Moral Judgments in SEO

As a non professional SEO - that is, I don't do SEO as a way to earn my bread - I believe that I've maintained somewhat of an objective, outside perspective. There's a tone that continues to describe the undercurrent in the SEO industry: Good versus Evil.

But, can and should moral judgments be ascribed to a method such as Black Hat or White Hat?

Moral Judgments

The question "What is morality?" has a long and long-winded tradition in Philosophy and remains a hotly debated topic as well. The word "Moral", as we know it today, has two major assumptions:

1. There is an ultimate Right and an ultimate Wrong.
2. Persons have the ability to be objective and pass judgment on what actions and behaviors align to "Right" and "Wrong". In other words, we can tell if a moral rule has been violated.

From this perspective, let's tackle the current tone in the SEO industry.

On Language

While imperfect, language is a common and accepted means by which we communicate. What we say often reveals how we feel about the subject. For example, the utterance about a rainy day:

Man, today stinks. Dang.

That statement about a rainy day allows us to make the following assumption: the person who made that statement places a value judgment on days that are rainy versus days that are not rainy. We can safely assume that days that are not rainy are better in this person's view.

What is important is this fact: the words we use to make value judgments reveals how we feel about the subject.

On Language in SEO

Have you ever heard these phrases to describe Black Hat Methods?

• "The dark side"
• "Doing x, y, and z in link building is wrong"
• "Company x is evil for having engaged in Black Hat methods"
• "That company does Black Hat"
• "That SEO does Black Hat"

There are others also. Notice the language and the value judgment being passed in these statements? Even the term "Black Hat" makes an assumption that black is equivalent to bad and white is equivalent to good. Is there really a "good" and a "bad" in SEO?

Black = Bad
White = Good

Ultimate Good and Ultimate Evil

I'm not arguing for a relativistic universe, where actions are judged based on some relative measure. At the same time, in industry - as opposed to real life - I'm not sure if there really is "good" or "bad". Instead, there might be the following:

• Legitimate and Not Legitimate
• Abiding by the Terms of Service and In Violation of Terms of Service
• Effective and Not Effective
• A Crime and Not a Crime

Other than that, I believe the rest is basically relative.

True, there are instances where some methods are criminal, then we justifiably ascribe language that describes the crime. But, if no crime was committed, the best we can say about a method is that it was:

• Abiding by the Terms of Service and was effective in achieving its purpose.

OR

• Abiding by the Terms of Service and was Ineffective in achieving its purpose.

OR

• Violated the Terms of Service and was Effective in achieving its purpose.

OR

• Violated the Terms of Service and was Ineffective in achieving its purpose.

But, to call it "good" would be going too far down the path or Moral Judgment and I believe that's counterproductive to what the SEO Industry is trying to accomplish.