Maintaining Internet Integrity

We all want maximum results when hiring an organization to implement an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) plan for our company website. If you have done any amount of research on the subject, the term cloaking has probably come up as a viable part of an internet marketing campaign. The question is whether this is an ethical way of getting search engines to recognize your website. Cloaking is a means by which some “experts” attempt to deceive search engines into directing traffic to your site. Metamend, among other reputable SEO companies, have never and will never employ deceptive strategies to increase rankings.

Since users end up on your website under false pretenses, they are not as likely to remain there once they realize that your site is not what they were searching for. Thus traffic, just for the sake of traffic, will not help in increasing sales. As soon as people realize that your site is not what they need, most simply move on. Most of us have encountered situations where we were searching for perhaps a local “seafood restaurant” and then were directed to a “hair care products” company. It’s also important to understand that search engines consider cloaking to be a misleading form of advertising and do have anti-cloaking measures to prevent this type of activity. It may be possible to “get away” with cloaking for a short time however, in the end, they will be found out and any short-term gains will quickly dissolve. Once search engines ban your site by placing it on their list of span sites, trying to repair your reputation with them is extremely difficult.

There is simply no substitute for doing it right and maintaining your company’s integrity. Making sure your website has been professionally optimized and contains quality content is the best way to attract people that are more likely to become long-standing customers. Employing methods that are honest and upfront will stand the test of time and in fact requires less time and energy to employ and maintain than do those that attempt to deceive search engines and the public.