The Search Engine Optimization chapter of the Social Media Handbook discusses some of the practices used in SEO that try to cheat the system and fool the search engines in order to drive more traffic to a site or increase the sites's visibility.

According to the book, "Wiki Brands", SEO is a $16-billion industry in the U.S. and is predicted to be the third highest online expenditure, after social media and online video. The book says, "Keyword ownership, optimized website architecture, new content and link building are the success drivers of effective search engine optimization."

But how do you know the person you hire to help you with SEO will do a good job, using legitimate SEO methods? Should the SEO industry to regulated.

It seems to me that the industry is too new and changing too fast to be governed by any meaningful regulation. Just as anyone can call themselves a "social media expert", it probably is easy for someone to set up shop as a SEO consultant. Because so-called "black hat" tactics are seen as unethical, but not really illegal, it would be hard to police regulations or guidelines.

Google does take action to penalize companies for using "black hat SEO".

For example, in February, the New York Times reported on "black hat" SEO tactics used to keep J.C. Penney at the top of the list throughout the holiday season. "Someone paid to have thousands of links placed on hundreds of sites scattered around the Web, all of which lead directly to JCPenney.com." , the article reported. ("The Dirty Little Secrets of Search", http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/business/13search.html?pagewanted=1&_r=3&src=buslness) J.C. Penney fired its SEO consultant, SearchDex, and Google took action to "demote" JC Penney so that it would show up lower on the search engine rankings.

A number of problems plague the SEO industry. The companies that use "black hat" tactics may get better results, at least in the short term, so they attract businesses away from the "white hat" consultants. There are SEO associations that try to encourage the industry to follow ethical standards but the associations don't really offer a lot of benefits to their members, according to the Search Engine Optimization Journal. "Growing a good, white hat SEO company almost isn’t worth the effort when a quick $50 can be made with a little link buying. Industry associations create cliques that don’t play well with each other and don’t provide any real value to the members. Before the SEO industry can really rebuild its reputation, it has plenty of internal cleanups to take care of." ("Major Issues Within the SEO Industry" http://www.searchengineoptimizationjournal.com/2011/06/02/issues-seo-industry/)