Would you link to an SEO?

[glengara]

Back in the day when SEO was mostly all smoke and mirrors linking to/from clients was considered way too risky.

In these days of "ethical" SEO and an apparently less hostile attitude to the industry from the SEs, is indicating a clear relationship with an SEO now seen as risk-free?

[martinibuster]

...an apparently less hostile attitude to the industry from the SEs...

I would not characterize the relationship as less hostile.

By ethical SEO, do you mean

• making sure your keywords are on the page,
• the site is easily spiderable and with a site map,
• and you have alerted other webmasters of your terrific site so that they should link to it?

Seems to me the search engines will be hostile to pretty much anything that goes much beyond the above- now more than ever.

I think being discrete has taken on greater importance. Imo, it's in the client's best interest that nobody knows an SEO worked on their site, especially a specific SEO.

[glengara]

*I would not characterize the relationship as less hostile.*

Well the idea of email penalty notifications, standard re-inclusion requests and a semi-official SEO blog would have boggled the mind just a few years ago ;-)
It does seem to have relaxed quite a number of SEOs, I'm increasingly seeing not just client sites in portfolio pages, but RoS links a la "web design by".

*Imo, it's in the client's best interest that nobody knows an SEO worked on their site, especially a specific SEO.*

I'd agree entirely, but we probably both remember how things were before this recent "Let All The Flowers Bloom" phase with G ;-)

I still keep in mind that opinion of SEOs attributed to one of The Founders as being like a mother Grizzly watching a hunter poking her cub with a stick ;-)

[martinibuster]

...like a mother Grizzly watching a hunter poking her cub with a stick...

Amen. I try not to forget that.

[Jane_Doe]

I delete any link requests from SEOs or link building firms. My past experience shows that those types of sites are most likely to get banned or penalized and then my sites lose points for linking to bad neighborhoods.

[glengara]

You're right JD, they're the two you don't want to see coming up in "similar pages" results...

[roxyyo]

I can see it working for an SEO to post a case study of a client with a link back to the client's site. As an SEO, I wouldn't expect my client to link back to me, especially if it looks ridiculous on the site ;P

I would, however, appreciate the word of mouth :-O!