Comments on: The Ethics of Sectoral-Based SEO Services

By: Dareen

Dareen — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 12:48:54 +0000

Some good points. The big difference I would point out is that with general marketing it is possible to have equal success for multiple clients in the same niche.

By: YellowSEO

YellowSEO — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 19:11:58 +0000

Ken, Interesting food for thought… I thinks its best practice to only take one customer per local niche example pizza city, Chinese city, the problem comes in now with food delivery city. When doing local base SEO there is going to be keyword overlap the the difference being ethically it seems OK for the example of food delivery city compared to having two clients for pizza city.

By: Gavin

Gavin — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 17:48:56 +0000

I’m not surprised the more established players are doing it, they can get away with things like this as the client is non the wiser.

To be honest I think the specialist(s) are only sitting around the corner. I wouldn’t be surprised if they bring a lot of these consultant houses to shame which is what is needed in this industry.

By: Richard Hearne

Richard Hearne — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 04:41:48 +0000

Gavin

Unfortunately many of the better established players in Ireland are doing just this. Albeit concentrated into a few of the more refined online niches such as travel and leisure.

Begs the question what would happen if some of these properties actually found a specialist who would be work exclusively for their best interests within their niche? I’m willing to bet some serious results could be achieved and some of these ‘established’ players could be put to shame…

Best rgds
Richard

By: Gavin

Gavin — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 00:25:36 +0000

Interesting trail of thoughts Richard.

When it comes to SEO you simply cant provide quality service to clients who are competing against each other. You cant focus on giving each client 100% to get top ranks, its impossible.

I never actually thought about when it comes to Pay Per Click and that is a whole different can of worms. Your example of having clients bid against each other is a perfect example. I know of one Adwords user who would easily fall trap to this and his monthly budget is in its thousands. That would be nasty.

By: Using Text Replacement with Flash - Dangerous? | Search Engine Optimisation & Online Marketing Ireland .:. Red Cardinal

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 08:53:42 +0000

[...] I wrote about SEO Ethics and how I feel that companies who promote competing websites are far more likely to cross into what [...]

By: Richard Hearne

Richard Hearne — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 04:54:37 +0000

Some good points. The big difference I would point out is that with general marketing it is possible to have equal success for multiple clients in the same niche. It’s not a zero sum game – you can do well for a group of competing clients at the expense of other competitors. You might even grow the market.

SEO is a zero sum game – if I get a site to number #1 then I have to knock someone else off that spot. So if I promote multiple clients in one niche success for one will generally come at a cost to another. And then adding in PPC management… well, the possibilities for misdeeds become endless…

By: Michele

Michele — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 18:57:40 +0000

Ken

I’m not sure how it works across the board, but I’ve been sent prospectuses by a couple of marketing companies in the past. If they specialise in a particular sector they’ll use their expertise as a selling point. Of course I may not be too happy with using the same company as one of my competitors, but that’s obviously my choice – I have to weigh experience vs. possible conflict of interest vs. professionalism

SEO may be more transparent on some levels, but marketing has its own transparencies. For example, if you run a campaign with a specific coupon code or promotional offer you can easily see how well it has performed.

Michele

By: Ken

Ken — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 18:53:54 +0000

Yeah, fair point. Well I don’t know a huge amount about marketing. Are marketing campaigns as measurable as SEO? SEO is pretty measurable… you’re either at the top for certain key phrases or you’re not. As marketing campaigns are ephemeral, is it even comprable? Do a lot of marketing agencies go work with competing clients on their campaigns in tandem with each other?

By: Michele

Michele — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 18:44:38 +0000

Ken

But what about marketing in general?

The big agencies will probably have multiple clients from the same sector …

By: Ken

Ken — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 18:43:23 +0000

I wouldn’t have said so Michele, no. With SEO you’re effectively promising that you’ll do you best to get your client as high up the SERP’s as possible. How can you keep this promise if you’re doing the exact same for one of their competitors? It’s different to, say, designing/developing a website where you simply agree on requirements and a deliverable product or products. You’re not promising that the site will be more or less successful than one you did for their competitors – you’re simply building it to spec.

By: Michele

Michele — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 18:34:12 +0000

Ken

Surely the same would be true of any company offering services to multiple companies in the same sector?

It’s not though, is it?

Michele

By: Mutiny Design

Mutiny Design — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 16:04:57 +0000

Sounds like good news if you are getting those sort of enquiries through the site – people are finding you.

The only point I would raise is that we all know 99% of clients want the cheap option that probably won’t give them a good ROI and then they expect miracles. A lot of companies will struggle to make a profit, so may need to take clients from the same market. I have noticed from monitioring one market that there is at least one SEO firm that will take on clients for the same market.

By: Ken

Ken — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 09:50:37 +0000

I think it’s certainly been one of the foremost issues on my mind with the recent explosion of SEO as a stand-alone profession. I’m glad to hear that your ethical integrity is intact on the matter, Richard. However, any SEO company that provides services to more than one company in the same sector and location is surely opening themselves up to accusations of foul play? If not, the trust issue is simply far too great to overlook.