The introduction of the Internet could be equated to the “wild west” at the turn of the century in many ways. From the inception of the Internet there were virtually no laws governing behavior and conduct. In the last ten years, society has worked towards making the Internet a more civilized place, but the governing standards are still being hotly debated. No where on the Internet is this true more than in the field of web site design, and search engine optimization. Establishing common standards for ethical search engine optimization will be important to keeping information relevant and useful to users while still being equitable and fair to those who create the content.

Until there is an ethical standard in place, SAMSA will abide by the following governing guidelines:

• We shall never intentionally violate search engine terms of service.
• We will never knowingly provide misleading information for website consumers.
• We will not use copyrighted material and claim it as our own
• We shall not knowingly break any laws.
• If work is performed on competing sites, both site owners will be informed
• We will not make false claims about our education, ability, or affiliations.
• We will protect the confidentiality of all agreements where no laws are being broken.
• We will do our best to obtain and keep higher rankings for our clients.

  While a long-winded discussion of ethics may not be necessary, we do feel it is necessary to inform our customers of our commitment to honesty and morality. We do our best to inform our customers of how a service is being performed without getting too in depth in technical details.