Twice in the past month I’ve had long conversations with clients about their concerns for the activities of certain competitors. Specifically, they were worried about the fact that some of the sites who are trying to compete in the same online space are engaging in some unscrupulous SEO and other marketing tactics, such as purchasing links and redirecting blind links from PPC campaigns.

These activities cause concern because I always preach the importance of ‘white-hat’ marketing tactics, with integrity being paramount. There are shortcuts that can be taken in order to potentially achieve favorable search engine rankings faster, and there is a degree of ‘success’ than can be had going this route. But the reality is that ‘black-hat’ SEO activities have a major downside. If you get caught – and the probability of getting caught is substantial – you run the risk of being blacklisted by Google and other search engines. Getting de-indexed is about the worst thing that can happen to your site if you are relying on search engine traffic as the main traffic source for your business.