Lately, we’ve heard a lot about the need for search marketing standards. Most people that I’ve encountered are overwhelmingly supportive of such a move.

Not Jill Whalen, however. Over at Search Engine Land, she provides her four reasons as to why we shouldn’t go that direction. Her reasons: there’s no “one size fits all” solution to SEO, the definition of “SEO” is not agreed upon entirely by the community, laws already exist that protect consumers from SEO scams, and there’s no such thing as “cheating” in SEO.

At High Rankings Forum, people are largely supportive of Jill this time around. One even puts it this way: “standardizing SEO is like standardizing art.”

But Ian McAnerin, who spoke at the Search Marketing Standards session I liveblogged during SMX West, disagrees with her. His blog post addresses this (note: there are two parts) and he feels that the standards are more for the public’s understanding of SEO, not for SEOs themselves.

In the end, it may be two different discussions entirely. We may need to standardize this debate. 😉

Forum discussion continues at High Rankings Forum.