[Air-l] Protection against unethical practices in search engine optimization?

[noci]

hey carmen & all others,

first of all, good last post of yours! couldn't have summed it up better 
myself, as i work in the same field and yes, i sometimes have a hard 
time distancing myself from scammers and spammers as our field of work 
is brimming with such folks, unfortunately-- now to get stuff back on 
track again---: you said..

"For example, a business hires a SEO (search engine optimization) 
company for a 3 months contract. The company performs optimization so 
that it has complete control over it.

----- any business owner handing over "complete control" is simply naive 
and acts completely irrational. customers sometimes want to hand over 
responsibility to you as a contractor so they can avoid making any 
effort themselves in the process. not actively involving the customer
is a grave mistake in my opinion.


"This means it can turn the results off with a click if the business has 
any intention of getting out of the contract at the end of 3 months."

------ again, who would risk losing control?? i've never ever heard of 
such behaviour, client-side that is.



"This is in my book highly unethical. There is a severe lack of 
information in this area to educate business owners and help them make a 
wise decision."

------ common sense? "don't allow strangers to mess with your site 
uncontrolled"- sounds wise?

another remark-- if you do a good job in the optimization process, 
you've helped the customer out in any case- even if his SE rankings 
don't improve dramatically. then again, knowing your chances and 
actually saying "well, i can't help you with your keyword range because 
[i.e.] on Google, that market is clogged" should be common business 
practice. too bad it isn't.

regards,

maxd