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Most people are taught that the first rule of SEO club is that you don’t talk about SEO club (some learn this rule harder than others.) This is an important question as far as most people in the SEO community are concerned. Based on the system that information is knowledge, power, and ultimately money, you can see how people often have a vested interest in outing other peoples techniques, or keeping them secret. You also learn very quickly that who you can trust is extremely important. Everyone has their own code. Mine personally is started with - ""their are no hats, only goals". With the essence of that being that only illegal techniques are truly crossing the line, but everyone has to determine their ultimate level of risk and reward (similar to investing or anything else). Hats are bullshit. Techniques and code should be determined by one’s career choice and goals.
Found this post in the archives, and thought it was worth tossing up since I’ve been MIA quite a while. 
BMW was out of the index for less than a week. Colgate has pushed the envelope hard. Wordpress made a boatload of cash on MFA’s and was back in the index in days while the inspiring party, Hot Nacho, is still as Greg Boser, the artist formerly known as WebGrilllllla put it, “buried somewhere in the Nevada desert“. Most large brands MAY suffer up to 40 days through the new index cycle. Why wouldn’t they push the envelope further than the little guys? I have to say it really upsets me when search engines make decisions and claim it is to “help the little mom and pops” when they are discussing things like paid links. We live in an idea economy. The value of a link to search engine rankings is knowledge, and idea. The debate has been made dozens of time, so I won’t add much to that here. I will say, however, that taking that advantage away, is taking away power from the little guys that learned it - not assisting them. Paid links help the little guy OUTSMART the big guys…it does not help big guys who just whip out their wallets and buy every link in site (that’s what ppc is for).
The “SEO being bad” debate is almost as tired as the blackhat/whitehat debate now. I’m not real excited about defending the virtues of SEO - I know how fantastic it can be, and to explain it properly, it would require a proper understanding of the history of search, and mainly unwritten history of the dynamics between optimizers and engineers. I told a friend today that I will now forever be marketing consultant from the SEO school of thought. I consider practicing SEO an honor, and while I’m sure there is probably better terminology, I’d rather be working than addressing folks that don’t “get it”. So for those that do - here’s some ideas of things to watch, and poke at if you’re not already. I’d call it SEO 2.0 - but that would defeat the concept of staying ahead of the curve on things.
There’s probably a lot of better more cool names I could label myself - but I will forever consider “being an SEO” an honor, despite the beating it often takes from those that sully it’s good name. Below are the principles and qualities I would consider for qualification as a “good SEO”. I’m sure there are plenty that I missed - and hopefully there will be some debate of what can be added or removed, but these are the areas I personally feel are unique to “being an SEO” - and common traits and ideals that I see in those that I would consider top SEO’s. Why do you need a flashy title if you can sum up what you do in a three letter acroynym?
It’s a beautiful irony that SEO’s have a marketing problem with the “reputation of SEO” so I thought I’d give a few suggestions on other names SEO’s can now use on their business card or website as a selling point.
Euphemisms are used in many areas of politics. The definition of cloaking to an engineer, and to an SEO is marginally different in terms of semantics. Cloaking has been villafied by search engines when users and bots are served different content. Engineers believe bots are pretty smart (they normally are) - and SEO’s believe bots should be lead around by the nose only to appropriate areas. “Cloaking” often implies intent and extent that conflict with SE terms of service - but there are many very grey areas as far as what is acceptable and what isn’t. By definition - cloaking is NEVER acceptable - so be sure you are using the proper terminology. Of course this is a bit tounge and cheek - but the point is that there are certainly valid reasons for selectively delivering content - and that “cloaking” is mainly defined by intent. I’m pretty glad I’m not the guy at the SE’s that has to determine the intent of redirects.
SEO/ Internet Marketing Training
