At SES London there was an interesting video about how current SEO people perceive the black hat SEO community. They asked 50 SEO’s how they felt about the black hat community and received many different responses. It was interesting to hear that some of them said they are innovative and push the edges of the algorithms like it was a positive thing that they do. That is all great but what happens when rankings are not as important as they once where?

Check out the video below from SES London about black hat SEOs:

The overall consensus was that they hurt the industry more than they help it. I am all about innovation and finding new ways to communicate your business online, but building a business online requires more than search manipulation which is mostly what black SEO individuals usually target. They are techniques that often times push the technical boundaries not the marketing boundaries which are two vastly different areas to focus on. Search engine marketing in my opinion should be done with a focus on brand building and not a focus of rankings. Search engine rankings will happen naturally over time as you build your business and your links naturally over time. When you force rankings you force yourself to cut corners which over time could come back to bite you in the you know where! Anyway, that is my 2 cents on this topic