I have no objection about onsite SEO techniques that helps crawlers understand about my site content better. But what about link building? which means gaining votes from authoritative sites to prove authority (you are not suppose to vote your self right? the site it self should have linked to you). Isn't this technique inherently unethical (trying to trick search engines)? However, I know that link-building will help my site being known and receive direct traffic. Your thoughts about this issue.!
How do you define genuine? Now lets say if I write an article and anchor my link in it, saying to the search engine that, that site is about a certain subject, I'm voting my self right? If I can do a lot of them, that means I have a lot of self voted votes. So is this really right?
Some backlinking occurs naturally like with press releases and article directories, but there's a kinda gray area as to whether it is for traffic or for the backlinks. But "link building" in itself is trying to manipulate the SERPs which is against Google's TOS. YOU building the links to improve your ranking is not the way Google intended it to be, so yes it most times is blackhat. But backlinking is so commonly accepted that even Google allows it's Adwords advertisers to market their backlinks. That being said I don't see how Google could ever penalize you for off page (not your domain) factors because it would be to easy to sabotage your competition and for them to sabotage you.
It is easy to sabotage a competitor site, especially if it is new with few backlinks. I know it for sure
As convincing as it sounds, I would have to disagree. As the word itself says "Optimization", it is a way to convince search engines your site is real. You aren't tricking them. You build backlinks with SOLID content that lead back to your site, I don't see how this is a trick.
While Google's webmaster guidelines doesn't specifically mention "building" links to improve your position in the SERPs it does mention PR, which kind of amounts to the same thing. http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=66356 Backlinks were originally meant as a kind of "refferal" by OTHER sites. It kinda falls under offpage optimization (sort of), but yeah it also kinda falls under black hat, if not why do people bother to try and make it look "natural"? Not saying I don't do it, but technically I guess it falls in a gray area as to whether it's being done to increase traffic or manipulate the SERPs.
This topic has been much debated for many years. There is no "easy" answer. If you are building links as a form of advertising your website (similar to putting an ad in the newspaper), then yes, that seems entirely ethical to me. You've worked hard on your website, have hopefully created something worth visiting, and hope to reach the general public with it.
I think it depends on how you do it. If we are talking about backlinks, just remember that Google is using backlinks as some sort of recommendations for your site. Put the links on proper place / conditions, then there's no tricking there. I'm not here to talk about morals though..
That's a really good question. I'd never thought about it that way before. I suppose you could argue that by placing links to your site around relevant content that you are helping Internet users find resources they otherwise wouldn't.
I think you have to complete wrong impression of what exactly search engine optimization is all about. Search engine optimization basically means telling Google that your website is doing much more as compared to other websites
You know you guys making me confused. The topic is really debatable. The debate raised when Google counts them as votes. Other wise I want to make my site visible and advertise it as many possible places I can. Who has the right to stop me as long as I'm not breaking any rules. I think we should also think ignoring Google at times. Google is not the only ruler of the internet. We don't have to follow what they want as long as it is legal and spammy. (In this case Google will say it's up to you because you will not be able to use our services if you don't follow our guidelines)
SEO is about helping others to find the information you are providing. The old "build it and they will come" does not work with the internet, especially as crowded as it is now. SEO is strategically placing information, internally on your site, and externally on others, to help direct the appropriate audience. The external linking is truly is a form of advertising, if done appropriately.