Hi Kalena

This may be a little off your normal topics… But, you always seem to have such a well thought out view that I want to know your opinion of SEO Standards?

What do you really think about the idea? Good and bad?

Adios
Chris

Hi Chris

It’s interesting that you bring up this topic, because we’ve been hashing this very subject a lot on Sphinn lately. Jill Whalen made a post on Search Engine Land where she stated that she didn’t think we needed standards and this resulted in some passionate arguments both for and against standards.

My opinion? Until search marketing has an official, widely accepted industry body, I don’t see how we can have official standards. This industry has unspoken standards and they’ve worked well for 10 or more years. We white-hat educators promote the unofficial standards and search engine guidelines already. The creation of official standards without a ruling industry body would, in my opinion, just spawn more problems.

Besides, creating standards is not going to get rid of shoddy SEOs or make them switch hats. Creating standards is not going to prevent the general public from being ripped off by SEM cowboys. Buyer beware has to come into play at some point.

I’ve written an article about this for SiteProNews about this: SEM Industry Standards: Nonsense or Necessary?

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