Last week, we covered how Google banned the agency who implemented certain tactics that are against Google's webmaster guidelines. Although, as we pointed out later, this is not the first time Google took this route, it is the first time they did so in this nature.
A perceived white hat SEO agency, does link building and offers money for links for their clients. The SEO agency is outed and shortly later, Google bans the agency, their affiliates and maybe some of their clients.
Is it right for Google to take action on the SEO agency assuming the agency did not use those same tactics on their own site. Again, lets pretend (although I don't know if it is true) that this agency did not buy a single link for their own web site - they only did it for clients - should Google penalize the agency for the tactics they deploy on their client sites?
Some may argue it depends on if the SEO agency was transparent about the risks to their clients. Some may say, it doesn't matter - the agency did it, they should be insistant about not using techniques outside of Google's guidelines. Some people just don't care.
Take my poll:
Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help & WebmasterWorld.
Image credit to ShutterStock for keyboard grenade
