Why Whitehats Need to Know Blackhat SEO
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My experiment sites are currently pending analysis, so I thought I’d stick in a more general article today. As I consider myself something of the black sheep or somewhat estranged cousin of the mainstream SEO industry(understandably), I figured it would be a good idea to put this out there.
Whitehat SEO, while not at a standstill, is certainly feeling a pinch from Google lately. Penalties are being handed out to sites much like a fratboy would cups of beer to the only attractive girl at the party. And yet many still refuse to learn anything remotely blackhat. I understand that they don’t want to implement the tactics specifically that I talk about, but there’s a lot more to it, and a lot that can be learned. So without further delay….
Some Great Reasons that a Whitehat SEO should Learn Blackhat SEO
- Blackhat SEO can be used as a Mindset, not Necessarily a Set of Tactics
Blackhat SEO, in my opinion, is thinking outside the box in your internet promotions, regardless of Google’s thoughts. Are they frowned upon? Yeah. They are. But thinking of tactics that are against Google’s TOS take only a little bit of tweaking to become a truly killer tactic.
Take a look at this thread from experts-exchange. It looks like all the answers can’t be seen, correct? But then scroll wayyy to the bottom. Past the “Sign up today”, past the menu. And there are the answers. Here’s reality people: That is a tiny modification on cloaking. And yet it (apparently) is within Google’s terms of service. How Much do you think that increased their sales, and how many longtail hits do you think they get a day from the data that’s towards the bottom? I’ll give you a hint. The number probably has a lot of zeros on the end of it. - You Shouldn’t Forget About Us, because We Won’t Forget about You
Just because you ignore blackhat SEO doesn’t mean we’re ignoring you. While I like to piss off as few people as possible during my SEO adventures, many don’t have that scruple. As soon as you release a tool, be aware that people are going to look for a way to mess with that. I’ve actually seen people successfully create sitelinks that link to a competitor’s product plug without doing anything illegal or editing a single file. - Blackhat SEO Learns Search Engine Rules Insanely Fast
Ok. Blackhat sites are typically a hyperbole of whitehat sites. Everything is more. More speed, more pages. Extremely good, or extremely bad links. Identical anchor text, or purposefully randomized anchor text. Many internal links, or none at all. And you control these variables. It’s truly incredible for research, and finds the “breaking points” much faster than most whitehat sites. If you don’t want to do it yourself, just listening to what people have to say is an incredible learning tool. - Like it or Not, We’re Ranking
You’re going to want to know and understand what a competitor is doing. Many people quite frankly suck at spotting even the most basic of tricks. Thought obviously I won’t advise you report anyone, it’s still good to know what you’re up against. - Tired of Paying for Backlinks? Find the fresh ‘n free ones.
Remember when the concept of do-follow flickr links still existed and worked? If that time period was only a week long, it’s because you weren’t watching blackhats closely enough. I’m constantly amazed when I examine heavily spammed search engine result(think viagra, phentermine) the number of authority links that exist, and where they came from. I’m not talking about the illegal hacking ones either. In many cases, they’re not even blackhat necesarilly, and they’re free for the taking. - Learn What you Can Get Away With
Ever seen an obviously blackhat site ranking for a long period of time, and wondered “Why the hell is that still ranking?”. Well, if it’s been their for awhile chances are that for whatever reason Google’s autodetection schemes haven’t figured out how to nail it yet. I wouldn’t advise using their exact strategy in case things go awry, but water it down a bit and you may just have yourself a winning strategy. As always though when trodding the gray line, a new, non-client site is a good move. - Mangoes.
Yes, just a brief entry today. I’ll cook something new up as soon as inspiration strikes.
-XMCP
April 30th, 2008 at 10:59 am
To counter point 7: Papayas.
April 30th, 2008 at 11:01 am
I love mangoes.
April 30th, 2008 at 11:15 am
agreed, mangoes are definitely the shit
April 30th, 2008 at 11:20 am
Acai bitches.
April 30th, 2008 at 11:38 am
Mangoes? Kiwi, ftw.
#4 is the best. People need to realize that. LOL.
April 30th, 2008 at 11:45 am
fuckin shit all the times I’ve been to EE.com I never realized that the answers were at the bottom.
April 30th, 2008 at 11:57 am
I prefer Tomatoes the world most underrated Fruit!
April 30th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
EE.com are some shady little bitches, in general.
For a little bit they were using javascript to cloak even that content at the bottom of the page with ROT13 (so, you shift a letter 13 places) or something similar.
April 30th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
you got a full rss feed? the partial feed is crap.
April 30th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
heh @everyone: Mangos ftw. It’s the way it’s got to be.
@quadszilla: I’ve been considering it, but I like to have my traffic statictics somewhat intact. I may be making the change soon as I get around to dropping tracking pixels or something. Right now I use my referrers from feedreaders to gauge how much the audience liked the post, so it’s not just to be annoying or anything
April 30th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
Wait - I heard PIE was better than Mangoes…..
April 30th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
[…] is wrong you say, well this is what I say, read this post by Slightly Shady Seo, titled Why Whitehats need to know Blackhat SEO that should explain a […]
April 30th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
Shhhhh.
They ignore blackhat because they don’t want to put the time in to learn the technical shit, or they’re just kinda dumb.
and i second the full feed.
April 30th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Finding your blog more and more useful. Good stuff here. Keep it coming.
Brent D. Payne
SEO Specialist
April 30th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Mangoes are definitely where it’s at, except when you get down near the pit and they get all stringy. Searching for the spammiest crap gives you a good indication of what G is looking for.
April 30th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
Some of us don’t have enough braincells therefore are mentally incapable of comprehending the shit you crazy cats get up to..
Thats why you employ people that are smarter than yourself
April 30th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
a) Great post (another one) - I definitely agree that there is particular value in approaching and testing SEO with a blackhat mindset.
b) Pineapple.
April 30th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
The posts are at the bottom of the experts exchange pages? Unfreakin believable, I did not know that!
The importance of black hat for the white hats is that you’re only white hat if you know where the line is - and the line is moving these days. I like to at least have a rough idea of what’s going on in Shady’s world just so I know what’s going on.
And just as importantly, if I ever get hammered, beaten, googlebowled, or exploited in the serps I’ll hopefully know what’s going on and how to fix it.
In the security world the experts follow what the hackers are doing, they don’t stay blind to it. It’s the same concept (though I disagree with extending that comparison to ethics of the practices).
I do want to personally thank Shady for providing us this kind of information.
April 30th, 2008 at 9:32 pm
Personally I like brownhat SEO - thats when you compliemnent people to get links. BTW your site is XLent!
May 1st, 2008 at 12:23 am
[…] Whitehats Need to Know Blackhat SEO great post by XMCP: Why Whitehats Need to Know Blackhat SEO : Slightly Shady SEO spot on… it’s kinda funny, but when this board started I invited a few whitehats here, but they […]
May 1st, 2008 at 6:53 am
Wait. Where is my pie?
May 1st, 2008 at 8:40 am
Kick ASS. You make me want to go out and start S C R A P I N G!!! Scrape and bake baby…
May 1st, 2008 at 12:02 pm
If you ever wonder why a spamy site still ranks… it is because their human reviewers have not got to it.
I don’t know what white hat is anymore. One of my clients sites dropped to page 10 after almost breaking the first page and everyhting I did was 100% white hat.
Natural link building, no link farms, no spamy directories, varied anchor text, no keyword stuffing, good internal linking, yet BAM no explanation.
I am starting to think it might be time to join the black hats. Definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result. Google is making me go crazy.
May 1st, 2008 at 1:30 pm
That link to experts exchange was cool man. I bet they are making a killer on that huh? I wonder how they did it though?
May 1st, 2008 at 1:36 pm
I can eat mangos, papayas and something else… for a backlink from SSSeo.com
May 1st, 2008 at 2:23 pm
Sorry slightly; but this post is total bullocks. Total BS.
That expert-exchange? What’s blackhat about that? Nothing at all. Google would have zero reason to penalize it. None.
Just because a site is using blackhat and ranking now does not mean it continues on and on to do the same. My goodness; are all the sheep in this industry really and truly sheep? I think so folks.
This is the entire problem this industry has in a nutshell. Things are just dandy because they are working at the time. Blackhat is fine because it’s working right now.
How truly ridiculous is that?
And this gem of a statement:
“Whitehat SEO, while not at a standstill, is certainly feeling a pinch from Google lately. Penalties are being handed out to sites much like a fratboy would cups of beer to the only attractive girl at the party. And yet many still refuse to learn anything remotely blackhat.”
Yeah, yeah; show me ONE website who has been penalized… and an obvious penalty that is totally whitehat. Please show me.
The SEO industry is the biggest farce going right now. I’m embarrassed to be a part of it in any way. Totally embarrassed. I probably get out of it as things are getting worse and worse as far as information goes.
It’s all about how to trick the search engines, and how to get away with tricking the search engines.
Why don’t you all tell the home builder industry they are doing things all wrong then? I don’t see homebuilders telling owners all the ways to trick the building code department in each industry in order to gain an advantage.
May 1st, 2008 at 2:39 pm
Doug: This is yet another case where you really should read everything before going into an evangelical rant.
There IS nothing wrong with experts-exchange, and that was the ENTIRE point of me bringing it up. It’s a slight modification on a blackhat technique. It’s CLOSE to cloaking, but it’s NOT and within TOS. And that’s what I’m saying whitehats can do. Take blackhat techniques, and alter them to fit whitehat uses.
And although your definition of “whitehat” is a bit out there compared to most people’s, here’s your example of a whitehat site that got penalized.
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/widgetbait-gone-wild
Of course if you consider linkbuilding blackhat, then I suppose that would be too. But then again, if you consider linkbuilding blackhat, I pity your clients.
SEO IS how to get a site to rank higher. Optimizing it for spiders is the largest part, but there are other dimensions to it. Like…Link building!
May 1st, 2008 at 3:16 pm
HUH? YOu actually believe that tactic that was talked about on the seomoz site is whitehat? You totally must be joking, right? That’s total blackhat through and through. Not only blackhat, but that Matt person tried to deceive Google and Matt Cutts further by NOT disclosing all the information. Google had to find it out and that is exactly why they were penalized. That and because using a widget to get a bunch of outgoing links to NON-relevant sites posted on many other websites is truly blackhat.
My goodness. I think people are losing their collective minds. Let me tell you something; we discussed that exact same article on that moz site at my forums. EVERYone said it was blackhat. Everyone. Why? Because it was. Period.
Now to this:
“SEO IS how to get a site to rank higher. Optimizing it for spiders is the largest part, but there are other dimensions to it. Like…Link building!”
Huh again? You must be clearly joking again. SEO is NOT only about a rank or links. Period.
This is what I’m talking about. The SEO industry is in a bad state. There is next to nothing as far as good education out there. Nothing at all.
And members of that silly sphinn.com site vote up stuff like this? LOL What is the definition of sheep?
I can tell you this; I’m not a sheep. Don’t try to spin and snowball me and others like me. You have to remember that not only the sheep people are reading this stuff. You have to understand that SEO types who have been around the block a time to two or three are also reading this stuff. Some even will go as far as to criticize things….. a shocker, I know. Seeing that almost no one in this industry has the balls to do any kind of good education or criticism, I feel the dire need to do so.
May 1st, 2008 at 3:30 pm
That’s blackhat through and through? Telling people what it does, so they can make a DECISION about linking to the site (aka if they want to “vote” for it) is blackhat? My goodness then. I must be so blackhat I should change my name to Vlad and move to Russia.
And I’m sorry, but your forums are your own little microcosm of the SEO world, and of course they’re going to agree with you. They have the some odd definitions of whitehat/blackhat. That trick was grayhat at best I’d say.
I know SEO isn’t about JUST links and ranking. But those are major components of it. At know point did I say “only” as you seem to be insinuating.
And I find it equally odd that you call people voting something up that is not typical SEO, that is straying from the rules set forth by the big G as being a “sheep”. From my mindset Doug, whitehat is much more “sheep”ish. Blindly obeying rules set forth by Google, without question.
And Doug, I think we both know from my brief career at your forums that I have no problem being criticized, and will almost always respond as best I can.
It’s kind of odd though. You guys have an entire section of your forum dedicated to calling out “spammers” or whatever. If you saw no value in at least knowing blackhat techniques(this post), it seems like that section of the forum wouldn’t exist. Because if you can’t recognize the techniques, you certainly can’t call them out.
May 1st, 2008 at 4:52 pm
Recognizing a blackhat technique is easy stuff shady; you simply read and know what the se guidelines tell you is blackhat and then use your God given common sense. Anyone can tell what the heck blackhat is and is not. It’s what the se’s say it is. period.
you wrote:
“Blindly obeying rules set forth by Google, without question.”
Well gee; last I checked, all SEO’s and webmasters and site owners better abide by those guidelines or they run the risk of a banning or penalty. Telling people and teaching people otherwise is just not a good thing, but it seems this runs smock within the SEO blogoshere now.
So yeah, my forums do have that best practices forum and do out spammers as well. And why yes; it certainly is easy to know blackhat when you see it. And believe me shady; that tactic discussed at that seomoz link you posted was PURE blackhat. Not gray. All black. Period. Google flat out stated it was blackhat and penalized the site because of it. If you go about your business trying your best to trick the se’s, you are indeed a blackhat and are using blackhat techniques.
Why do I feel like I’m trying to teach SEO101 all over again?
May 1st, 2008 at 5:20 pm
@Doug; You saying that recognizing them is easy should be a huge indicator as to how many you’re missing. Good blackhat looks like whitehat.
And yes, god forbid knowlege should pass on how to get around the rules. Let’s all have a blog burning, right? It’s because Google is gradually restricting more and more that previously was either overlooked or allowed.
Don’t believe me?
“Widgets that are distributed with a link back to the site that created the widget are fine,” it says. “However, going a step further and selling links to third parties is against our quality guidelines. Sites that employ or distribute such widgets may risk losing rankings.”
-Google Rep talking to The Guardian
So what can I say Doug. It appears your version of whitehat is so restrictive that you’re harsher than Google itself[says it is]. Damn.
May 1st, 2008 at 5:51 pm
I didn’t say that. At least don’t think I did. That article clearly stated it not only was linking back to the originator of the widget, which is soooo damn fine IMO, but it also stated it inserted other outgoing links into the code that had nothing to do with the originating site. That’s blackhat. Pure blackhat. It’s not gray and never has been gray or whitehat.
Anyway; I may come across as harsh, but it gets very, very frustrating being really the only one who reads SEO blogs and then criticizes them for wrong information. I think it’s the very nature of blogs in general. They do not promote criticism at all. They are read by mostly people who happen to agree with most everything the blogger writes. Other people who may happen to read other blogs, like me, are simply NOT criticizing, even though they do not agree with the blog posts. It’s just what happens in blogs.
Shady; I know you take on criticism just fine. That’s not what I was saying. I am saying that people in this SEO industry as a whole do NOT criticize at all. They leave things go no matter what the heck the content is. I seem to be one of the very few who hates to let it go. I may not be very good at giving out criticism, and may be a little to harsh in doing so, but my goodness; if not me, then who?
I know for a fact that many others who may be reading this blog post do not agree with it at all. I know that many reading this do not agree that what Matt was doing was whitehat, or even grayhat. They know it was pure blackhat, only meant to deceive the search engines. Period. Why aren’t they disagreeing? I have no idea. I think people are actually wuzzies and wimps. That’s what I think.
I also think that discussion forums are meant for discussion, debate, and disagreement. They promote it for the most part. It’s just not that way with a blog. I doubt it could ever be that way either. It’s one of the problems with this industry right now. Everyone with a blog is an expert and everyone reading that blog allows the bad information to flow.
May 1st, 2008 at 6:01 pm
BTW Shady; I give lots of credit. You do not moderate comments and only post what suits you. You know what? You are one of the very few in the SEO industry who allows comments even if the comment is disagreeing with you. Very good.
You would not believe how many times I have tried to disagree with an article, only to find my comment NEVER posted. Why? Because the article writer did not Doug Heil showing the world that he disagreed with the bad article. That’s why. It’s pathetic, but that is the way it is in this SEO industry.
May 1st, 2008 at 7:01 pm
It’s pretty short sighted for SEO folks to define themselves strictly by the colour of their hat and to close the door on educating themselves on other facets of the trade. When did having a rounded education become a bad thing?
It makes sense that if a “whitehat” learns more about “blackhat”, they will become a better SEO in general and be more creative with their implementation of whitehat tactics. The converse is ever more true, as you said, good blackhat is largely indistinguishable from whitehat.
Besides all that, how can you fix something if you haven’t at least tried to break it a few times?
May 2nd, 2008 at 6:35 am
Great post! I totally agree with you. My best SEO advice has been from Blackhats! And although I can’t use many of the techniques because of the clients I have (mostly b2b..)the mindset has taught me alot. Especially for keeping up to date and getting hold of the newest tricks that aren’t “yet” blackhat *grins*..
I LOVE the blackhats, and not so secretly wish I could be one *wink*
May 2nd, 2008 at 9:52 am
I think this is an excellent point that many SEOs ignore. While I consider myself to stay on the lighter side of the hat debate there is a lot that can be learned by looking at what those with darker hats are doing. You don’t have to apply those techniques but much can be learned from them.
And IMO that is the whole point of this post. To learn and understand what all shades of SEOs are doing and learning from it to become better at what you do. Doug, if you read the post you will see he is not telling Whitehats to use Blackhat techniques but rather to understand what they are doing and figure out how to apply that to a Whitehat SEO initiative. I think that is good advice and the fact is in any competitive business you have to understand what your competition is doing so you can do it better.
May 2nd, 2008 at 10:41 am
Is it because its the only bit of SEO you ever learned? :oP
Back when I started with SEO, there was no distinction over hats. There were just assessments of long-term and short-term, high-risk and low-risk strategies and techniques. Today’s ‘blackhat’ stuff is usually the short-term or high-risk strategies, neither more nor less.
Heck, when I started companies made you sign a NDA before they’d even speak with you about SEO, and the NDA made you swear never to reveal you’d even spoken with them about it. I cut my teeth on porn and casinos because those were the only big-money guys buying. Those guys and tiny mom-n-pop were the only ones prepared to ‘risk’ this SEO stuff. :o)
Cloaking, redirects, hidden-text, forced-click-throughs, net-in-a-box, and a whole lot more were all well known and often abused things back in the nineties. Having come from that world gave me a heavy edge over the self-proclaimed whitehats right to this day, because some of them can’t even recognise what has been penalised on a site and needs fixing all these years later.
May 2nd, 2008 at 11:22 am
Wall Street thrives on creating products that take time to be regulated - read Liars Poker if you’re unaware.
Why should search engine optimisation be any different; especially whilst Goog deems itself judge and jury.
May 2nd, 2008 at 12:27 pm
Shady, If you went to a full feed people would be more inclined to miss out on the interesting comment exchange.
May 2nd, 2008 at 1:29 pm
Hey Ammon; Could it be you are a bit jealous? I think so bud. You’ve always been a bit jealous. Go back to hiding behind your desk AND your employer. LOL
Besides; aren’t you also the one who has stated many times over the years that you do not do SEO? Yep.
The idea that people have to learn blackhat is crazy stuff. I’ve got proof many times over that is simply not the case. The whole premise of this entire debate is flawed from the get-go. This industry is constantly promoting blackhats and constantly shooting down those people who happen to criticize them…… and there ain’t many of us criticizing either.
The SEO industry is one big pile of horse manure and dog poop cat poop bird poop and elephant poop. That’s a fact.
I pity anyone trying to learn or anyone trying to hire someone to help them with their sites. The industry is disgusting at best. That’s a fact.
Jason Calacanis is right on most of the time.
May 2nd, 2008 at 1:48 pm
BTW: For those of you in this industry who think that your peers are the most important thing in this industry…. which is most of the industry, is sadly naive.
The reason our industry has the VERY bad rap it does have is because of the people in our industry. That’s a fact. Don’t you all know that the majority of people reading you all… blackhats, whitehats, and greenhats, are the people who are seeking help and people who are not in our industry at all? Yep.
What do you all think those types of people are thinking when they see and read that the most outspoken and loud minority are praising and promoting pretty much nothing but blackhats?
Ya wonder why the industry has a bad rap? ….come on now.
I would love to see some of you just one time go to a home builders meeting in your town or city and start talking and promoting some tricks you have for building a house that just may go against the guidelines of that town or city. You have these tricks because they happen to save you money on the building costs. You state that these tricks also cuts down the time involved in building that house greatly. You state that the tricks can get by the inspectors because they are not on to them yet.
Please, just once go and try it to see what may happen to you. The builders will not praise you for your expertise, and they will not ask you to attend the next meeting either. They will throw you out the door and warn you to not allow the door to hit you in the butt on your way out.
Why do most in this industry seem to think that other industries are somehow different than the SEO industry? Is it because the average age of people in this industry is so young and have never worked in the outside world and are just out of college or just plain young? I think that may have something to do with it.
May 2nd, 2008 at 3:23 pm
Doug, you can’t compare risky SEO and builder short cuts. For one there are actual laws in place against employing shoddy building techniques. And no matter what you may think Google’s Guidelines are just that Guidelines. Nobody is going to get arrested for violating them. Looking beyond the legal aspects the fact is that using shortcuts to build a house can lead to serious injury or death. Risky SEO can lead to a site being removed from Google’s index but it is not going to result in someone being physically injured or killed.
That being said it seems like you are missing the point here. As a white hat SEO it is in my best interest to learn about what black hats are doing because they may be my competitors. Another fact is that many of the techniques they use that violate Google’s guidelines could be explored and re-purposed in a search engine friendly manner. Nobody is saying that white hats should use risky techniques or become black hats but they should know what they are doing so they can become better white hat SEOs.
I don’t have the time to venture into the dark side but it behooves me to learn as much as I can about it so I can compete with them when their sites appear in query spaces in which I am working.
May 2nd, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Yes Mark, but that’s my point. You and others like you just want to ignore what is going on in this industry and just accept the blackhats as part of this industry. I don’t. Just like the builders do not accept those others who try to trick the inspectors.
And no; it’s NOT illegal to go against the guidelines of a town’s building codes. Not at all, and that’s why I used it as an analogy. It’s works.
Building inspectors = SE spam fighters
Building codes = SE guidelines.
Home Builder = SEO or Web Designer
If you are a builder and you get caught tricking the building code, your house is halted from continuing to build until you FIX the problem.
If you a SEO or designer who is caught tricking the “inspector or search engine”, your site is penalized until you FIX the problem.
Do home builders praise other builders who do nothing but try to trick the inspectors? Nope.
Do home builders even allow those other types to be in the industry? Nope.
Do home builders learn anything from those types who do their best to trick the inspectors? Nope.
Do they acknowledge them in any way? Nope.
It’s not a crime to trick the inspectors, and it’s not a crime to trick the search engines.
You all see what I mean but simply do not want to get rid of the blackhats. You would rather take money from blackhats and praise blackhats than get to the root of the problem. It’s too hard to get to the root, isn’t it?
May 2nd, 2008 at 3:50 pm
Look, I don’t take any money from black hats and honestly have never praised them. I simply acknowledge that they exist and some of their techniques can be patently white hat if they are tweaked a bit.
If a builder takes a short cut and their building collapses and injures or kills someone you can bet there will be legal ramifications. I just think the comparison is a stretch because one can cause serious harm or death while the other can get a site removed from Google.
I think a more apt comparison would be accountants or lawyers. Simply because there are shady lawyers and accountants that use tricks and shady techniques to skirt the law. Many get away with it and many get caught. Some of the techniques they use can be tweaked to be totally within the rules and applied by ethical practitioners. Doing this will make that accountant or lawyer a better representative for their client while staying within the set guidelines.
I don’t promote or use black hat techniques but I do believe valuable lessons can be learned from them whether it is related to competing against them or figuring out a way to use certain techniques while staying within search engine guidelines.
May 2nd, 2008 at 4:26 pm
Yes Mark, and therefore you are issuing blackhats credibility because you say we can learn from them. I say nonsense is all.
Indirectly you are advocating and accepting blackhats as part of this industry. I don’t. There is our difference in a nutshell.
BTW: Google is as big a culprit as any other SEO who accepts money for advertising from blackhats.
That’s my biggest beef with the industry, and a reason I think it has the bad rap.
I also stand behind the home building industry analogy. I was in that industry for 18 years and in this SEO industry for over 10 years. No way would a decent home builder accept a blackhat home builder as part of that industry.
May 2nd, 2008 at 5:25 pm
doug doesn’t like mangos
May 3rd, 2008 at 11:01 am
@Doug, if you insist on using the home building thing, I’ve got one for you…
I’d like to compare blackhats to Mike Oehler’s $50 and Up Underground House, which you can read more about at undergroundhousing.com
basically, it’s a blackhat method of building housing that’s cheaper, more energy efficient and more durable than conventional stick-built “building code approved” houses… and while it may not be accepted by the status quo, imho it shouldn’t be tossed aside simply because it’s unconventional… after all it is very effective, in some cases (like tornado resistance) much more so than stick-built houses… so what if it’s foundation doesn’t use concrete? not everything has to be built the way YOU think it does…
we blackhats are a lot like that underground house… we too are underground, breaking the rules, and staying cool
furthermore, you’re the one who need to open his eyes… google is a for-profit corporation… they are NOT some saintly overseer… google’s guidelines are in place firstly and most importantly to make them more money… and hey, I’m just here trying to make money too…
May 3rd, 2008 at 1:13 pm
It’s interesting that the words “black” and “white” imply “good” and “evil” when in fact often both types are equally manipulative. White hatters like to pretend they stand on higher ground, I suppose, because they’re not breaking any Google guidelines - though looking at some of the white hat turnkey sites out there will crystallize in your mind the fact that just because you’re not breaking any rules set by one website (Google) doesn’t mean your site isn’t just a dime a dozen.
Bottom line: tactics used to market a product is less important than the product you’re promoting. If you’re promoting garbage, white hat or black hat it makes no difference.
May 4th, 2008 at 3:19 am
Silly white hat SEOs… you may be white hat but you are still SEOs. Google’s search algorithm makes them billions of dollars a year and they don’t want you fucking with it. Google is constantly pushing you closer and closer to the cliff, and like sheep you obey every time google adds more and more rules. Paid links are just the start, google will slowly but surely phase you out and push you off the cliff. We black hat seo’s stopped following google’s rules… pushed off a cliff? Fuck that and the monopoly of google’s rules, we black hat’s are fucking ninja. Google is just as corrupt as us, why should their algorithm control who makes money on the internet? Most of the people who click on google’s ads in search results don’t even know they are fucking ads! See you in the underground once google makes you hit your breaking point if you survive the brainwashing in time. The only people who are going to survive are the underground and the webmasters who just focus on actually writing quality content and get blessed by the googlegods.
May 4th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
@Doug
Why aren’t you willing to learn?
Are you afraid of the temptation?
You know… Ignorance is the first sign of stupidity.
My brain had so much fun figuring out how the hell a random page was redirected to a viagra site when html wasn’t allowed.
Now I know what to beware, do you?
May 5th, 2008 at 7:39 am
Wow…I can’t believe you used the experts exchange technique on this very page - hiding lots of keyword rich content below the fold.
I guess you can thank Doug for turning this page into spam.
Seems everything he talks about is spam. Will that trend ever end?
May 5th, 2008 at 10:22 am
[…] Why whitehats need to know blackhat SEO - as noted in the comments “nothing wrong with having a well rounded education.” […]
May 6th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Doug, you lost me at:
May 6th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
I’m gonna try this comment again.
Doug, you lost me at
ROFLMAO!
I enjoy learning black hat techniques. They make me think outside the box, and I can employ some of their ideas in a “pearl gray hat” kind of way without being penalized or becoming the devils spawn, i.e. EVIL.
Shady, you are right on target with this one. I’m gonna Sphinn the wheel for you, dude.
May 10th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
Great post. I’m always digging through peoples back links to see what their doing. I also find it a lot faster to just report a black hat site then wait for Google to detect it
May 11th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
Oh my goodness. Who left the soapbox unattended ? Doug went all evangelical on you, XMCP. He actually compared going against Google TOS to risking ppl’s lives by not adhering to building regulations ? Where will it end ? OK, OK, I have one for you:
Practicing BH = flying a 747 full of women and children into a mountain.
Google’s TOS = your pre-determined safe flying route
Google anti-spam team = flight controllers at the nearby airport.
Shit man, get some help…