SEO – Ethics and Game Theory

Most Internet users will agree that SEO has become a concern. Virtually any search returns half a dozen sites trying to sell you something. If you are looking to buy, that is fine. But searching for information is getting difficult.

The process of SEO, or search engine optimization, involves tweaking your website into roughly 30 different categories to make it more “search engine friendly.” The most commonly targeted search engine is Google, but Yahoo and MSN are close in second and third place. This makes perfect sense. If you want more sales, get more traffic. If you want more traffic, rank higher on Google. The marketing advantage of “Google’s top ranking” can turn nerds into your basement millionaires overnight. So what’s wrong with getting a marketing edge?

Let me sketch an example from my senior philosophy class, loosely based on John Nash’s ‘Game Theory’:

“Consider the oceans and the fish in them. Imagine that we (or in this case, the website owners) are fishermen. If we all agree to take our share through legitimate means and rely only on our own fishing skills, then we can all feed our families and maybe sell a little more for a profit. However, if we use some kind of illegitimate means to catch more fish, we will gain an unfair advantage. If there is no threat of punishment, there is only the threat of extinction of the fish. But as long as only one or two cheat, they get a higher proportion of fish and get fatter than everyone else.“

Now everyone will start to notice. If there is no law enforcement agency in our small town (and there are hardly any on the internet), nothing is stopping the unscrupulous from doing whatever it takes to attract all the fish. So everyone starts doing it, using the argument: “If I don’t, my family will starve.” This is, as far as game theory goes, perfectly legitimate. To sum up:

If everyone is cheating to give yourself an unfair advantage, then you are creating an unfair disadvantage by not cheating.

I would like to draw your attention to Google information for webmasters The article is about what is accepted and what is not accepted regarding SEO. The guys at Google end the article by saying:

“It is not safe to assume that just because a specific deceptive technique is not included on this page, Google approves of it. Webmasters who expend their energies upholding the spirit of the core principles listed above will provide a much better user experience and subsequently they will enjoy a better ranking than those who spend their time looking for loopholes that they can exploit. ”

Google’s corporate motto is “Don’t be evil.” They continually update their search bot algorithms, just like the other search engines, to filter out certain behaviors. Keyword META tags (the string of keywords that are sometimes seen below a search result) are not even considered by Google, as they are common sources of keyword spam.

If you run a website that isn’t trying to sell something, you still want a lot of traffic. Non-commercial websites without big SEO budgets may be the sites you want to find, but your chances of doing so are slim to none. I live in South Africa and the most widely read blog around here is one called 2OceansVibe. I don’t think they were even submitted to a single search engine or created an organic link. This blog receives thousands of visits per day purely by word of mouth. They have great content and are updated with an original post every day. Isn’t this the type of traffic you would rather have on your website?

Unfortunately, the good guys don’t finish last in the SEO arena, but that’s what the good guys at Google are working on while their plan to dominate the planet is still being worked out. After reading your page, I started the process of removing excessive keywords and tags from my blog, WriteNonsense. I am removing everything that is not 100% relevant in my list of tags and links, and I am increasing the frequency and quality of my posts.

The ethics of SEO poses a major dilemma for me, because I make a living writing SEO articles and helping websites get more traffic. I don’t do SEO work myself, I’m a freelancer, and I don’t have much control over my projects. Unfortunately, it has gotten to the point that if we don’t cheat, we will be left out. I optimized the title of this article with keywords; after all, I want it to be read. However, because the accepted criteria for SEO practices are constantly being lowered, I believe (and so does Google) that in the long run your website will be much more successful if:

• Your content is king – Have good quality content that is relevant to what it says your site is about.
• It links you organically and reciprocally – Paid linkers always get caught. Spend some time every day telling people with related sites about your site, how you can help your visitors, and how they can help each other. Offer to put a link on your site if they put one on theirs.
• You design your site for visitors, not for search engines. – It may sound strange, but any sneaky SEO technique will eventually remove it. If you use sneaky SEO tactics, you will have to constantly build or pay for links, but if you create a good quality website, the links will start to appear on their own, without you having to reciprocate.

At the end of the day, having goodwill and a respected presence on the internet is something that cannot be bought or stolen, and the
onlyThe type of visitor you want is the visitor you want to be on your site. Remember that a college student telling friends about your website is worth far more than hundreds of paid links or thousands of keyword-rich, content-poor article pages. Of course, make your website more visible, but don’t make the internet more frustrating and expensive for the rest of us.