Black hat techniques and what confuses me Options

[Ruud]

On good SEO fora there are 3 main optimization techniques: content, content, content. If you have good content, written correct, it will earn you a better search engine result. Good content will get you links one day.

Introduce my new found friend. Let's call him Mark. Mark works for a large SEO company which works with large companies. "A" brand companies. Companies you and I know of the top of our head or would recognize once someone drops the name.

And what does Mark and this company do to rank these sites better for whatever project it is they work on? Mark uses regular PPC campaigns, some feeds, but also uses so-called "black hat" SEO.

This confuses me. I've read a lot and basically everywhere it is the same story: black hat SEO often is outdated and it will get you in problems - if not now then in 3 or 6 months from now. But what I saw doesn't support that theory.

Am I, are we, being goodie-two-shoes while the Big Boys rake in Big Bucks the black hat way?

Ruud

[sanity]

Am I, are we, being goodie-two-shoes while the Big Boys rake in Big Bucks the black hat way?

Good question Ruud.

Firstly I don't believe we at Cre8 feel as strongly about all this blackhat/whitehat stuff like on a few other forums. In fact there are many that would argue that all forms of SEO are going against the search engines TOS.

For many competitve areas these days focusing on content alone won't work and more hardcore techniques may be required. As long as clients are aware of all the risks involved personally I can't see a problem.

[Respree]

This is what I've heard other people say.

Are these statements accurate?

Blackhat:
Blog Spam
Cloaking
Tricky Re-directs
Black Hat SEO stops at "nothing" to get a high ranking.
People not following the google guidelines.

White Hat:
Content, Content, Content
Relevant backlinks
Site maps
White Hat SEO follows the Google quality guidelines (and the equivalent at other engines) to the letter.

99% of the SEO industry are wearing hats in various shades of grey.
Gray Hat = what Black Hat people call themselves.

[Ruud]

That looks about correct to me.

Previously, before I met this person, I associated black hat stuff pretty much with the equivalent of Viagra email spam. But what I was shown is all very, very much on topic. Their clients would whack them over the head if they would deliver untargetted, unrelated traffic.

Ruud

[projectphp]

I think it depends upon what this Mark actually does, and for whom. I am not sure I know many large, A list brands that do black hat SEO. The possible fallout in terms of negative publicity is simply too high. And besides, that is what a brand is for: to reduce the reliance upon selling a customer.

You also have to be careful when assumming big companies understand. Many just pay money to SEMs, don't really get it, but as long as you send them pretty reports that they can justify to their bosses, they are happy. Most big company workers are just butt coverers. As long as they have an SEM contracted, their butt is covered, ergo they have done their job.

There is another assumption that there is, or should be, a level playing field, with the same rules for everyone. That is never true, in any buisiness endeavour. There is a saying: if I owe you $100,000 you own me, but if I owe you $1,000,000,000, I own you. If you are big enough, others bend to your will.

The largest ISP and Telco in Australia, Telstra, pretty much dictated to bill paying services how they would deal with them, because a billing service that wont let you pay Tesltra bills is useless. They needed Telstra more than Telstra needed them.

Ditto an SE without Amazon is incomplete. That makes sites of that size pretty much immune to ever being banned, no matter what they do (disclaimer: I am not saying they "do" anything. Just an example). That may give them more rein to try dodgy things, but it also probably is accompanied by more rigorous screening. It cuts both ways.

However, my two bit site on hotels in Gosford wont ever be afforded the same luxury. This is probably where a lot of the content, content, content advice is aimed. This makes sense, as the only way to do well on that scale is to play within the rules, cause no one really cares if there is one less small player.

[Black_Knight]

Here's the skinny (as they once used to say)...

Black Hat SEO techniques work fantasticly ...

... right up until one of your competitors notice and report you. That is far more likely and happens far more often that the SE filters detecting it for themselves.

It happened only today.

I was researching the competitors appearing for a moderately competitve search term regarding insurance. The #1 and #2 slots belonged to one company that got its position by interlinking dozens of their own domains.

The #3 position was far worse, consisting of an old-fashioned doorway page, with text hidden below the fold (and with scrolling turned off) and additionally using a javascript redirect to instantly move the visitor to more genuine content.

The site involved in the #3 position spam fiasco probably isn't aware of the repurcussions of what the SEO company has done to them. They are a very reputable publishing company - and big enough that this spam could make news sites if discovered/reported.

Naturally, I made a full report to my client, giving them the entire details, including all the contacts and forms to report the spam.

It took me just seconds to spot the spam, and only minutes to inform my clients, who naturally are competitors of the spamming sites and have a vested interest in reporting the stuff with a view to hurting the competitor.

Black Hat SEO is simply more dangerous, and more complex if you don't want to look like a chump as those competitors did. My advice is not to touch 'black hat' techniques until you have mastered the other stuff, and most especially, have learnt to place the customer first. Be that the eCommerce customer, or the SEO service customer.

[Irony]

Black Hat techniques might work.

White Hat techniques work, too.

The reasons I stick to white:

- Black Hats might never be filtered or reported, but they never can sleep well, being always worried that they MIGHT be caught.
- If I did something of that kind, I would be ashamed of myself.
- Our site has good rankings for very competitive search terms without black hat techniques - so why bother?

[Black_Knight]

Gray Hat = what Black Hat people call themselves

Pah!

There are no hats.

There are three forms of SEO tactics:
1. Techniques currently rated as 'safe'.
2. Techniques rated as risky.
3. Risk balanced and risk managed techniques.

You see, there are companies who can happily make money from the blackest of arts simply by endlessly buying new domains, even before the old ones have been banned. A ban is nothing to hurt them because it has always been figured into the plan. They practically depend upon getting banned, because otherwise they wasted cash on the next round of domain registrations.

There are also risk managed solutions that are a lot less severe. Where the risks are minimised and managed, and where the penalties even in the event of the risk going bad are small or negligable.

Risk management is about knowing (not wild guessing) exactly how hard it will be to detect the technique by any known means. It is about knowing what action will follow even if the technique is detected. There are doorway pages that will survive the scrutiny of a search engineer because they still serve a genuine purpose to the user.

To my philosophy, the SEO who refuses to properly inform their clients of all available techniques and the costs risks and benefits is not ethical. Whether that is failure to tell them of risks, or failure to tell them of strengths. It is the clients role to make the choice, and a truly ethical SEO will enable the client to make a fully informed choice, not just one that meets what the search engines say is okay for all.

[gravelsack]

Ammon has nailed it pretty good.

Whitehat is the techniques that the search engine want you to use. Google have invested a lot of energy into getting close to SEO's and trying to steer them down this path.

If you are going to pour your heart and soul into a site, then whitehat is the only option.

If you want to make money and are prepared to practice 'crash and burn' then 'blackhat' works just fine.

The reason that we read so many positive comments about whitehat techniques and so few about blackhat is because the SEOs doing blackhat don't talk about what they are doing.

There are techniques that have been working for the last couple of years that Google haven't got close to filtering. Heck, they still struggle with simple hidden text - but when you mix in external style sheets and z-index stuff you can run rings around them and cloaking to a javascript redirect page is all over the top ten for the really useful 3 and 4 word phrases.

Somewhat more difficult to run rings around a hand inspection after being reported though.

Yep - its all about acceptable level of risk

[Ruud]

I am not sure I know many large, A list brands that do black hat SEO.

I thought I didn't either. Believe me, we do though.

That makes sites of that size pretty much immune to ever being banned, no matter what they do ...

This sounds very likely. When I mentioned the possibility of getting a penalty, up to a ban, I was basically laughed away. Without some of these sites and their spin-offs you basically don't have a search engine, just like you have no phone book without, say, Microsoft in it. It was also pointed out to me that in many cases the spin offs, the projects, the portals, invest a lot of money in advertising. In several cases nobody would want to see them banned.

Black Hat SEO is simply more dangerous, and more complex if you don't want to look like a chump as those competitors did.

It certainly was more complex than I would have thought previously. A very extensive amount of knowledge of how the SE's work, what they do and how they do it seems to come into play.

There are doorway pages that will survive the scrutiny of a search engineer because they still serve a genuine purpose to the user.

Like what? Because I'm not in this business it is hard for me to think of a valid reason to have a doorway page. When I think of one it seems not a doorway page anymore: alternative content for a Flash-based site, for instance.

The reason that we read so many positive comments about whitehat techniques and so few about blackhat is because the SEOs doing blackhat don't talk about what they are doing.

Yup. From what I understand there are places where they do talk without the need to have discussions on how ethical something is or not. How much they share of their knowledge - I don't know.

All-in-all it is an eye opening experience for me. And where possible I do want to learn about these techniques. Black Knight points out some very valid reasons why one should.

Ruud

[bwelford]

A ban is nothing to hurt them because it has always been figured into the plan. They practically depend upon getting banned, because otherwise they wasted cash on the next round of domain registrations.  

That's where I think the Black Hat SEO's may be missing the boat. If you're focused solely on high Search Engine rankings, then that and other spamming techniques are probably the way. If you get the traffic and the conversion rate is high enough then the ROI will be OK. That's even though you may be losing great slices of your potential market because some of the human visitors may get irked by your methods.

The problem is that ROI's of successful Internet Marketing should be enormously high. I believe that the same amount of money and energy put into effective White Hat SEO will deliver a higher ROI on a more stable basis. I think it also relates to the issue I raise in today's insight from IMC 2004, "A website is a website is a website".

[gravelsack]

Like what?

As an example, think of every search phrase that might be used and weave it into a FAQ section that has a separate page for each answer.

Another nice way is to make pop-up windows triggered by a click on a phrase in the main site. Each pop-up window has only a 'close' button when it is triggered from the page. If someone lands on it from a search engine a script writes a simple navigation system instead of the 'close' button. This works very well, and if done properly, actually enhances the user experience.

Be creative and the world is your oyster.

[gravelsack]

I believe that the same amount of money and energy put into effective White Hat SEO

Agreed - but most that I know do both. A clean site using good quality organic SEO and a whole bunch of blackhat stuff to feed it.

Of course, it depends on your product and market - big difference between viagra and the rest.

[Ruud]

The problem is that ROI's of successful Internet Marketing should be enormously high. I believe that the same amount of money and energy put into effective White Hat SEO will deliver a higher ROI on a more stable basis.

Apparently some sites are impossible to enhance. If a large bank approaches you you cannot in all fairness tell them to add more content. To post some interesting tutorials or FAQ's in the hope people will land there via a search or that someone will link to it. Worse: some of these clients will not even let you touch the actual website. Then again, I'm not privy to any conversations they have had with customers. If they are aware that there are other methods - I don't know.

As an example, think of every search phrase that might be used and weave it into a FAQ section that has a separate page for each answer

I thought that was thought of as a possible landing page whereas a doorway page is more something that is delivered through IP cloaking. The only valid use of IP delivery I am aware of is a site like Google redirecting you to your local version of Google.

Ruud

[gravelsack]

Doorway pages don't really need cloaking - although many definitions abound.

We prefer to call them 'information pages' :wink:

[behindTheScenes]

I think that perhaps what has been overlooked is black hat techniques that can appear as white hat. For example a web application that can write out 'sharpened' pages of web content that is not rweally part of the main site, but because of sophisticated libraries, dictionaries and content stores can fool the average customer / user.
What then?

[Black_Knight]

Doorway pages, gateway pages, hook pages, landing pages, informational pages, topical focus pages, or even zebra pages (that last from Jill Whalen).

All the same thing. A page optimised to rank for a specific search phrase or range of search terms that will thus serve as a doorway to your site from the SERPs.

Then there are hallway pages, which are out of fashion somewhat now except as site-maps. Instead, doorways are cross-linked to eliminate the need for hallway pages.

Cloaking is the very opposite of doorway pages really, since the page the visitor will enter through is not the optimised page that the search engine ranked.

[Ruud]

Are there situations in which IP delivery of doorway pages seems relevant to you? I.e.: deliver a valid, well optimized, keyword rich content page specifically to spider X, Y or Z - and the regular content page to a human visitor. Provided here that the content is related, is on topic.

Ruud

[Ron Carnell]

There was a line on a television show, ER, a week or two ago that really struck a nerve with me. One of the student doctors had been admonished to be more aggressive and, in following that advice, she gave a patient an inappropriate pain killer that resulted in his death. "You're not a good doctor," someone later said, "Until you've killed someone."

That observation struck home, I think, because it contains a very real element of truth.

Practicing SEO today, I suspect, is a bit like practicing medicine several hundred years ago, before there was a formalized education and training regimen. We ask advice from others, we observe movement in the SERPs, but mostly we learn by doing. Working in uncompetitive fields is a bit like treating warts or even sewing up six-inch knife lacerations. Playing it safe works well and we rarely have to worry about losing the patient. When someone comes to you with an appendix ready to burst, your decisions get a little more complex. If you turn them away, they still have appendicitis and you've learned nothing about treating it. But unless you have a mentor staring over your shoulder every step of the way, or are extraordinarily lucky, your first few surgeries are probably not going to end real well.

When you "get aggressive" in SEO, just as in television dramas, you can expect there will be a price paid. You should anticipate it and, if you want to sleep at night, you should be honest with those most involved. Learning doesn't come cheaply, especially when your only teacher is trail and error. And the learning never stops.

Interestingly, I think this analogy either breaks down or perhaps reveals a hidden truth when we ask ourselves how many fledgling doctors, in their enthusiasm to learn, try to perform surgery on themselves.

[Adrian]

Generally, when I think of the things I would or wouldn't do, it isn't based on whether people see them as whitehat/blackhat, theres too much of a grey area in between that most of us fall into for that.

I instead consider what I would think of it as a visitor to the site. Is the link I have clicked on from the SERP taken me to what I wanted/expected?

If, as a visitor, I'd be happy with what the website is doing, I don't have a problem with it. If the site starts decieving me and trying to mess me about, then I start considering it more in the spammy areas.

As has been mentioned by various people at various times. No particular technique is necessarily spam, how it's implimented defines that.