Digital marketing's naughty steps

by Marketing Direct staff, marketingdirectmag.co.uk 28-May-09, 12:29

Some digital marketing practices are unethical and can cause more problems than they solve

1. Black hat practices
Black hat (as opposed to white hat) practices are those that make a website seem something that it's not, in order to attract more visitors.

- They could result in a site being blocked by a search engine.

- Also known as spamdexing, black hat practices can take the form of content or link spam. Content spam includes keyword stuffing, or hiding text by making it the same colour as the background. Link spam can involve hiding links from users while making them visible to search engines, or placing comments on blogs with links to a website.

2. Click fraud
Click fraud is when a person or computer program clicks on an ad solely to generate a charge.
- A competitor might click on your ads to up your costs, while a publisher might click on its own links to generate income.
- Business Week described it as the 'biggest threat to the internet's advertising goldmine'.
- Click fraud can be a problem on any service that offers a pay-per-click remuneration model.
- Search engines in theory have an incentive to tolerate the fraud. But Google has taken people to court for it.

3. Astroturfing
Astroturfing is creating the impression of spontaneous reaction to a product, service or event, by posting comments on blogs and other public venues. The aim is to disguise the efforts as independent reaction.
- It is a form of propaganda and aims to stop unsatisfied customers posting comments online.
- The EU cracked down on the practice with its Unfair Commercial Practices Directive. Firms will no longer be able to post false or misleading blogs or reviews.
- Unauthentic blogs can severely undermine trust in a brand.