SEO and SEM Ethical and Legal Considerations

Modern businesses today rely on SEO/SEM  to attract visibility and traffic for new customers therefore a great SEM/SEM strategy would definitely land the business a good spot in the marketing world however sometimes people or organization can engage in unethical tactics to get faster results, some of these are  fabricated or fake reviews to mislead people, negative keyword stuffing which overuse keywords to manipulate rankings not only detracts but can lead to search engine penalties,  some people spread false or unverified information to help improve their rankings. There are some deceptive paid advertisings or stealing of competitor’s data which is also is unethical.
In 2013 A law firm in Michigan, Seikaly & Stewart, was suing its former SEO provider but not for a lack of ranking success. Rather, the firm was getting sued for allegedly using “spammy” techniques violating Google’s guidelines. That comes via Eric Goldman. The defendant Rainmaker Institute, which specializes in online marketing services for the legal profession, is accused. (Sterling, 2014). The SEO provider built a “link farm” to artificially manipulate search engine ranking. For the plaintiff however it violates googles rules because most of these sites in the link farm usually lack valuable information or filled with copied article or spun.
There are clear distinctions between ethical and unethical practices of the SEO/SEM, it is best to follow search engines polices and rules and continue focusing on getting value to users in generating organic search traffic to help increase traffic, staying patient for the long-term benefits of SEO, Truth Adverting and fair competition, these are the ethical and proper way also the “white hat” on the other hand there are other unethical ways which focuses on exploiting the systems search engines algorithms, using deceptive practices like link farms or keyword stuffing and so on just to manipulate the search engines, cloaking and hidden text. Ethical practices simplify compliance and regulation in short whereas unethical tactics is designed to manipulate rankings within a short time.
Both SEO and SEM both have benefits when utilized ethically, since SEM is paid for it usually works faster whereas SEO is free but needs time to rank in the search engines. One of the most important benefits of combining your SEO and PPC efforts is your search rankings. Most marketers know that coming in at the top of the search engine results page (SERP) is incredibly important for keeping brands top-of-mind in consumer searches. (Dreller, 2019). Business credibility is not in doubt if ethics are considered, there is no room for fear of being penalized or being sued because the whole process would build trust and guarantee safety from search engines and providing long term business growth, when SEM is used accurately, ad targeting and honest landing pages would improve Google’s rating of ad quality which would lower cost-per click
 
Dreller, J. (2019, October 15). The Skai 5: Five benefits of using SEM and SEO together. Skai. https://skai.io/blog/sem-and-seo/
Sterling, G. (2014, May 26). Lawyers sue SEO firm for violating google Guidelines. Search Engine Land. https://searchengineland.com/lawyers-sue-seo-firm-violating-google-guidelines-192492

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