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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.
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