Rob Goodlatte  

There’s been a lot of discussion this week about comments on the web - specifically the inappropriate comments posted on Digg regarding Kathy Sierra. These comments and the death threats Kathy received were tasteless and cowardly. Robert Scoble was disgusted enough to walk away from blogging for the week, and countless others have stood up for Kathy by denouncing the anonymous bullies responsible for this affair. The web should be facilitating diverse and deep conversations – not sadistic, off-color comments at the expense of an incredible and brilliant woman.

I think now is a good time to have a discussion about comments. What is the purpose of commenting? Is there anything we can change about the current system to re-align us with that purpose?

Morality is a very interesting subject. It’s extremely subjective, and it’s even more confusing when we make absolute judgement calls based upon our sense of ethics. I want to address one topic about which I don’t see a lot of ethical inquiry happening - our actions on the Web.

Is it morally wrong to spam? Is it morally wrong to game search engines? What about presenting an inauthentic voice as authentic, i.e. astroturfing? Astroturfing seems to be a form of lying, which many belief systems absolutely view to be wrong (10 Commandments, Islamic Al-Baqarah)

At the very least, these actions are harmful to the web – they threaten its utility for short-term gains. I’m not trying to force my view of ethics upon the web - but I think a discussion of morality is a conversation worth having.

Many “search engine optimization� techniques wander into ethically uncertain territory through practices such as link farming and keyword loading. I’ve never thought much of so-called “SEO experts� – for the most part they’re hawking snake oil solutions and “gaming� search engines to acquire un-merited rankings. I’m a firm believer that quality content, not SEO tricks, should be the only factor in your search engine rank. Although SEO ethics is a topic wrought with subjectivity, my goal with this post is to provide a black-and-white map of ethical and unethical SEO practices that you can implement yourself - without hiring an “expert�.