Who Should Regulate SEO?
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The negative reputation that the SEO industry has become a hot topic as of late, and it is a topic for which a solution is long overdue.
- Link exchange requests via email and web design discussion threads are omnipresent;
- SEO companies are selling useless services such as link building and cheap directory submissions;
- The prevailing SEO opinion seems to be that web design and SEO are two mutually exclusive entities;
- The majority of SEOs will contact a prospective client without solicitation to do so in an effort to sell services.
There are many other examples of SEO practices which harm the industry in general, and unfortunately those who understand these issues the most are the ones that have voices which are drowned out by the noise created by those who choose to practice SEO that tarnishes the reputation of the industry in general.
There are many in the industry who believe some form of a governing body should be formed to regulate the SEO industry and ensure that the majority who choose to practice it conform to standards and practices which benefit the majority. I initially disagreed with the idea at first, since in my eyes there are problems with selection of the leader(s) for said governing body which I will discuss below; however, I was able to think slightly outside of the box and come up with a group of companies that would be able to act collectively, in an impartial manner, and for the greater good of SEOs, web designers and more importantly search engine end users.
Who Comprises Said SEO Governing Body?
The SEO governing body would consist of representatives to be determined via market share from three organizations:
Google
Yahoo!
MSN/Live Search
The more perceptive of you will probably come to the quick realization that these three organizations are in fact the three major search engines. However, other search engines could theoretically have representatives on the committee as well. The Altavistas and Gigablasts of the world could easily have voices.
Why Should Search Engines Regulate SEO, as Opposed to SEOs?
The biggest reason why search engines should regulate the SEO industry can be summarized with one simple phrase:
Search Engine Optimizers, as a Collective, Cannot be Trusted
The very reason that the topic of improving the reputation of the SEO industry exists because of the promotion and use of products and services that end up negatively benefiting the customers of said products and services, as well as search engine end users. We have created this problem (and yes, I include myself as part of this “we” because as hard as I’ve tried, I don’t feel I’ve done enough to help stop the problem) when we had the initial opportunity to define the course of SEO, with no preconceived notions whatsoever, and we as a collective have an inability to recognize that we are indeed responsible for the situation the SEO industry is in. Therefore, we are in no position to regulate and improve the SEO industry ourselves.
Clarification: I do realize that there are some SEOs out there who are ethical and honest, and who do provide a service that benefits everyone from clients to search engines to end users. By and large, however, this is not the case.
Other reasons to support the idea of search engines regulating SEO include:
Search Engines, to Some Extent, Already Are Regulating SEO
Search engines do have to contend with SEOs trying to manipulate them, and as such have developed guidelines and rules by which webmasters and SEOs should abide in order to ensure that their sites get listed in search engines without fear of penalty or reprisal.
Search Engines Have the Most to Gain Directly from Regulation
Regulation of the SEO industry means that search engines will be able to devote more time to the quality of their results and to the overall improvement of their product and less time fighting manipulation attempts from those who would game the engines. This leads to increased end user satisfaction and therefore increased usage and profits.
Search Engine Companies Would be More Likely to Reach Consensus on Issues
One of the largest problems with the SEO industry is that it is next to impossible to reach consensus on various topics. Ask 100 SEOs about link exchanges, software tools to use, the importance of code, ways to solicit business, etc., and 100 different opinions will almost inevitably be the end result, especially if there are those within the 100 who openly dislike each other and/or the principles that the other espouses. At the very least, consensus opinion will never be reached.
On the other hand, a small group of companies, each with a group of representatives, will be more likely to reach a consensus.
The SEO Industry Lacks Unbiased, Universally Respected Leadership
Consider the idea of a governing body for SEO that isn’t run by the search engines and has no search engine involvement whatsoever. The first step for said governing body would be to select a leader. This leader would have to be someone who would be accepted by the majority in the industry, or at the very least among those in the governing body; would have to be someone who has the support of search engines due to ethical standards; and would have to be someone who have the courages to not act in his/her own vested interests, nor in the interests of minority and special interest groups, but rather in the interests of the industry and its end users as a whole.
Who would you pick? Who would be your choice(s) for the leader(s) of the organization? Keep this question in mind, and if you want to post your answer at the bottom of this post. There would be a number of names listed, but the majority would likely not support any one candidate. I won’t tell you my pick until later, but I will reveal the initials G. L.
Enforcement of Regulations is Simple
Since search engines are in charge of the regulations, they can also enforce the regulations as they see fit. “If you don’t adhere to X, Y, and Z, your sites will be delisted for 6 months.” There is no recourse for a governing body comprised of SEOs, save for revocation of a membership which may or may not be widely recognized.
The Meme
In the interest of seeing what others think, and starting a discussion that will hopefully get other people thinking along different lines, I’m going to do the meme thang. This time around, I’m going to ask six people instead of five.
Steven Bradley
John Alexander
Aaron Pratt
Jason Calacanis
Dazzlin’ Donna Fontenot
Connie and Irina
August 30th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
I saw the post title and was immediately thinking I’d be commenting. Since you’re turning this into a meme and tagged me I’ll hold off commenting for the moment, gather my thoughts and write a post instead.
If I can get my thoughts together quick enough I’ll post tonight. Otherwise look for something early next week.
It’s an interesting topic and one worthy of discussion.
August 30th, 2007 at 4:44 pm
I’m going to follow in Steven’s footsteps. I’d really like to put my answer, or at least my thoughts here, but since I’ve been “tagged” and the Olympic torch handed off to me, it seems the best thing to do is stop, take a step back, and formulate a well reasoned response on my own blog.
But I’ll tip my hand and say this - it’s a fascinating question that’s going to demand an answer sooner or later. In the US, which apparently owns your homeland of Canada (so says Pottery Barn Sextoys), industrial regulation is usually given to the industry first. I think the movie ratings system is an example of this: the gov’t said “if you don’t regulate yourselves, we’ll do it for you, and you won’t like how we do it.” The difference here is the same reason the death penalty doesn’t prevent murder - the SEO’s cheating the system will hear a threat like that, and start thinking of ways they can personally get cheat the system. They’ll see regulation as a good thing, because while they’ll find loopholes to exploit, much of their competition won’t. Like you said, “professional” SEOs have hidden agendas and their own interests always at heart.
The one problem I see right off the bat with your idea, which is a common sense one, is that the major search engines might actually not be able to reach any consensus, or even work for the collective good, for fear of revealing too much of their secret sauce algorithms. If Google and Microsoft - a pair of battling titans - need to reach agreement on whether any given practice is acceptable or not, their reasoning for wanting any rule is going to be based on how their algo works.
That’s about all I’ve got at this point, so I’ll have to give the matter some thought and try to come up with a worthy response. But these are my initial thoughts.
September 1st, 2007 at 5:41 pm
[...] was a great article on Walk on My Path, about regulation in the SEO industry. Keep in mind when reading the post that our friendly neighbor to the north lives in a country [...]
September 4th, 2007 at 6:59 pm
You cannot ask or allow the search engines to regulate search engine optimization. Regulation has to be implemented at the government level, where there is at least some measure of accountability to the citizens. Search engines are only accountable to their stockholders.
If we assume for the sake of discussion that there is no spamming of the search indexes, search engine optimization still has a role to play in the process because the search engines are not yet good enough to find the most appropriate content.
Search engines need to find ways to work with SEOs without resorting to threats and intimidation. The filters, penalties, and bans are better without the accompanying declarations and “Webmaster guidelines”.
September 4th, 2007 at 7:52 pm
[...] tagged me in the name of memekind with his post Who Should Regulate SEO? My answer is no one should regulate it, though in truth there already is regulation in place called [...]
September 4th, 2007 at 7:59 pm
Before I say anything, I just want to say that Michael is one of the most intelligent people on the planet when it comes to this stuff, and I do respect his opinion. Folks, this is someone you should listen to because he actually knows what the hell he’s talking about.
And now…I’m going to practice the opposite of what I preach and disagree with Michael on two things.
1) Government regulation. The problem with this idea is that it requires the cooperation of, at a minimum, every level of federal government in countries where SEO is practiced, and the law has to be the same across the board. If there’s anything that offshore gambling sites, file sharing sites, and porn have taught us, it’s that the law will never be distributed effectively around the world.
Not only that, the government would have to be trained on best practices and things that are and aren’t ethical, and government employees are, by and large, not technically savvy or business savvy at the level required to be able to process what are and aren’t best practices as it pertains to SEO or any other Internet best practice for that matter. If they were, your penis would be perfectly normal and 11-teen-year-old Dutch girls wouldn’t have fetishes for farm animals.
Government regulation, as much as it would be the optimal solution, isn’t tenable at this time. It’s the sad reality of the situation.
2) SEOs, as a collective, would not be the best group to work with either for the reasons mentioned above. As a collective (and you’re well and truly excluded from that collective, Michael), they can’t handle the issue of even partial self-governance, and when it comes right down to it, would you trust most of them to speak on the best interests of the majority?
And who do you put into that group without pissing at least a large percentage of the population off?
Doug Heil? Doug’s a great choice because he speaks his mind and because he always tries to do the right thing, but that’s exactly the same reason most SEOs hate his guts and want to lynch him from the first oak tree they can find.
Jill Whalen? A safe choice, but I’m not so sure about her being the right choice just because she has a tendency to be somewhat wishy-washy and this is something you need a Buford Pusser type for.
Danny Sullivan? He’s not as popular as he once was, and there’s a large percentage of the populace who believe he caters to the same spammers that wrecked things in the first place.
You? I’d vote for you, but have you got enough grassroots support to overcome the “leaders”? I don’t know on that, but I’d lean slightly against it. No offense or anything, but you’re not the first name on everyone’s lips when it comes to this stuff. You’d probably make top 10, but not #1 for most.
Wall, Gray, Hagans, etc.? Not even gonna go there.
There just isn’t a choice that makes sense for a leader, never mind a group that can decide.
The only people left, based on process of elimination, are the engines themselves. They’re also the only ones that really have anything to gain.
3) I’m not sure, and there’s no way to be sure, whether or not search engines would have evolved to the point where they would be able to determine the most relevant results were it not for the interference of SEOs that intend to game them. SEs have had to devote a great deal of time and resource to the problem of gaming in general, and that same resource could easily have been devoted to relevancy. I’m on the fence on that one, however.
Interesting comments, though. I take it you read Steven’s blog (I haven’t yet, but I can’t see how else you would have stumbled upon this.)
September 4th, 2007 at 8:00 pm
Yup, just saw his post.
September 5th, 2007 at 4:21 pm
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September 5th, 2007 at 6:15 pm
> Not only that, the government would have to be trained on best practices and things that are and aren’t ethical, and government employees are, by and large, not technically savvy or business savvy
I swore you were about to say “or ethical” and you would have been right. China, anyone? Not saying anything against the Chinese People, but a country that takes pride in being “the world’s factory” putting out toothpaste with formaldehydes and children’s toys with lead paint. A few corrupt government officials have been bribed to allow this. Not that they’re the only country in the world with a government problem - just the one in the news every day.
Thing is, government does regulate SEO. Remember when some child daycare place sued Google because their ranking went down, which cost their business customers? God willing, that one was thrown out, but what about all the slightly less retarded lawsuits? What about the old people loosing their wits who got conned by some fast talking SEO “expert” into paying to get their site delisted? Bet your bottom dollar at least a few will sue. Peter Petera might sue under Manatoba Law, or Canadian federal law. I’d sue under US courts. I read about Pakistani tribes using rape as an intimidation tool, and police refusing to file charges against the rich. The same thing will happen to someone who’s managed to put a web site together, and been cheated by a rich SEO.
And you’re right there’s a lot of duplicate work being done among the SE’s to combat spam. We’d all be further ahead as a society if these companies could move forward instead of re-inventing the wheel. But it’s probably less duplicate work than anyone thinks - MSN and Yahoo and “Live” all suck at this. They’d all enjoy an instant gain if Google shared their secret. It’s not like the folks who invented Windows shouldn’t be able to write a query, but apparently they can’t.
April 23rd, 2008 at 10:45 am
This guy is stepping up to the plate http://www.jasongambert.com
April 25th, 2008 at 10:53 am
Yes he is. He’s legit. I hope his trademark goes through. I’ve talked to him. He satisfied all my concerns.