Before you can answer the question, “to spam or not to spam” you should know what “spam” is. Not the Alpo looking meatloaf, I’m talking about search engine spam, organic.
I’ve had calls where the question arose, what is search engine spam? Having developed and marketed an algorithmic search technology in 2000, I have always had an interest in the topic myself, personally. I’ve long felt that Google has done an exemplary job, for a long time. I remember telling my clients up in Alaska the first year of Google that they should give it a try for clean fast search results. I remember people asking me how to spell it. I introduced Google to hundreds of businesses in Alaska (back in the day).
I think I have it distilled down to this: If you are creating content for the purpose of ranking for keywords organically, you are likely spamming. Whereas if you are creating content for your consumers, fans, clients, prospects and community then you are likely not spamming. Pretty simple eh? The moral of the story is don’t throw crap up and hope it sticks in search, rather, do continually provide quality content and engagement with your audience online. Good content, developed for the best user experience is the easiest content to optimize naturally. The made for search content is more complicated to optimize to performance.
I am sure you will find this simple principle based strategy to be most sound for 2011 and well into the future.
Namaste,
Robert