I recently spoke at SAScon in a session on regulating the SEO industry. While this is an issue that has split the industry for years and there was even a failed attempt to do so over a year ago, I believe the industry needs to regulate or die.
While seemingly dramatic, the assertion that the SEO industry much self-regulate or die is more of an observation that due to the poor reputation of SEO’s in the larger business community, it is getting harder and harder to win business without part of the process being building a bridge from a position of weakness because of the perception of the industry to a point where you have built trust and confidence *despite* the industry.
I recently had an experience which made me ashamed of my industry. The behaviour of an SEO company was so reprehensible as to leave me wishing to no longer be involved in the community. This is only one of the things that has led me to call increasingly loudly for some sort of regulation.
The main points of contention that seem to elicit the most arguments are around what to do and how to do it. With references to Google’s constantly changing algorithm, black hat SEO, lack of educational foundations and the large number of self-made SEOs happily working for companies or agencies who would suddenly be required to adhere to a set of guidelines, there is an amount of scepticism and fear in the industry around any sort of regulation – self or otherwise.
As can be seen with the extension to the ASA guidelines, if an industry cannot regulate itself, a body will step in and it will regulate that industry, whether they wish it or not. In a sense, all social media and a lot of SEO work is now under the remit of the ASA – a body that whether they like it or not will change the way they do business. Unless SEO wakes up and smells the self-regulation coffee, we will be absorbed into another industry, cease being unique and will become nothing more than an arm of marketing or IT.
Industry self-regulation is important for many reasons and some of them are related to the recognition of SEO as a distinct industry. SEO is often confused with web development or marketing. It is difficult, given the functions it performs, to know where to place it. This confusion, while not present in the industry itself, is why web development firms can claim to do SEO with little to know knowledge and why my father, who is a lawyer with minimal knowledge of SEO, could tomorrow decide to call himself an SEO and become a practicing SEO with little to no knowledge.
SEO works across multiple industry verticals, each with their own set of laws and best practice guidelines, When working with these companies, SEOs have to comply with these regulations, both being aware of them and having all work checked by experts. Having a set of rules will both help to clarify the what is permissible around issues like the permitted messaging in title tags as well as define a clear set of boundaries which are search engine agnostic.
Issues of black hat and white hat need to be set aside when looking at minimum levels of education, knowledge and/or skills to be able to self-identify as an SEO. While this will not stop unqualified people identifying as SEOs who do not meet the minimum required standards as happens with journalism, solicitors and other professions, it does help set a minimum expected level of knowledge. Grandfathering in all SEOs is not an issue – ensuring compliance with a set of best practice guidelines may be a problem but each step of the process takes time and guidelines won’t be introduced next month or even next year.
As the industry grows and the number of people working in it grows and the amount of money agencies make from SEO grows, it will quickly reach a point where it either regulates itself of the government steps in to do it for us. If a bunch of in-house SEOs and agency SEOs who have been working for between 5 – 15 years could come together and just set out some bare bones, we would have a place to start. Regrettably it has already failed once and who knows what it may take to start the process again short of a major court case.
I love the SEO industry and I would like to see it recognised for the specialist industry it is. I would like to see people within it adhering to some sort of code of conduct which stops them bringing the industry into disrepute (black hat is OK if it doesn’t hack or inject malicious code. But hey – what is a bit of cookie over-writing between friends, right?) and some sort of guidelines we all must adhere to. The IAB and ASA already do a lot of this but so many SEOs have no clue that the industry is in danger of being one of the worst offenders in history simply through ignorance.
Let’s come together and do something positive for the industry. Let’s bring it together and create a set of guidelines – the bare bones of a structure. Let’s come together and let’s do something for ourselves before it is thrust on us by force.
well do you then regulate the web devlopement industry I have seen some howlers that destroyed huge amounts of value done by developers who to be blunt where not competetent – that I and my seo collegues have to then come up with fixes for.
If they purported to be doing SEO then they would fall under the self-regulation body and could be delt with in that way. If we take an ASA stance if they were found in violation the SEO governance the body could take a paid advert out against them as well
Judith – great post ! Needs a good image. How about this one from the riots in Athens — looks perfect
http://bit.ly/k9vM4i
At outset, I should admit to a vested interest in a method of weeding out the snakeoilers as it would make my job much easier – I specialise in recruiting search professionals.
Speaking as a non-SEO who has been involved in a number of discussions around this subject, the usual objection is that it will be too hard to achieve any meaningful measure. I feel it is important, however, that we should not let this stop us.
Having been, once upon a time, a car salesman I know how difficult it is to overcome people’s initial prejudices (although recruiters possibly have a worse rep!). At the moment the general public don’t seem to understand the SEO industry but are largely not as hostile as the American public appear to be (e.g. mainstream TV show The Good Wife made a point of an SEO not being trusted by the jury as he is a ‘Spammer’ – i know it’s only TV but mainstream often both reflects and informs the opinions of the masses).
I don’t have any answers but surely a first stage would be to encourage a voluntary code of conduct with a view to something more substantial in the future.
I agree that self-regulation should be preferable to an outside influence but would be wary of the draconian measures put in by some self-regulatory bodies in a spirit of self-flagellation.
I don’t think I was envisioning a self-regulatory body that sued if anyone did anything edgy but more of a bare-bones start. We have to start somewhere and we need something otherwise there’s a good chance we won’t exist anymore. I think having a standard or code of conduct to begin with is a start.
Excellent points for pro-regulations, Judith. It helps that I happen to agree with them lol.
Wish I could find the link, but for at least one SEO, it HAS come to a court case – the SEO company got sued because “they must have known their client was dodgy and supported it”.
Your second to last paragraph pretty much sums it up for me. “I love the SEO industry and I would like to see it recognised for the specialist industry it is…” Exactly – and until we actually become a regulated industry, we’re just a bunch of geeks tinkering around with the Web.
Well done and well said!
Jahnelle I read the same article, it was about a SEO company that helped a counterfeit golf club seller rank for brand names. http://www.stateofsearch.com/can-seo-companies-be-held-responsible-for-counterfeit-by-their-clients-yes-says-judge/
A kind soul found the link for me: http://c2r.me/mzNK2E – State of Search article (thanks @JoshuaTitsworth). Of course, it doesn’t have much to do with regulation, really – I don’t even see a regulator body deciding who we do business with, but it’s worth considering when an optimization company can get sued for what they do.
Absolutely. I think that the regulator would be initially more about best practice as an industry first, and as a pratitioner second.
Its a great idea to regulate it and have rules, but someone will break them. I work with SEO guys and have dealt with several agencies over the years there’s lots of black hat stuff going on for the sites that have poor content with link building etc. To do SEO well you need to invest time and ideally the sites, should be good and naturally attract incoming links, with nofollow and the speed the web is progressing the little sites that are not going to get anywhere unless they have really good content. Also its hard to penalise sites for breaking the rules, if ‘site A’ has bought links and gets dropped by Google ‘site C’ can also buy links for competitor ‘site B’ and get that site dropped. As I said great idea but enforcing it and making it work could be pretty hard to do.
Hi Dave, I think you slightly missed the point I was trying to make which was that we’re not trying to do the search engine policing job – if company A wants to use a spammer but the spammer adheres to the code of conduct then fine. We aren’t talking about policing search engine policies but doing something to ensure minimum levels of standards of practice initially. Maybe the only guideline will be “needs to know what a 404 page is”. Who knows – but we need something for sure.
Wow, your father is a lawyer. Amazing.
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