Too bad I missed the ‘Black Hat/White Hat’ session at SES Chicago, held last week on December 8-12, 2008. I love a good debate! Especially when it comes to Internet marketing.

In the ‘Black search engine optimization (SEO)’ corner were Dave Naylor, director of search marketing at Bronco, and Todd Friesen, vice president of search at Position Technologies… and in the ‘White SEO’ corner were Eric Enge, president of Stone Temple Consulting and Doug Heil, owner of ihelpyou.

As reported by Kevin Newcomb in the Search Marketing News Blog, however, the session was actually quite tame. From what I can tell, there was probably more agreement than disagreement - with, in particular, agreement about Google’s current stance on paid links.

Both sides agreed that, in general, Google will not count link authority from paid links i.e. links on other sites that you pay for. They also agreed there are exceptions to this rule. For example, Google WILL tend to count links from trade organizations that typically charge a membership fee.

According to Eric Enge this is because there is a review process involved rather than being based purely on payment. Doug Heil, on the other hand, said it’s due to authority. Authoritative websites have effectively earned the right to pass on some of their authority via a link to other sites.

If that’s a correct summary of Heil’s viewpoint - and Google’s viewpoint - I don’t quite get it. If an authoritative website requires money for a link… then is that really the same thing as voluntarily linking to someone without payment?

To use a ‘real world’ analogy, a financial planner who recommends you buy a certain mutual fund without getting any kind of commission in return surely has more credibility than a financial planner who gets a commission.

Or do they?

What if the financial planner who gets paid a commission is much more skilful than the other financial planner? What if the financial planner who’s paid a commission is genuinely being objective? What if they get paid the same commission on hundreds of different mutual funds anyway and the only reason they recommend a given one to you is because they honestly consider it to be best for you?

What if the best way to judge the legitimacy of the financial planner’s referral is the experience of those referred? If tons of them are unhappy with such referrals, then presumably the financial planner wouldn’t be in business for too long.

And that, I think, lies at the heart of the argument FOR paid links.

As Dave Naylor and Todd Friesen argued at SES Chicago, paid links are still relevant, since they bring a user to the page they promise. Presumably if someone clicks on a paid link and lands on a webpage that doesn’t live up to the promise of the link (which is actually harder to imagine than in the case of clicking on a search result in Google itself) then they won’t stay on the page. If this happened a lot the webpage would experience a high bounce rate… which in turn should undermine its authority… and therefore its search engine ranking…

So what’s the problem with paid links again?

Because it favors companies with big budgets that can afford to buy lots of links? Hardly relevant since, if you have a big budget, you can spend it on all kinds of marketing advantages, not just paid links.

What’s more, by isolating paid links, Google has failed to account for all the kind of ‘payments’ that result in links to and from websites. Sure, Google is apparently cracking down on link swapping, but all kinds of ‘exchanges’ still occur and go unnoticed and unpenalized.

All of which amounts to an environment that can probably be gamed more than if paid links were allowed!

Ultimately, as I understand it, Google’s aim is to help search engine users find what is relevant to them as quickly as possible. To this end, Google has used links as indicators of relevance, which in turn contribute to a website’s search engine ranking.

But it’s not really the payment or lack thereof that indicates relevance. A much better indicator is what happens when someone arrives at a given website. So why not abandon the anti-paid link stance (especially given that many other forms of payment still occur) and focus more on the user’s experience at the website?

Google is, apparently, doing this already. It’s focusing more and more on factors such as website performance, bounce rate, RSS subscribers and content. See Google Shift Algorithm - How This Affects Internet Marketers.

I guess we can all agree on one thing though: if you want to play on Google’s turf, you play by their rules. For now, buy links at your own risk.

Source: Kevin Newcomb, “Paid Links: A Black Hat/White Hat Discussion,” Search Marketing News Blog, December 11, 2008

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but I got spammed by an SEO consulting company yesterday. I get hundreds of spam emails per day, but this particular email stood out because it was sent by an Australian company based in my own city. A company that should have known better. (I’m tempted to name and shame them, but I really don’t want to give them any link value!)

Since we offer Internet marketing services, seeing this email made me MAD. It’s actions like this that give our industry a bad name. But I’m even more stunned at how DUMB this company is to send out generic emails offering its SEO services. There are so many things wrong with this picture, I couldn’t possibly list them all in this email, but let’s discuss three aspects that should have been obvious:

1. Sending out spam is against the law. I believe sending unsolicited commercial email is illegal in the United States and other countries. It certainly is in Australia, and has been for many years now. As a prospective client: could I really trust a company that so blatantly breaks the law?

2. Sending out spam is wrong from an Internet marketing point of view. It shows disrespect to Internet users and also makes me wonder: what would this company do regarding SEO if I did engage them? What kind of black or grey hat tactics would they use that might jeopardize my business?

3. The email itself was not personally addressed to anyone at our firm, and was a generic offer to provide SEO services. Had the sender bothered to look at our website they would have noticed that we were a COMPETITOR. One operating in the same city and country at that!

Actually, there’s a fourth issue worth mentioning…

4. Out of curiosity I visited the company’s website. The headline read: “Guaranteed Lowest Prices for Web Marketing & SEO”. Now, maybe there is a market for “cheap” web marketing and search engine optimization services. But to me, that’s a bit like a law firm advertising itself with the same line: “Guaranteed Lowest Prices for Legal Advice.”

Um… do you want the cheapest legal advice around… or do you want the best, most cost-effective legal advice that delivers the results you want? The same principle applies to Internet marketing services – especially SEO. Do you want to pay the cheapest prices… or do you want to get the best results for your money?

Cost-effective… value for money… affordable. They’re all terms that may be appropriate. But “Guaranteed Lowest Prices” sounds like their running a discount store. Not the kind of company I would want as my trusted SEO advisor…