There is virtually no doubt that the net has revolutionised the business world and caused the development of a whole new set of trading models which are now generally known as e-commerce. At the forefront of this revolution is the company website which was used in the first instance to provide information on goods and services to existing clients. Computer developments, both in website potential and in the financial sector, quickly allowed company websites to be used as a selling option offering immediate purchasing possibilities to consumers. The predictable consequence of this, given the strongly competitive nature of the market place, was that all businesses wanted their site to be found easily and, more importantly, in advance their competitors’ websites by consumers looking to buy their product or service.

This need for prime position on the search engines’ results pages led to the rise of the search engine optimisation (SEO) process. Since its inception the methods used in SEO have grown in an attempt to ensure that success in placing a website in a good Search Engine Placement, on the first page of search results is reached. However, this has not always been done in an ethical manner. The search engines have a vested interest in providing their clients (i.e. those doing the searching) with a list of websites which match exactly their requirements, based on the keywords used in the search. Therefore, any unethical SEO methods which compromise this basic need are frowned upon by search engines as they can provide search results which do not directly meet their searchers’ needs. The searchers may find this very frustrating and place the blame on the search engine, whose name would be dented.

The unethical methods touched on above have been called “Black Hat SEO”. An early illustration was ‘keyword stuffing’, also known as ‘spamdexing’. This involved the gratuitous, multiple use of certain keywords, often in isolation and in excessive numbers outside the key text of the site. While these keywords would link the website to the original search, the searcher would be disgruntled with the content of the website to which they had been sent. Search engines developed their systems and now relegate websites where this practice is detected. The use of false links to and from other websites was also used by unethical SEO companies to erroneously position websites on the first page of search results.

It can be assumed from the above that there is nothing to be gained for nearly all of those concerned with the web search process from Black Hat SEO. Only a small number website owners who only need a transient presence on the front page of a web search to realise their short-term objectives will benefit from Black Hat SEO. For the rest of those involved in the search process the incident will not be a good one. Searchers suffer irritation at the presence of websites on the first page of their search which do not match their search request. The search engine’s status of being able to provide pertinent websites is reduced. At the root of the problem is sometimes the SEO Company who uses the Black Hat methods, but as their methods produce only short-lived success, they will not be able to build up a loyal client base and will forever need to find new ones. This could prove difficult when they are unable to offer the permanent SEO results most firms need for their Online Marketing strategy.