Google Plays Sheriff and the Web Toes the Line
Google and internet search have become practically synonymous and the company has given rise to one of the most easily recognized new verbs relating to finding information online. Google’s presence and the way it works has also been responsible for the creation of the search engine optimization industry as a whole.
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Seeing how even the best website in the world amounts to less than zero if it cannot be found by those who look for it the pressure to succeed online leads to using search engine optimization (SEO) at any costs. In the Google world this has led to a paradox. As each technique is developed by search engine optimization specialists to help promote a website in the search engine index, Google develops special filters for it in order to detect and prevent abuses.
It is a cat and mouse game played by men who understand how search engine algorithms work and the Google search engine engineers who try to make sure that their search results pages are relevant and fair, producing an end-user experience which benefits their brand.
If you do a little online search you will see that SEO is segregated between the so-called ‘White Hat SEO’ and ‘Black Hat SEO’. The former consists of what is widely called ‘ethical’ SEO techniques which are there to help a website get indexed and ranked easier by Google, the latter are techniques which are frowned upon by the search engine and, if discovered, are most likely to get you penalized.
Since SEO became an industry Google had stepped up once when it very publicly blacklisted BMW for using Black Hat SEO techniques and delisted it from its index. That was back in 2006 and since then Google has been content with using its search algorithm to scout out the instances of banned SEO techniques and, when they get past a certain mass, impose a new Google filter in its search algorithm to counter them.
This relatively automated approach has not only increased, up to now, the size of the Black Hat SEO industry with companies willing to risk a ban for the massive gains offered by a first page listing on Google but it also has led to an increase in what is now known as ‘Grey Hat SEO’, namely techniques which skirt the edge of what’s considered ‘ethical’ and what is not.
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