The Wonga catastrophe is an object lesson in the risks you run if you contract out your website marketing to a search engine optimising company.

To recap the details of the scandal for those who have forgotten the details of missed it: Wonga, the payday loans company, was caught out marketing its product to students - a group of people well known for not having much cash, being naive about managing what little they do have and likely to be tempted when offered easy money for hedonistic purchases such as a night out, a holiday at short notice or the latest electronic gadget.

The copy on the Wonga website burbled on merrily that a payday loan (APR in the many thousands of percent) could be advantageous compared with borrowing from the student loan company (APR 1.5 per cent) and even invited parents to consider a Wonga loan a good deal.

Now I've tried to take an even-handed view of the payday loan market.

Even though I know they have brought untold misery to those who have misused these loans and rolled them over at horrendous rates of interest, I have listened patiently to the arguments from the lenders that these loans can be handy for people who literally need a loan for a few days, when their rates can work out cheaper than a bank overdraft.

I have taken on board that it's better to borrow from a regulated lender with a consumer credit licence whatever the massive rate of interest than a loan shark who will break your legs if you miss a repayment.

However this cynical marketing to students is beyond the pale. There is no way that a student would be paying back a payday loan in a matter of days. A loan of this nature to someone who has exhausted their income stream and won't be seeing a top up for some time is a route to a cycle of debt and despair.

So where does SEO come into this? Wonga tried to fend off the not-unnatural storm of outrage at its marketing ploy by saying the student loans page wasn't really aimed at students but was an "old" page put on its website to attract bots to get it to the top of internet

search results. Ah, so they mean that they operate like the sites that use "black hat" techniques using all sorts of underhand methods distasteful search terms to get people looking for something else to find their site " by mistake"? Perhaps using the student page doesn't use black hat techniques literally but Wonga seemed to be saying the motive was the same.

You have to wonder who wrote the copy, who commissioned it and who signed it off. Who thought it was OK to use students as search bait even if it wasn't intended for students to take out payday loans?

Either Wonga should be urgently reviewing its marketing and publicly firing its website contractors because Wonga's management had been deceived about what was going on and the SEO work has left what's left of its reputation in tatters.

Or it really is a nastier company than it has led us to believe and it is time to stop giving payday lenders the benefit of the doubt.