SEO Frogs? Are you serious?

Let's face it a minute... If I told you your website would perform better in the search engine rankings, if only you included more pictures of frogs, you'd laugh because it's such a patently absurd recommendation, unless of course your site is about frogs.

So why would you listen to Search Engine Optimizers who recommend tactics which break Google's Quality Guidelines?

The point is that most webmasters will accept SEO advice even if it is bizarre

But how can you, as a layperson, even begin to make the distinction between good and bad SEO advice when you have no idea if the proposed optimization work to your website is likely to constitute a spam technique according to Google and the other major search providers out there? Although there are of course no 100% sure-fire ways to tell a snake-oil selling SEO from an ethical optimizer, there are a couple of good indicators which normally give away the shady operators within this market sector.

1. Proclaiming to have a 'special relationship' with Google
   Any Search Engine Optimizer claiming to have a special arrangement with Google should be treated with extreme caution, simply because Google just doesn't do it... at all... with anyone.
2. A reluctance to talk about his or her optimization methods
   As a rule, the more secretive an SEO is about the techniques he or she proposes to employ in your website's promotion, the more these are likely to actually break the Webmaster Guidelines.

So, if anyone tells you they know how to fool Google, tell them you'd rather have more pictures of frogs.