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So now I'm drawing to a close on hiring an SEO person to optimize my website - which operates in an industry which is very competitive on the web.
The best candidates all want to perform "tricks", and say that I cannot expect success without them. Mainly, these tricks involve setting up feeder domains or employing various methods to stuff hidden keywords into pages.
I've posted earlier here on how fed up I am with the notion that we all have to jump through fundamentally ridiculous hoops in order to stroke Google's erogenous zones.
Now, three questions for the experts and the philosophers out there:
1. Is it POSSIBLE - or is it IMPOSSIBLE - to get good rankings in Google using purely Google-approved optimization techniques, when so many others are not?
2. In a world where all the winners are doing it, is it morally acceptible to do things we know Google disapproves of - in order to get a great site to the top of the rankings?
3. If it's NOT possible to rank well with approved techniques, and if it's NOT morally acceptible to abuse Google's rules, then does it make the worl a better or a worse palce when good businesses go to the wall, whilst those prepared to break the rules (which are not laws, and which in any case, reflect the fundamentally SILLY state of affairs) succeed?
Yes - I'm weakening, and probably about to hire someone to tickle in style sheets, hidden DIVs, keyword-stuffed domains and other sculduggery in order to get my site back out of cyber-oblivion and back into good rankings, where my customers will again - find us, and be delighted with our outstandingly good service to them.
Comments - especially from GoogleGuy - are very welcome.
Chris
Because of that and the other changes in the search space, I've slowly been coming to the foundation shattering conclusion that good sites don't require SEO.
