involved.
Considering the search engine factor
How the search engines are viewed by the SEO is another important factor. Some SEOs consider the search engines to be their friends, while others view them as the mortal enemy. Still other optimization specialists consider the search engines to be either a necessary evil, or simply just another tool in an overall internet marketing program. It's fairly easy to understand the reasons for each of these points of view.
Search Engines Friends/Enemy
For those people who see the search engines as friends, the SERPs are usually thought of as delivering what amounts to free customers. For minimal financial outlay, compared to most other internet marketing efforts, a white hat optimized site can send paying customers directly from the free organic search results. These SEOs believe the search engines are, in fact, providing a largely free to the public service. For that reason, search engines are considered friends to be helped, by providing them with the best possible sites, optimized within the search engine terms of service.
Other SEOs take a harder line on the search engines, who instead of thinking of them as good guys, consider them as almost an enemy. Instead of providing what are thought to be relevant search results, heavily spam and black hat sites are rewarded with high rankings. Highly relevant sites, in direct terms of the search phrase, are pushed deep into the organic results. These SEOs argue that the search engine terms of service are merely a guideline that is not uniformly or fairly applied.
As a result of inadequate and spam filled SERPs, these SEOs believe the search engines are not fulfilling their stated goals and terms of service. Because of that failure on the part of the search algorithms, to provide relevant spam free results, there is no legal or moral obligation on the part of the SEO or the website owner to follow them either. In their opinion, if the search results reward bad sites, and by extension punish sites that follow the terms of service, the webmaster guidelines can be safely and honestly ignored.
Finally, in a third SEO practitioner opinion, the search engines are businesses like any other, and as such shouldn't be thought of as entirely benevolent. The search algorithm is neither good nor bad, but is merely a computer program. The algorithm owes the website nothing, except to attempt to place the pages correctly in terms of search relevance.
Like any other business, these SEOs argue, use of their business and products requires the user to follow the business's rules. In this case, the webmaster guidelines and terms of service are the business rules. In the same way that a restaurant can refuse service to patrons’ not wearing shirts or shoes, the search engines can deny listing at any time, for violation of their rules of use.
Because of the wide range of opinions on the ethical aspects of search engines and their algorithms, the best policy is to consider the search engines as a business, with their terms of use, like any other business. They set out their webmaster guidelines, as well as their rules for use in their published terms of service. Violation of those business rules entitles the search engine to legally and morally remove an offending site. A search engine is under no legal or ethical obligation to index every web page or even site on the internet. Failure to comply with their rules gives them every right to penalize or remove an offending site.
In the same way that an unruly customer or shoplifter can be removed from the premises or even charged with a crime, the search engines can do the same thing. As such, it is important for the website owner to follow the rules as prescribed by the search engine as a business. If for no other reason than as insurance against penalties or banning, following the webmaster guidelines will keep a site from any problems with the search engine.
While it can be argued that the search engines don't always police their search results very well, they do provide for a feedback option from webmasters. Reporting a spam laden site will often result in its removal. Unfortunately, those removals are often slow, and occasionally don't happen, leaving the spam site high in the SERPs for weeks, or even months.
There is little doubt that all of the major search engines have room for improvement in the area of spam site detection, penalties, and removal from the SERPs. That problem on their part doesn't automatically translate to meaning a webmaster or SEO can violate the stated terms of service with impunity, however. Noticing an unpunished spam site doesn't mean it can be duplicated freely, but simply that the search engine has not found and penalized it yet.
Conclusion
Search engine ethical practice is a complicated, and difficult to resolve issue.
Along with concerns for the desires of the customer to achieve high search engine rankings, and search engine optimization professionals to provide them, are issues of ethics in relation to the search engine themselves. It's not as simple as saying the website owner is the only concern. Other legitimate websites are part of the equation as well.
The search engine terms of service state that the SERPs don't have to include any or all web pages or sites. The search engines are entitled to remove any sites that violate those terms of use. On the other hand, the search engines are slow, and often highly erratic in their levying of penalties and bans. Because of that weakness, many SEOs believe the guidelines aren't even followed by the search engines themselves.
My opinion is the search engine is a business, like any other. As such, it has its terms of service, and also has the right to refuse service, if violations occur. Because of that right on the part of the search engines, it's important for website owners and search engine optimization professionals to follow those guidelines.
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