Search Engine Optimisation Ireland – RedPebble SEO Policy

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SEO Policy

Sometimes this subject can come under the heading of “Ethical SEO”.

Ethical search engine optimisation is a very complicated subject with much debate across the internet. RedPebble Web Development is no authority on what is ethical or unethical when it comes to SEO, the simple fact is that there are no rules as such. Google and other search engines have guidelines that they wish you to follow, that’s about all the rules there are. In addition there is no organisation that enforces these guidelines apart from the search engines themselves. Furthermore the fact that search engines are slow to pick up on what they perceive as violations of their guidelines can give people the impression that they can do no wrong when it comes to SEO.

As this is an incredibly complicated subject addressed in many forms and from many viewpoints RedPebble felt it necessary to address this with respect to what matters to us, our clients and customer confidence.

We base our SEO strategy on an individual client basis, which essentially means that no two projects are dealt with in the same way or have the same goals. Our interests lie in getting our clients high search engine rankings, increased traffic and customers but not compromising their domain. We consider that every domain we work with to be a non-disposable primary domain for that business. Therefore it is important that we follow the search engine guidelines when performing SEO measures and not get removed from listings for breaching the Search Engine Guidelines. Of course being removed is the worst case scenario, the engines can penalise you in other ways. For example linking to a link farm will damage your pagerank and this must be avoided also.

There is a lot of disinformation out there when it comes to SEO and when you bring ethics into the mix it gets even more complicated so it is important to stay informed.
Here are some things to consider from Google’s SEO page:

Be wary of SEO firms and web consultants or agencies that send you email out of the blue. Amazingly, we get these spam emails too:

"Dear google.com,
I visited your website and noticed that you are not listed in most of the major search engines and directories..."

Reserve the same skepticism for unsolicited email about search engines as you do for "burn fat at night" diet pills or requests to help transfer funds from deposed dictators.
No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.
Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a "special relationship" with Google, or advertise a "priority submit" to Google. There is no priority submit for Google. In fact, the only way to submit a site to Google directly is through our Add URL page or by submitting a Sitemap and you can do this yourself at no cost whatsoever.
Be careful if a company is secretive or won't clearly explain what they intend to do.
Ask for explanations if something is unclear. If an SEO creates deceptive or misleading content on your behalf, such as doorway pages or "throwaway" domains, your site could be removed entirely from Google's index. Ultimately, you are responsible for the actions of any companies you hire, so it's best to be sure you know exactly how they intend to "help" you.

You should never have to link to an SEO.
Avoid SEOs that talk about the power of "free-for-all" links, link popularity schemes, or submitting your site to thousands of search engines. These are typically useless exercises that don't affect your ranking in the results of the major search engines -- at least, not in a way you would likely consider to be positive.

We would encourage you to be wary of companies that contact you and offer a top ten stop in Google for a certain keyword at a very high cost, sometimes €5,000 per year. Chances are that they have offered the same deal to 20 other similar companies, so someone is going to lose out.

In conclusion we would like to reiterate that we would prefer not to get caught up in an ethical debate but rather adopt a “do no harm” policy, we have the best interests of our clients at heart and do the best we can to improve their ranking on search engines.