Internet search engines are hardly a new tool for companies looking to take advantage of the information age. Showing up at the top of a Google search page has become a major, and invaluable, goal of businesses looking for a boost. Studies have shown that people tend to prioritize the top of a search page, directing over 40% of their clicks to the first two search results and fewer than 10% of their clicks beyond the first page of results.1 Because of this, North American companies spend more than $20 billion annually to improve their chances of showing up at the top2 and a practice known as Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has become a focal point of marketers everywhere.3
While Google does offer paid opportunities for companies to improve their search results, SEO is the practice of organically improving a website’s visibility.4 SEO has become such an important aspect of companies’ marketing efforts that Google now releases webmaster guidelines that can help a website’s chances of claiming the coveted spot atop a list of search results.5
However, SEO is a constantly evolving challenge for practitioners. With Google regularly changing their algorithms, companies naturally find themselves altering their approaches as well. This has resulted in a wide variety of approaches to SEO, covering the entire spectrum between wholly legitimate and purposefully disingenuous.6 While utilizing SEO can result in better outcomes for both businesses and consumers (such as more accurate search results, better content, and better brand recognition), it can often encourage fraud or unfair competition practices, known as SEO manipulation.7 For example, Google’s algorithms value web links between sites.8 They claim that a website linking to another website is a vote of confidence and a statement regarding the quality of the content on that website. While Google’s algorithms are designed to catch excessive link exchanges motivated by attempts to game the system, it is easy to see how some instances could slip between the cracks.
Today, companies can face penalties from Google if they are caught participating in SEO manipulation.9 Perhaps the most feared penalty is to have a site knocked down the list of search results into obscurity. To regain lost internet traffic, this would likely require drastic changes such as a site relaunch and even then, favorable results would not be guaranteed.10 Yet, it was not always this way. Previously, even Google faced an investigation from the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) regarding its search biases.11
Now that SEO manipulation is better understood, consumers and companies swindled by disingenuous internet trafficking techniques have more serious legal remedies available such as consumer protection or breach of contract actions.12 Unfortunately, there still exists a gray area for website developers who are able to update their sites frequently enough to avoid detection.13
Because of the increased sophistication of Google’s algorithms designed to catch SEO manipulation, the incentive to participate in legitimate SEO seems to be at an all-time high. Additionally, changes to the way people gather information point to increased importance in the use of safe web content creation practices.14 As consumers utilize internet searches more frequently to make their purchasing decisions and search engines like Google utilize more sophisticated policing techniques, marketers should be warier of using shady SEO techniques. However, these same factors also increase the pressure to constantly innovate and to push the boundaries of accepted SEO practices. Thus, it is important for consumers and marketers alike to increase their awareness of what could be directing their clicks and to consider broadening their search beyond the first page of results.