Experts say that, even though the practice of search engine optimization (SEO) might look to outsiders like an attempt to game the system, there are strict rules enforced by the search engines that govern SEO efforts.
Jonathan Lawoyin, a search engine optimization (SEO) manager with eWayDirect, recently told B2B Online that the top priority for the search engines themselves is to "provided the most relevant results possible to a searcher’s query. Therefore, any effort by a webmaster or SEO professional to interfere with this goal by boosting the rankings of undeserving pages is frowned upon." Lawoyin says that keyword stuffing and comment spam are two SEO practices that the search engines will punish if discovered.
Lawoyin also told B2B Online that it is important to understand how search engines like Google view company web pages, and recommends the use of Google Webmaster Tools to further that understanding.
The search engine optimization (SEO) industry has seen its share of bad publicity in recent months, from diatribes by influential web designers to use of malicious SEO techniques to spread malware, but industry professionals say that ethical SEO is still one of the most valuable online marketing tools available.
