Online marketing and ecommerce have become the new gold rush, as people find fresh ways to monetise the internet. Free of many of the codes of conduct and regulations that guide offline marketing, there were always going to be arguments about what methods are not only effective, but healthy for the community at large.

In any lawless town, there are white hats and black hats. I think it is no coincidence the wild west of the internet has adopted the terminology of black and white hats to describe the differing practices of this new breed of online prospector. In online marketing, a black hat is someone who operates outside of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines, carrying out practices that, although not illegal, are designed to attract more traffic through trickery. Similarly, a white hat is one who supports the guidelines and chooses to work entirely within their framework.

So how does a law-abiding gold-digger know which saloons are bad news and which corral is ripe for a shoot-out?

Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam

Not the Monty Python ode to tinned meat and not merely a discussion on unsolicited email, spam now describes any online behaviour that seeks to mislead or misrepresent content for the purposes of attracting web traffic.

Matt Cutts, head of Google’s Webspam team, recently posted a video of his keynote presentation entitled “What Google Knows About Spam.” In it, he outlines some of the common techniques used by ‘black hat’ search engine marketers to trick the Google algorithm.

Google often comes in for criticism by online marketers for trying to impose their guidelines on webmasters. The Google Webmaster Guidelines detail a number of practices that can result in Google removing your website from their index, or penalising your appearance in their rankings. Although some see this as Google playing God and attempting to regulate the internet, it is merely attempting to safeguard the relevance of the search results.

If you are not interested in your website appearing prominently in Google, there is no need to abide by these guidelines. But if you intend to optimise your website for Google traffic, the guidelines are there to be ignored at your peril.

Even in the most lawless of wild west towns, the saloon owner would still impose house rules on those who chose to drink at his bar. If you don’t want to be thrown out into the mud, read the signs on the wall and leave your guns at the door.

Black Hats Make Noise

Certain industries attract bad press. Advertising and marketing have often contended with the public perception of them as the domain of lies and manipulation. Just like used car salesmen and lawyers, marketers have a public image largely based on the unethical actions of a relative small number.

Online marketing also has an image problem in the face of black hat practitioners who prefer to avoid standards and regulations in favour of tricks for fast gain. ABCs Media Watch program recently reported the controversy surrounding a certain search engine marketer and the practice of fabricating news purely to gain valuable links and raise their search engine profile. The ramifications of this tactic on the quality and perception of online information are great, especially if online marketing is eventually seen as the main culprit in the dilution of online integrity.

Similarly, despite many cases of websites being penalised by Google or damaging their business reputations with deceptive tricks, some search engine marketers still point to the short term benefits of black hat techniques as a justification for their actions. These include cloaking, keyword stuffing, undisclosed paid links and deceptive link activity.

The victim in all this controversy is often the small business whose website suffers the fallout of the marketer’s controversial techniques. Although you may be fully aware of the techniques your SEO contractor is using on your website, are you aware of the legitimacy or potential damage caused by those techniques?

In the long term, no exploitative technique can continue without some form of redress.

The Arrival of the Lawman

In every wild west community, the lawman eventually arrived. Despite attempts to resist regulation, the threat of confusion and turmoil necessitated the creation of a sheriff and a set of laws by which the town agreed to abide.

When any abuse or manipulation becomes commonplace, eventually restrictions come into being to level the ground and protect values.

Marketing legend Seth Godin recently discussed the difference between ‘working the system’ and ‘beating the system’. Whereas the former shows a cleverness to work within the rules to achieve success, the latter is about exploiting loopholes and weaknesses to gain an advantage. Although beating the system can be incredibly lucrative in the short term, like all those off-shore tax schemes of a few years ago, eventually laws and regulations become more restrictive and invasive to close the gap.

With online marketing still experimenting and trying out new ways of getting a message across, there will continue to be both black hat and white hat marketers at loggerheads over their perception of the best way to achieve results.

When choosing a company to run your online marketing campaigns, be aware of the very real risks that come with your decision. Don’t become tempted by the huge promises of black hat professionals. Receiving over 14,000 links to your website and a massive spike in traffic may seem well worth the money at first. But the potential to damage not only your Google rankings but also your business reputation is very real.

Netregistry search engine marketing staff are trained under Google Webmaster Guidelines. We understand the importance of transparency and responsibility when working with your business and strive to provide only the best and most relevant current advice on search engine marketing.

The dangers are real. The consequences expensive. The last thing you want is for your business to be called out into the street by sheriff Google for a high noon showdown.

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About the Author

Jonathan Crossfield is the Marketing Communications manager for Netregistry. He is a regular contributor on internet business to Nett Magazine and also produces a successful blog on writing.