This might sound really dumb but whats SEO?

SEO is search engine optimization. It's all of the techniques that are used to get good rankings on search engines. There is ethical SEO and then there is unethical SEO. Ethical SEO is doing everything you can to make it easy on the search spiders. When spiders have an easy time spidering your site and indexing the content, they'll crawl deeper and be more likely to rank your site higher. Ethical SEO tips and techniques are most often common sense: good page titles and meta tags, no & and ? characters in URLs, clear / easy text-based navigation that is not more than 3-4 levels deep, content-rich text-based sites with as little Flash/JavaScript/DHTML as possible, optimized HTML/XHTML code that conforms to the proper standards, etc. etc. etc.

Unethical SEO is stems from what you, yourself, said: The more popular your site is, the higher ranked you would be (based on backlinks, etc). Unethical SEO (or rather borderline black hat SEO) can include artificially increasing this "popularity" (aka Google PR) value by buying links on other sites, etc.

This is what I really think of, when I think SEO. Services like SEOGuy do this, right?

I don't know how they can justify this practice... I guess profit helps :evil:

Yes, most SEO companies do act as link brokers, in addition to all of the other SEO techniques (those mentioned above as well as many others). Personally, I think that link building isn't unethical. A good link building campaign can be in the form of the DaniWeb Link Directory, for example. In addition, I think it's okay to pay for high quality, relevant, targeted text links on other sites - it's just a form of advertising (not unlike banners) that has some added search engine benefit as well. It's when people buy mass amounts of completely untargeted, cheap, sleezy links just for SEO benefit - that's where it begins to cross the line. Then of course you get into all of the other black hat SEO techniques ... cloaking (showing googlebot and other spiders one version of a page while showing other surfers a different version), hidden text, doorway pages, duplicate content, artificially generated traffic, artificially generated content, etc.

It really is a shame when people like you, who aren't well-educated in SEO, attach it to only the sleezy, black hat techniques. That really isn't what SEO is about at all. Basically, we need to educate the public about what SEO really is.

Just to add, if SEO was really not on the up-and-up, Google wouldn't have created a page recommending that webmasters learn SEO techniques and even consider hiring a search engine optimizer / SEO consultant! Check it out ... http://www.google.com/webmasters/seo.html

In fact, straight off the Google site:

Many SEOs provide useful services for website owners, from writing copy to giving advice on site architecture and helping to find relevant directories to which a site can be submitted. However, there are a few unethical SEOs who have given the industry a black eye through their overly aggressive marketing efforts and their attempts to unfairly manipulate search engine results.

Sound familiar to what I had to say above, doesn't it?

I'm not sure whether SEO is unethical or not, to be honest.... the desire to appear within the top listings is fair enough... attempting to ensure that your site is their is only natural. If this requires optimisation, then fine.

What I beleive to be unethical is the methods by which some/most/all the SE work.

The rating of a site based upon content -- this is good, fair and sensible!
The rating of a site when it utilises graphics, a facy menu (non-txt-flash/js/j), has many levels, contains video, audio, flash files, uses tables for layout, doesn't contain <HD> tages, has a frontwelcome/home page with little content... not good, unfair and completely pout of date!

If I make a WS that is simply made of sole html, with no graphics, tons of bland txt, use bland txt links, has a huge <HD1> tage for the page title, a <HD2> for Section titles and <HD3> tags for sub-section titles, I place the words from my hdr, page/section/subsection titles as keywords and phrases... I can almost gaurentee being in the top three on almost all SE.
THATS NOT WEB DESIGN.

Yet thats the best way to get to the top without paying for it!

mentioning paying... now, depending on what you pay for raises ethics!
Some literally optimise your site... better Kwords+phrases, ensuring proper structure etc. This is good.
Placing links onlink indexes solely created of SEO, placing ads everywhere, this is not good!

(incase you haven't guessed, I'm not impressed with how SE perform the decision making process based on content and design... if you have a affect based site or one that utilses strong coding or graphics, you get shafted!)

SEO is anything but unethical, it's a talent that should be taken seriously.

I agree that there are unethical ways to do SEO... and people who are new may fall into those ways only out of lack of knowledge and experience. Now the unethical question really falls onto the person doing the SEO. And to be honest, from what I have found any truly unethical practices will get your site band from search engines... which is comparable to death by stoning!

So, to answer the question. SEO is not unethical, people are!

so you don't think the way the SE operate or grade sites is outdated or biased towards certain styles of design?
You think it's perfectly fair that a media based site should be penailised for having a media welcome rather than a txt welcome? That sites that fall outside the standard categories should suffer? That sites that use strong coding are automatically less important than those coded with txt links?

yep, thats obviously fair and ethical.
So's the fact that those who own the SE are able to charge and place those that pay above others....

"money makes money, no money makes little or less!"

No I don't... with both google and MSN coming out with new engines this year I think that search engines are bringing up better results, based on things that are well known... like content!

Persoanly I think "welcome" or "enter" pages are outdated, I want information when I go to a site, not a pretty image, or media with a little 'skip intro' button... and generally the design is really bad.
I think that category selection is very important, and most time overlooked. However I do think that the categories are in need of an update.
Strong coding vs. Text links - first off, not sure what you consider strong coding... but it would include text links, that are relevant to the site. There is nothing unethical about placing a few relevant text links on a website to gain PR... becoming a link farm is unethical, and will most times get you banned! SEO is not the problem, the people using unethical practices are.

Fair - in accordance with standards.
Ethical - conforming to accepted principles of right and wrong.
If you do SEO right you are both fair and ethical... saying the entire thing is unethical just seems like you don't understand how to optimize your site.

Businesses are in business for ONE REASON... to make a profit. If someone is willing to pay to get a top spot let them... I have number one rankings for things based on content, and my optimization... not paying for it. Don't get upset at the SE because they run a good business.

I come back at you like this only for the sake of debate. If you can prove your case to me than I might change my mind, but I doubt it.