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Whereas all parties are working towards presenting
relevant and high quality information in an easy to use format
to information seekers, and whereas SEO practitioners are
being contracted to assist clients in obtaining higher rankings
for client pages, ACA Web Consulting is voluntarily adhering
to the below SEO Code of Ethics:
No SEO practitioner will intentionally
do harm to a client. This involves the continued use
of any technology or procedure (without appropriate care)
that is known to result in having the client site removed
from search engine indexes or directories, or rendered inoperative.
Questionable adherence to standards must be addressed via
the Robots Exclusion Standard.
No SEO practitioner will intentionally
violate any specifically published and enforced rules of search
engines or directories. Should rules and guidelines
change (as they often do), the SEO practitioner will promptly
take action to comply with the changes as they apply to all
clients. Where rules and guidelines are unclear, the SEO practitioner
will seek clarification and await approval from the appropriate
search engine before continuing to utilize potentially harmful
technology or procedures.
No SEO practitioner will intentionally
mislead, harm, or offend a consumer. All individuals
utilizing a search engine to visit a site will not be misled
by the information presented to or by the search engine, or
harmed or offended upon arrival at the client site. This includes
techniques like "bait and switch" where the client
page does not substantially contain and is not clearly associated
with the optimized phrase, or may be reasonably offensive
to targeted visitors.
No SEO practitioner will intentionally
violate any laws. This involves the deliberate and
continued violation of copyright, trademark, servicemark,
or laws related to spamming as they may exist at the state,
federal, or international level.
No SEO practitioner will falsely
represent the content of the client site. This
includes the practice of presenting different versions of
web pages to different users except where that information
is altered solely to meet browser specifications and needs,
sensitivity to regional factors such as language, or product
specific needs. In general, ALL requests for a specific URL
should be served identical HTML by the web server.
No SEO practitioner will falsely
represent others work as their own. This includes the
taking of work from others in whole or in part and representing
this work as their own. The SEO practitioner may not make
verbatim copies of the work of others (instead of authoring
original work) without the prior consent of the other party.
No SEO practitioner will misrepresent
their own abilities, education, training, standards of performance,
certifications, trade group affiliations, technical inventory,
or experiences to others. This includes
quantifiable statements related to project timetables, performance
history, company resources (staff, equipment, and proprietary
products), and client lists. Guarantees will be restricted
to items over which the SEO practitioner has significant and
reasonable control.
No SEO practitioner will participate
in a conflict of interest without prior notice to all parties
involved. This includes the practice of choosing to
emphasize one client over another in competing keywords because
there is more personal gain for the practitioner. All clients
are treated equally and all will receive equal best effort
in their optimization.
No SEO practitioner will set unreasonable
client expectations. This includes the practice of
accepting more than a reasonable number of clients competing
for the same keywords and implying that all will be in the
top positions in the search engines. This also includes the
implication that results can be obtained in an unreasonable
amount of time given the known condition of the search engines,
client site, and competition.
All SEO practitioners will offer
their clients both internal and external dispute resolution
procedures. This includes the publishing of address
and phone numbers on primary web pages, the inclusion of third-party
dispute resolution links prominently placed within the practitioners
web site, and contracts that include sections discussing dispute
resolution.
All SEO practitioners will protect
the confidentiality and anonymity of their clients with regards
to privileged information and items implying testimonial support
for the SEO practitioner. All staff of SEO practitioner
shall be bound to protect information that is not generally
known as it may harm the client. The SEO practitioner will
not include the publishing of testimonials and proprietary
logos of client lists, press releases, and other collateral
discussing the client without explicit approvals.
All SEO practitioners will work
to their best ability to increase or retain the rankings of
client sites. Clients are contracting for fee with
the SEO practitioner in order to obtain and retain search
engine placement. The SEO practitioner is charged with an
obligation to utilize appropriate and allowed technology and
methodologies to improve and retain the rankings for their
clients in the face of shifting search engine technology,
competition, and client web site needs.
ACA Web Consulting complies with and
supports this Code of Ethics.
Published with permission from www.bruceclay.com.
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