OK search engines, you want to fight spam?

Posted by: Marketing Guy Date posted: July 24th, 2006 Published in: Ask, Google, MSN, Public Relations, Rants n Drama, Search Engine Optimisation, Spam, Yahoo

Simple solution.  Well for part of the problem anyway.  Sparked from a discussion on Threadwatch, here’s a thought for Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask.  Kill the SEO agency.

Sure, they no doubt spend a load on PPC and it could very will be killing off a reasonable source of business for you, but hey – it’s not like you’re all short of a buck or two now is it?

SEO agencies are responsible for spam.  Well, not all of them – there are a lot of good agencies out there.  But why should they be tarred with the same brush as other agencies who pimp dodgy, outdated techniques?  And why should their clients be the ones who suffer, not only losing money paying for this crap service, but losing business when you ban them?

So here’s the idea – get together, agree on a SEO agency spam list and completely kill them from your index so they can’t tout more business. Hey, they are basically selling ways of getting round your guidelines anyway so you’ll be better off getting rid of them (and I’m sure a few managed PPC accounts ain’t worth soiling your organic index).

So a client site gets banned.  They check some SEO forums to find out why and people tell them they’ve been naughty.  Or more accurately, their agency have been naughty.  So what can they do?  Nothing.  Not a damn thing.  They’ve just lost a shitload of money because search engines don’t disclose a lot of info about organic rankings.  Or they’ve been sold by a glossy sales pitch. 

Why not create an agency spam report feature?  Limit submissions to comments from sites who have been banned.  Ask for evidence (consultancy documents, invoices, etc) and ban the agency.  Simple.  The agency will find it very difficult to get more business without search engine listings for their own site and as such, less people will have their businesses hurt, and SERP’s will be all minty fresh and clean!

Search engines need to take more responsibilty for this industry that they (allbeit, unintentionally) have created.  Get your shit together.  More regulation is needed and right now, search engines are in the best position to do it.  Start hitting the spammers where it hurts.

MG