Perhaps Google and the others should put a bit more weight on what humans vote for?

I’ve noticed over the last few months Google ranking social media pages very high considering the age of the page and the number of incoming links.

If it works over time and the client makes money then good. If it doesn’t then it’s bad.

One day there will be a search engine that gains massive market share through a user voting system. You get paid to vote on search result relevance.

It’s not about ethics, it’s about science. Google is not a God, it’s a business.

If people can find advantage in dealing with that business then more power to them.

Google is not the Internet. Google is not a law. Google is not morality.

my point was – people are too worried about the “hats” that they tend to forget the users, who are the real receivers of your information.

You are correct in that people new to SEO are young – but you also forget that some are seasoned.

”

why all the colored hats :)

It’s all about the users!

While many points are valid – let’s not forget the main reason for having a “legit” website. It’s just all strategy, and whether ethical or not – that’s just business.”

That’s what you wrote. Nothing about relative. You wrote that is about the users and also wrote their are no hats. In other words, you say it does not matter if you cheat or not cheat as long as you think of your users. You also state that it’s just strategy, whether ethical or not.. it’s just business.

I’m only replying to what you actually wrote. If that is not what you wrote, I’d like to know what parts I missed. :-)

I believe it’s a known majority of the industry being below the age of 30. Am I wrong about that? If not, I think it surely does explain many things. Many are just out of school and even still in high school. Many have not had a what I call a real job. These are the facts. Do you think a college kid knows business just from going to college? I think people are being taught very wrong in this industry. They read SEO blogs and attend these conferences that teach how to spam and get away with it, and how to trick others into voting up your stuff, and how to create many user accounts at digg to deceive the users, etc., and how to obtain links by creating fake content in order to deceive se’s, readers, news media, and anyone else who cares.

I have missed some things, but I think that gives people a good picture of the state of things. :-)