SEM ( Search Engine Marketing) is said to be of two major types; they are Organic SEM and Sponsored SEM, although a lot of controversies and debates have trailed the classification. Millions of industry practitioners are positing that Search Engine Marketing an internet media optimization concept is of two version or types as the case may be. They classified the two versions as organic and sponsored search engine marketing(SEM). In fact, the posit that SEO(search Engine Optimization) is a version of search engine marketing, and that as a matter of fact that is what others term organic or natural SEM(search engine marketing) . However, this version controversy is not our main focus in this article. Our Main Focus in this article is to take an expository look at a new debate which wants to determine the ethical status of sponsored SEM.
As we said at the beginning, SEM (search engine marketing) which an internet media optimization tool is process that employs some special organic features to help in improving the quality of traffic or increasing the volume of traffic that goes to a web pages by increasing the visibility of some sites in search engine result pages through high ranking of such web pages among search engines. These features include paid placement, paid inclusion and contextual advertising. With its paid features search engine marketing (SEM) drives traffic to your site in a precise but global and target oriented way in which very clear and precise information on your products and services is brought to the immediate attention of a specifically targeted global audience. It also employs other features that help to offer an interactive media platform to web pages. The features include real metrics, content data, data impression and analytic software.
Based on its nature and the practices that support it, search engine marketing has been classified into organic and sponsored versions. The organic version is the version of SEM which employs natural means to drive traffic to web pages by ranking them high among top engine. Although not directly identified industry practitioners believe that organic version is SEO (search engine optimization). If indeed it is SEO, then the features are web page content, quality product article, link building, keyword imputation and the art of blog. However, our interest in this article is on sponsored SEM (search engine marketing).
Sponsored SEM employs unnatural features or paid features to drive traffic to web pages. Prominent among these paid features include paid placement and paid inclusion. These two features are based on either keyword bidding or pay per click models. Whatever be the operational model, the single fact is that the two attract charges. Some argue that because it is aimed making profit by search engines, it will not be based on quality of content for ranking, but rather on the amount paid for service. This will go a long way to compromise standard. In this sense, millions of web users classify this version of SEM as unethical. There is also the second argument that sponsored SEM by its nature does not create room for fair competition.