When a company runs a search engine optimization program, whether it's done in-house or outsourced to an SEO service provider, most of the attention (and rightly so) is focused on the company's website. This is the only aspect where there is a sense of control - once a website is released, the company needs to see how their website compares to all other websites out there and whether or not the other websites are using ethical SEO tactics .
Barring changes to the company website, it is often assumed that the company and its SEO service, if any, have no control over what appears in search engine results. However, this is usually not the case. Often, you or your SEO service provider can have a direct impact on search engine results by monitoring your competitors and reporting them to the major search engines when the SEO techniques used on their site fall outside of what is popularly referred to as ethical SEO. (Please note that while I think the word "ethical" gets thrown around too often, "ethical SEO" has become the standard term to describe white hat techniques, and so it's the term I use in the use entire article.)
main competitors
First, let's define competitors. SEO selber machen Almost every company has at least a handful of other companies that it considers to be its main competitors -- those that sell the same products and services, that are of similar size, and so on. It is important that the SEO efforts (or lack thereof) of these competitors are routinely monitored, whether or not they use ethical SEO techniques. If they haven't hired their own SEO service or haven't even started doing SEO in-house at all, you can have peace of mind knowing that use of this channel is yours for the moment. When your competitors launch an SEO campaign, with or without an outside SEO service, you can learn a lot about their sales and marketing tactics by evaluating the key phrases they are targeting. And you can also investigate if they are using ethical SEO practices in their campaign.
Your online competitors
It's important to remember that it's unlikely that searchers will just choose between you and the main competitors you've listed. They will consider any company that fits their specific needs and that comes up for their search term. For this reason, your criteria for a competitor on the internet should be expanded to include any company that offers products or services like yours that outperform you for one of your targeted key phrases. When your in-house staff or SEO service not only continuously monitors your search engine positions, but also analyzes the companies that appear above you in the search results, you can often identify forward-thinking competitors you didn't know about before - your key competitors of tomorrow.
violations
This brings us to the central topic of ethical SEO. Search engine optimization is still a very new concept for most businesses. Even the most reputable companies can make mistakes in this area, either by choosing the wrong SEO service or by trying to avoid hiring an SEO service altogether by bringing it in-house with well-intentioned but unqualified people. For example, the German website of BMW recently temporarily removed from Google's index for using doorway pages - something that isn't considered an ethical SEO practice. It is obvious that your competitors are not immune to violations either.
Bad companies
There are very notable examples of otherwise smart and established companies hiring an SEO service that has put them in a worse situation than before they pursued SEO - for example, having their website removed from major search engines for violating the terms of service of the website machine. Not too long ago there was a well-publicized example where most clients of an SEO service in Las Vegas were penalized. Almost all clients indicated that they were not informed that the company did not practice ethical SEO and that they were therefore at risk.
SEO firms are generally divided into two camps - the so-called "white hats" (those who use ethical SEO practices and never knowingly violate a search engine's terms of service) and the so-called "black hats" (those who do not practice ethical SEO use practices that try to unravel the latest algorithms and exploit loopholes to achieve rankings at all costs). No approach is illegal - it's not against the law to violate a search engine's terms of service. In addition, black hat techniques can be very effective. The tactic is risky, however, and anyone hiring an SEO service provider who wears a black hat and does not follow ethical SEO practices should definitely be made aware of this risk in advance.
Internal Resources
Companies are often tempted to avoid hiring an SEO contractor by doing SEO in-house, and the project almost always falls to an already overburdened IT department. The problem with approaching SEO from a purely technical mindset is that the strategies employed, such as B. the targeted key phrases, do not necessarily align with the goals of the marketing and sales departments. Furthermore, an IT resource usually approaches SEO from a purely technical point of view, without being aware of ethical SEO practices, and this can lead to problems. Penalty is a very real possibility and it's difficult to get back on an index once your site has been removed.
monitoring
A thorough SEO service not only monitors the handful of competitors that you consider crucial, but also the sites that appear higher than you for any of your chosen search terms. This can be somewhat controversial, especially for any SEO service or webmaster using tactics prohibited by search engine terms of service. However, many white hat SEO service companies consider it an obligation to their clients to routinely monitor all competitors' websites found in the search engines to ensure they are using ethical SEO techniques.
There's a reason every major search engine has a form for reporting websites that don't use ethical SEO tactics and violate their Terms of Service, so that those websites can then be penalized or removed. Spam filters cannot detect all violations without also removing a large number of good websites. Search engines rely on their users to help them keep their indexes clean and free from sites that are not using ethical SEO tactics. There are many techniques for spamming an engine - far too many to list. However, a good SEO service not only knows what all these techniques are, but also knows how to identify them when they see them so they can be accurately reported to the search engine.
The final result
Business is business, and your interests are often directly at odds with those of your competitors. If you report a website that doesn't use ethical SEO, there's a good chance it will be removed. That means you have one less business to worry about online, at least for now. If the website in question ranks yours, you also have the added benefit of your rankings improving if the offending pages are removed – provided, of course, that you use ethical SEO techniques and keep yourself away from violators, or you can be from reported to a competitor of yours or their SEO service!
The engine also benefits when users report violations. Search engines don't like it when people try to trick their indexes as they may then show pages related to certain search terms that are specific to them terms are not actually relevant. Search engines clearly understand this benefit - if search engines thought they could sort out all spam themselves, they wouldn't provide a reporting system. After all, supporting such a system is not free. Real people employed by the engine need to visit the offending pages to confirm that they are not using ethical SEO tactics.
In the notable example cited earlier of the company penalizing most of its clients, the owner of the SEO service in question was quoted as saying, “Google can kiss my ass. That's the Wild Wild West.” He may be right – maybe it's the Wild Wild West. But there's a whole bunch of new sheriffs in town - and they're wearing white hats.