Chris Liversidge: Companies must search for ethical online strategies

THIS is the year when search marketing will really make its mark in the business world as more and more companies - regardless of their size, sector or service - turn to the little-known craft of search engine optimisation (SEO) to help boost their online presence and dominate Google search rankings.

In order to maintain a high online profile, it is important that companies rank highly on search engine sites for those key search terms associated with their brand. The biggest player in online search for the UK has to be Google and online-savvy companies are extremely aware of the positive effects a high Google ranking can have.

Not only does it ensure that your site is one of the first seen by potential customers searching for the product or service you offer, it also gives you a golden opportunity to convert as many visitors as possible into paying customers.

However, over the past month, a number of high-profile cases have come to light that demonstrate how businesses need to give greater attention to their SEO strategies to ensure they are carried out reputably and that also highlight the growing concern over the regulation of search marketing.

One of these cases is that of US department store giant JC Penney, which came under fire from Google after an expose in the New York Times revealed it was using underhand or "black hat" tactics to dominate Google rankings. The US paper revealed that whenever customers searched for a specific product, JC Penney would appear as the number one site each time, even for searches such as Chinese cooking.

Potential customers were taken directly to its website, thanks to a series of carefully scattered and highly irrelevant links to the JC Penney site on thousands of pages, boosting its back link profile to ensure it appeared in the highest number of Google search results possible.

Whilst it was allowed to reign supreme for some time, its ratings have now come spectacularly crashing down as Google launched a series of manual actions in response to the media expose. Now, instead of ranking top, Google has devalued its back link content, meaning it appears further down the rank - there was at one point talk of Google blacklisting it from its searches altogether.

JC Penney as a result has received a serious blow to its reputation not only on Google but as a reputable and trustworthy retailer, its brand value has been tarnished and - whilst it is not going to wipe millions of dollars off the value of its business - it can be still impact its underlying value.

So what does this mean for the future of search? Well for now it means that we are more aware of how Google operates and monitors search results. The case highlights how Google is constantly changing its algorithms - the perimeters it uses to measure the relevance of search results - to ensure that only those sites and links with value-added content make it through its rankings.Google thrives on relevant and valuable content and this latest shake up of its algorithms to place emphasis on back link evaluation reflects this.

SEO agencies should be thinking more intelligently about their back link strategies for clients. Ethical SEO, known in the industry as "white hat" SEO, is just as effective as "black hat" and has a huge amount of positive value over the longer term. It might take more time and effort to produce and place the great quality content, which will help you build ethical links, but it will happen. It's all about the long game rather than the short one.

As for regulation, cases such as JC Penney highlight that Google is monitoring search tactics and penalising and devaluing those companies that exploit its algorithms, ahead of valuable information. For now, however, there is no one distinct body dedicated to regulating search marketing, which poses the problem of just how do we know which search tactics are organic and which are a result of shady marketing.

The only advice to give businesses looking to delve into the world of SEO is that they should select those agencies that have a reputation for garnering quality and long term results for their clients rather than those providing a quick fix. The ultimate goal for any business is to have an ethical SEO strategy that will boost its online profile as well as its underlying value.

• Chris Liversidge is the founder of SEO firm QueryClick.