3 Popular Ways of Unethical Online Advertising

Unethical Online Advertising uses the ways that are against the rules and guidelines of advertising on the internet. Though cases of blatant violations hardly exist anymore as the repercussions are fast and defining, Unethical Online Advertising still thrives on the lapses that prevail. For example, yes, if links are caught being dumped at every other site, you are in for trouble, but if they are created in a manner that can escape the scrutiny of the search engines, it might get the job done without any objections. However, this doesn’t change the fact that Link Spamming is essentially an unethical practice. 3 of the popular ways by which the Black Hats advertise their sites are listed below.

Link Spamming

Link Spamming never seems to go out of fashion. “Don’t have enough content? Build links to the intended web pages, wherever you can” seems to be the battle cry of desperate SEO's. Although the use of unnatural means (bots, programs, etc.) have largely vanished as they are easily caught in the nets laid by the search engines, manual spamming still happens on a large scale. The trick employed is to build links in numbers just below the ones which would set the alarms off. This is a highly risky behavior and should be avoided. With the complacency, of those building links unnaturally, having been recently and famously crushed, manual Link Spamming is also a disaster waiting to happen. Focus on the appropriateness of the link and not its numbers.

Google Bowling

Google Bowling has recently become very popular. So Black Hats saw Google punishing sites with unnatural links. What strategy do they go ahead and build? Build unnatural links for your competitors! Then you just have to wait for Google to do its job. One of the immediate risks that are being taken is that if Google does not detect the spammed links, you might just push your competitor far ahead of you.

Guest Blogging Spam

Guest Blogging and Article Posting is a wonderful way of advertising your site and increasing web presence. But the perpetrators of the unethical means, suffering from a need to overdo everything, calculated that more blogs lead to higher rankings, thereby giving birth to the term, Guest Blogging Spam. Most posting sites, apprehending backlashes (and correctly so!), increased the strictness of reviewing the postings.

The Dangers of Unethical Online Advertising are many and with intensities that can destroy the reputation of the website forever. It is not only smart but absolutely necessary to stick to the ways of Online Advertising Agencies with “haloed heads”.

The Dangers of Unethical Online Advertising

In a medium as fast as Online Advertising, getting results in a short time always seems to be a good idea. But the question, which is often forgotten in the rush, is “What techniques am I using to power my race to the successful results?” The crazy competition in the online markets and higher managements, that very often do not understand the natty-gritty of Online Advertising, turn a blind eye to the pitfalls that wait in the path of Unethical Online Advertising. The results are performance graphs of fast rises followed by faster falls.

In order to avoid a decay that is faster than the blooming, let us start with the first fact of modern Online Advertising: “It is a conversation between the brand and the consumer and not a one way announcement”. The platform of Online Advertising has snatched away the trumpet from the advertisers and replaced it with a communication device. The priorities have changed and it no longer works just to shout, “I am the best” with the highest volume (well, everybody says that, so what’s new about it?). The focus is to make the consumers and users say, “You are the best”. Creating a strong brand value has become a top agenda for Online Advertising Agencies. The way to do it is Online Reputation Management. Unethical Online Advertising techniques, when discovered, not only lead to penalties by the search engines but also lead to the Online Reputation of the brand taking a hit. Google had made its intentions amply clear when it introduced search results based on preferences. There was a distinct leaning towards intention based search results rather than simple keyword based results. Brands which carried on with unethical practices were soon penalized. A recent case, where a top brand was penalized with lowering of ranks for Unnatural Link Building showed that, no matter how big your brand is, following unnatural means to attain quick success will land you in an uncomfortable spot. The discomfort of the spot can be measured with the percentage by which the shares of the brand drop once the unethical means are discovered.

The undesirable effects of Unethical Online Advertising prove that the saying, “Slow and steady wins the race” holds true even for a medium characterized by the speed at which it functions. The Top Online Advertising Agencies unanimously agree that it is better to wait for some time before the results start showing than taking the quick path littered with the risks of unethical means. The question is, “Are the brands ready to show that patience?”