I’m teasing my list about a ‘Google Domination’ program that’s due out on Saturday Friday called the “Authority Site Process“.
One of my readers wrote to say this:
“I am more inclined to believe that if Google wants you there it should be their decision to place you where they select rather than beating the odds to out do them. It may be Old fashioned but to me, honesty is still the best practice.”
The implication, clearly, is that trying to get to the top of Google (or any other search engine) is DISHONEST.
In other words, search engine optimization (SEO) is dishonest.
I don’t think so.
But more compelling is the argument often made that SEO is UNETHICAL.
That’s a more intricately delicate accusation, one not so easily brushed off.
And I enjoy ethical conundrums, especially because of my medical background. Medical ethics is very dogmatic and needs to be due to the nature of issues that require handling. Business ethics, I’ve found, tend to be a lot more loose, individually interpreted, and fuzzy in many instances.
Like the issue of SEO being ethical.
Driven by a profit motive, businesses that practice SEO almost always tend towards the view that any kind of SEO is just a business tool that gives them an advantage, and therefore ethical.
I have thought about it long and hard in the past, and have a viewpoint. See if you agree - or tell me why you don’t.
Ethical Theory - a primer
As far as ethics governs the ‘rightness’ or ‘wrongness’ of an action, there are two schools of thought:
Deontologic Ethics can be distilled down to ‘doing your duty’ or ‘following the rules’ - and that alone determines if an action is right or wrong, NOT the consequences of the action.
Teleological Ethics can be described simply as ‘the ends justify the means’. In other words, whether an action is right or wrong is defined by the good or evil generated by it.
Every Day Examples - case studies
This theory is abstract enough that some readers may miss the point I’m about to make. So I’ll use some daily life examples to make it come alive more graphically and in easy to understand terms.
A soldier on military duty attacks a village. He is acting on the command of his officer. Unfortunately, many innocent civilians in the village are killed in the attack.
The soldier’s action is still ethical. He is obeying a command. Following rules. The consequences of his action do NOT determine the ethicality of it.
It makes sense for deontological ethics to apply in some circumstances such as soldiers on the battlefield. It would be inappropriate for someone under those circumstances to be permitted individual choice as to whether or not to follow orders.
Now take the other example of a man pointing a gun at another one - who is attacking him with a knife!
If the man shoots and kills his attacker, he would not be charged with murder, but only justifiable homicide - because he was saving his own life. The consequences of his action make them ethical.
The same ethical theory would apply to a law officer who shoots down a terrorist about to detonate a bomb in a crowded public place. Taking a life, one of the most serious ‘crimes’, in such circumstances becomes an ethical act.
One of the phrases I coined - and love to use when I get a chance - is this:
“The difference between a surgeon’s scalpel and a murderer’s knife is one of INTENTION.”
A surgeon can ethically perform actions which would put anyone else in jail - because the ‘greater good’ of his patient makes the action ethical.
The Ethics of SEO
But what has this got to do with search engine optimization?
Google (and other search engines) lay down rules.
Playing within these rules, a webmaster can ‘optimize’ a site to rank high on the directory or search engine results pages (SERPs).
This approach is called ‘White Hat SEO’.
It is manipulative. It tries to give a webmaster an advantage over competitors. It does this within the rules.
By deontological theory, white hat SEO is ethical.
Most people accept this and agree with it. But there’s another brand of SEO called ‘grey’ or ‘black’ hat SEO - and that raises furious debate whenever the question of ethics is introduced into a discussion.
Can Black Hat Be Ethical?
Every black hat is not the same!
My good friend, philosopher and guide, Paul Myers, wears a black hat. It is pointy, too. He is among the most honest, straightforward and ethical people I know from my decade of working on Internet marketing. (You can sign up to his newsletter, Talkbiz News - click here)
No, Paul Myers is NOT a black hat SEO guy. He only wears a black hat.
But there are folks who use blackhat SEO to gain an advantage in terms of high ranking on search engines, by violating the norms and breaking rules these engines have laid down for fair play.
By deontological ethics, that is unethical.
But what if… let’s take a hypothetical case study.
This guy has discovered a way to prevent cancer. It works. Many thousand people can benefit from the information. He puts it up on a website - and then runs into a problem.
The top 10 (or more) spots on search engines are occupied by websites that employ blackhat SEO to protect their rankings. There is absolutely no way to beat them out - without using blackhat SEO techniques, fighting fire with fire.
What should this webmaster do?
Using blackhat SEO is unethical, by deontology. But by failing to get the life-saving information out to thousands of people who are looking for it, the refusal to use blackhat SEO techniques is ITSELF unethical by teleology - because the consequences of such a choice lead to the death of those people!
What a dilemma to face.
It certainly is possible to make a strong argument for blackhat SEO being ethical in this situation. In fact, if I was feeling particularly argumentative, I might even go so far as to say REFUSING to use blackhat SEO in such a situation is UNETHICAL!
But…
What do YOU think?
I leave that for you to debate with me. Let’s have a spirited discussion about the Ethics of Search Engine Optimization.
And in case you were wondering, there is absolutely NOTHING close to blackhat SEO in my new “Authority Site Process“ program that launches on Saturday. Friday.
I’ve had many beta-testers put the program through the paces, and it has been possible to uniformly replicate and duplicate the results I myself experience at will from following the process.
If you’re interested in hearing about it when I launch, you can either keep up with this blog - or opt-in to my mailing list - click here
But in any case, do chime in on the debate about whether search engine optimization is ethical - or not. Leave a comment and let the sparks fly!
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12 Comments Received
April 3rd, 2008 @1:48 pm
Hi Dr.Mani,
I believe you are on the right track with the word “intention” if it is applied differently. In your cancer example, I don’t believe it would be ethical to use techniques that would raise it to s top position for unrelated terms. You should consider the intent of the Search Engine company and the intent of the individual user. The company is attempting to provide useful content that will meet the user’s desires. If I am searching for car information, being provided with a long list of sites describing how to beat cancer will have me running to a different search engine. Keep the intent of the search engine company and the user in mind when considering the SEO methods to implement.
April 3rd, 2008 @5:03 pm
Knowing your product from being a beta tester I can strongly recommend it to those that are willing to put in effort.
Now as to ethics this can be argued in your example both ways. Personally, I recommend staying away from the dark side not because it doesn’t work but because the search engines change their rules to improve their customers experience.
Even in your example I can make the argument that doing it white hat will be more beneficial in the long run and when (not if) the search engines change the rules you will be there for the long term.
You may be able to reach people quickly but it won’t sustain itself so in the long run less people will find the cure and that in my opinion would be unethical.
Just a different view point on whether the instant gratification or the long term are what truly matter.
April 3rd, 2008 @8:22 pm
Dear Dr. Mani,
How ethical is the culture of web-marketing? Spam, $million in minutes in your pajamas, etc. And is that any different from the culture outside the web?
As to SEO within TOS, is it any different from a female putting on some make-up and flattering clothes? If you’re in business, you try to present your product in its most attractive light. High SERP rank obviously puts your product in a more advantageous position.
If you truly believe that your product will benefit your customer (doesn’t have to be life or death), aren’t you obliged to get it in front of as many prospects as possible?
Love to all.
April 4th, 2008 @5:34 am
Hello Dr. Mani,
I agree with you that not every ethical or unethical decision is black or white. When I was younger, everything decision was so easy. Or so I thought.
My view was that this wasn’t rocket science. You were either right or wrong anytime you said or did anything.
As I got older and more mature, I realized that not everything was clearly black or white. That there is a lot of grey in this thing we call life.
As far as black hat seo, I am not convinced that it is unethical, and this is comming from someone who is far less willing to accept unethical choices than most other people.
For instance, in internet marketing, dishonest and deceptive ad copy seems to be viewd as no big deal and perfectly accptable by a lot of people in this field. It is also mostly a belief that is filled with hypocracy.
You go ask any internet marketer if it is dishonest for a used car salesman to lie about the condition of a vehicle, and like most everyone else, they will say yes.
If you ask them if it is dishonest for a person to lie about their financial status in order to receive welfare, there again, they will say yes.
If you ask them if it is dishonest for an eye witness in a crime to commit purgory in a court hearing, once again, almost all of them would say yes.
However… if you ask an internet marketer if it is dishonest to lie about a product in their ad copy and promotional material, they will tell you that it is not dishonest. It is just marketing. To which I can only think to myself, “Yeah, right! Where in the heck did you learn this load of garbage”?
While I am on this subject, I would also like to point out that I have seen Google itself carry out their own unethical actions also. It’s not just the people who try to get a good ranking in Google.
Case in point: The infamous Google slap that almost every internet marketer has heard about. People that were advertising using adwords that were paying for 50 cent keywords who then found themselves pay $5.oo for the same keywords a week later.
Biting the hand that feeds you is not ethical. Not by a long shot, and that is basically what Google did with their Google slap.
Well, that’s my 2 cents worth on this topic. It is a very internesting question that you have raised here Dr. Mani.
Misato
April 4th, 2008 @8:04 am
We’re in culturally turbulent times, a period of unfathomable sand shiftings, and ethics as we would like it to be, is right smack in the middle of uncertainty.
Even the teleological and deontological branches can be of little help, sometimes and even most times. Until a wider picture is obtained which can explain everything, we can only judge case by case, calling upon a complex multifaceted matrix of ethical considerations, in order to do justice.
As Dr.Mani would say it, we humans are in a conundrum, very funny. When do rules become clearly immutable and universal, and when do such rules become clearly dogmatic? Do we know exactly when we have crossed over to the other side?
Apart from black vs. white -hat SEO, there are a plethora of other online activities that bear ethical accountabilities. So who’s gonna solve them? Marketers or lawyers? CEO’s or lawmakers? Or individual decisions? Maybe a think-tank NGO for online ethics will become necessary? We’ll see…
April 4th, 2008 @8:21 am
These are all valid points…but Google seem to be doing quite well at improving their algorithms to combat blatant Black Hat techniques. I wonder how long Black Hat will continue to impact on the User Experience…I don’t get the feeling that that there are as many Black Hat exponents as ther used to be…I may be a bit naive.
Digby
April 4th, 2008 @11:35 pm
I agree with Digby. Google seems to have no trouble in spotting and punishing those who engage in black hat techniques.
More importantly though, not all black hat is unjustified and how do we determine what black hat is just and in what situation is it just?
Some black hat is just plain unethical.
Some black hat is just a way of overcoming an unfair situation caused by other black hatters.
Still other black hat is punishment to others who commit black hat actions.
So the big question is, how are we to decide what black hat is eithical and what black hat is unethical if we can’t even determine the purpose, intent or agenda of any given black hat technique?
Misato
April 6th, 2008 @1:52 am
Hi Dr.Mani,
Funny that I’m now taking a module that deals with engineering ethical issues.
Just that we call the two utilitarian and deontological instead.
Being overly-cautious about ambiguous issues like this is dangerous and unwise, in my honest opinion.
With everybody else doing it, it’s simply necessary.
It’s like refusing to put up advertisements because it’s an “intrusion” to precious mental real estate.
Might as well fold up our businesses then.
April 9th, 2008 @6:00 pm
Good, thought provoking post. I especially liked your phrase:
“The difference between a surgeon’s scalpel and a murderer’s knife is one of INTENTION.”
I would also like to suggest that the topic of ethics is swayed by the interpretation of the individual.
For example, if you had a network of sites catering to different individuals and you were marketing a product on each of the sites, some people would “interpret” that as black hat - because you are using your sites to advantageously increase your search engine rankings by having more backlinks. But, from the marketer’s perspective, you could argue that their “intention” was to recommend a good product to their existing customer base.
Sadly, it seems that people scream their interpretation out before checking the intention of the marketer. If they checked the facts first, I think that there would be less finger pointing and more understanding.
April 14th, 2008 @8:15 am
I hadn’t really heard that anywhere before, that SEO could be considered unethical. To me, that just makes no sense.
Search engines supply webmasters with guidelines that they can implement in order to rank better. Does that make the search engine itself unethical? No - they provide everyone with the same information, it’s whether you choose to implement it or not.
Now if someone implements strategies in order to “trick” or “game” the system, then yes - that is unethical in my opinion.
I tend to be pretty black and white on the subject and steer clear of anything that could even remotely be looked at as “shady”.
April 15th, 2008 @7:34 pm
I agree with Mike’s emphasis on sustainability and the need to look at the longer term. “Does the end justify the means?” I bought a traffic generation program recently that was marketed as white hat but was in fact full of extremely powerful black hat techniques - it was truly ingenious. I didn’t use it but asked for a refund instead. I think these methods pollute the information highway with meaningless comments and will eventually destroy the value of the information highway if too many people (including people of renowned integrity) adopt these methods. There are many other ways to gain attention and social marketing is one of them. The search engines will eventually weed out the computer generated comments just as they have done with duplicate content - then what happens to the life-saving message?
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