The most kick *ss SEO contest ever!

There is definately a debate to be had on that question.

On one hand it is fair game to attract users/traffic from the search engines by whatever means the engines deem to comply with their terms of service, provided that traffic is well targetted. Anyone can be #1 for (almost) any given term if they put enough work and time into it. And doing so is all part of an open market, capitalist system of ethics. It is only 'wrong' once you start using black hat techniques that break the TOS. (but lets have that debate elsewhere!)

OTOH - An argument is also presented that targetting high value keywords which generate significant revenue for many stakeholders in a niche can/will cause significant damage. Damage to both those companies currently holding those coveted positions as well as being determental to the overall search engine user experience.

By filling the SERPs with affiliate pages from numerous sites all focused to one eTailer can be frustrating to a user searching for those products. It is also frustrating to our competitors who suddenly loose all of their traffic from those spots. For which I would feel terrible . Also, the last people I want to PO is Google!

So on the one hand 'all is fair in love and war' but on the other we are effecting the engines and user experience is a slightly negative way.

So, in the truely Canadian nature (we are based in Vancouver) we have decided to walk down the middle and try to piss of no one - apologizing all the while - trying to make friends with the other teams and competitors... I'm sorry but it is how we do things, eh. It is what we are a'boot'.