Does Google consider SEO to be spam?

Matt Cutts answers the question: "Does Google consider SEO to be spam?"

New to SEO? Check out our SEO Starter Guide: http://www.google.com/webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guid...

Want advice on hiring an SEO? Here are some questions to ask: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35291

Have a question? Ask it in our Webmaster Help Forum: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters?hl=en

Want your question to be answered on a video like this? Follow us on Twitter and look for an announcement when we take new questions: http://twitter.com/googlewmc

More videos: http://www.youtube.com/GoogleWebmasterHelp
Webmaster Central Blog: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/
Webmaster Central: http://www.google.com/webmasters

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• google
• seo
• spam

[getlandersgetpaid]

@benacheson438 I could use a 'professional, white-hat agency' like you suggest, and they could 'optimize my pages for the best user experience'. I could then sit back and watch my competitor aggressively build a mixed link profile and completely dominate the top 5 results. I suppose it really is my choice...

[hariskrijestorac]

SEO in the digital marketplace is like market research in the non-digital marketplace. If you want to open a shop, you should research what neighborhood to be it in, what to call it, what you should stock there, what your expenses would be. It's pretty analogous to what people do with paid search and SEO. What keywords should I target, which ones are working well, which ones should I pay to rank for, what sites should I get links from?

[MrCheapseo]

Spam is spam...seo is not, at least if done properly is not. Seo tools are built with the ability to spam but that does not mean you have to do it. I regularly use Scrapebox to find high quality links and a few of these are worth thousands of weak low quality automated links that probably never get indexed anyway.

[boldendeavoursgr]

We dominate our market sector by doing exactly what this video describes. By dominate I mean we have the first 15 positions on the highest volume key phrase, and the first 10 positions on the second highest. We have position 1 to 6 on many more key phrases.

We achieved this with white hat SEO - great site architecture, regularly updated unique content and high level relevant incoming links from well written articles that we post on good sites around the net. And no expensive PPC.

[scioccona]

@Gimped88 I wish to be proven wrong! Give me a one or two word keyword that gets 10000 exact match monthly searches or more that supports your point and refutes mine, please.

[jyotibrpt]

Many links good for site and ranking as u said but I am building lot of links but still my keyword is not ranking..can you please tell me what would be the problem..

[Gimped88]

@Emperoni not true man, I have been doing SEO for 5 years now and been a webmaster for the same, now i know for a fact that a million inbound links are not going to do anything for you, if anything will only hurt you. Now what you really need is a decent amount of solid RELEVANT links not a million random shitty end of the stick links.

[awoai]

It's pretty basic what he is saying. If you are honest and work had and know exactly what you are doing you can dominate the searches in your industry. There are thousands of techniques you need to employ on a consistent basis to adequately compete. We have ben doing this for over two decades and are experts in the field. visit us at awoa.com

[DigitalMazeLtd]

Matt mentionss keywords and a good SEO can find the ones that matter, what he didnt mention is that everyone with a google account and is logged in, now searches over an SSL conection, which means we cant track keywords and search habbit. Even though Google say this is only effecting 3% of all searches, one has to ask, yeh that may be now but in a few years then what? Google make it a ball ache to provide white hat methods, no wonder people will bend or break SEO rules.