Of course they don't own the internet, the point is Blackhat generally leans towards spammy, unproductive strategies (in regards to the quality of the web), and whitehat tends towards a better quality web.

The problem comes when Blackhats complain about Google delisting/sandboxing/Panda, they are the biggest complainers usually imo. Also it's annoying for everyone when you search for something and get a crap website come up which is thankfully becoming more rare nowadays.

Blackhat to promote a decent quality site is meh, just the totally wrong strategy in my opinion. Decent quality sites should be playing towards their strengths which is quality and reputation for a sustainable long term SEO effort. Most people who run websites don't have the patience for this which is why they might hire someone for quick results.

Also I think people look at how Google operates incorrectly. Google's aim is to improve search result quality. If they discover a classification metric that determines sites that link in bad neighbourhoods are generally bad quality, and by penalising these sites they improve the overall quality of results then in my opinion of course they will do that. I bet these sorts of metrics are very rarely one dimensional/binary problems.

Also I admit I come off as a giant douche when I talk about blackhats, idk why it just tilts me. But I think I'm getting over that now

Very well put. Basically if you are in the business of being on the web long term I think it's a pretty clear cut decision (these days). Black hat techniques by their very nature have a shelf life even if its a year or two it's still going to be counter productive if you are serious about your business' web presence.

... ldo


someday you will want to use these to make a site rank...

when manual reviewer checks your BL profile ... tada

But that just it, if you are a business you shouldn't be wasting your time coming up with "fresh, new, amazing, content" to explain your product, service, what have you. Explaining what you sell, what you do, and who you are all very different things. If your goal is for someone to find your phone number on the internet so that they will call you for your business then this obsessive obsession with quality content is misplaced.

My goal is customers, a web presence is a means to get those customers not to become the preeminent scholar on the topic (I'd rather not waste my time I have a business to run). So if that means that I can use "black hat" means to to get more customers thats fine by me. What happens if I get de-indexed? I already have a website waiting in the wings. 301 re-direct the old site for those who know my old address and a couple of weeks of SEO and I am right back to where I was. Rinse Repeat

If you just want them to find your phone number use the yellow pages.

If you have a good website/service people will link to you and you can encourage natural links the whitehat way. You don't need "fresh, new, amazing content" to get links. You need a good website, a good reputation, a good service. A bit of gentle nudging perhaps.

Void of a website people want to link to then you have a problem. You can either a) address the reason why no one wants to link to you, or b) tell everyone that Google is unfair and your website is an exception that doesn't fit the mould and you need to Blackhat.

Look the whole Blackhat argument is more links = better (that's what you seem to be arguing anyway). It doesn't address the root problem that no one wants to link to your website so you have to pretend they do.

Its the underlying premise that you are pushing that I disagree with. Great websites =/= great businesses.

Imagine your Michael Scott running your paper company in Scranton PA. Are you suggeesting that he should write a bunch of treatises on paper and then hope and prey someone links to his page using the right anchor text? I struggle to think of a worse business model. Michael Scott in in the business of supplying paper and not supplying information on the topic of paper. To get in the business of the later in hopes that maybe one day he can get some more of the former is a recipe for disaster.

Theres tons of ways paper company abc can generate value on the web that will not allow them to change domains, product feeds, localization, user trust, branding... I would argue those are worth more than pure organic Google traffic. I'm not saying there isn't a situation where the risk is not meaningful (random lawyer is a pretty good example). The linkbait is one example and no most paper type companies do not create pure content linkbait (we don't at the ecommerce business I work at) thats a smart part of the whole link equation particular in more pure product based industries. Amazon is a great example of an ecommerce store getting great links and creating good linkable content. You have a burn it to the ground model which is fine, but it's not sustainable or scalable. Switching domains for most businesses would be an absurd idea.

Also, what makes you think at some point large portion of the network won't be penalized/devalued at the same time? It's basically an arms race but you have a lot fewer resources.

Dude tons of great sites are super difficult to get links to. eCommerce sites are a bitch to get deep links to.

You are correct that Google doesn't own the Internet. However, all your linking activities are for the purpose of SEO optimization for the sake of manipulating search engine results. Google is the dominant search engine so if they black list you, gg.


The idea of linking competitors in order to get them black listed is interesting. Couldn't someone build an obviously shady link farm for this sole purpose?

Yes, which is why 99% of the time links will not hurt you.

They can get devalued, sure, but they're not going to penalise you.

It would be ridiculous otherwise.

It's really not difficult to fire up Xrumer and spam hundreds of thousands of forums linking to any url you want.

Yes exactly Google has done a good job balancing it, it is very hard to invest in an attack that may not pay off for a year or two if ever (attack's probably looks distinctly different) although I do believe there are a few situations where attacks are effective but I have no hard evidence (yet).

I read it on SEOMoz but for the life of me can't find it, there was a South American airline company that was delisted from Google for linkfarming. They lost a huge amount of businesses, complied with Google's demands and then were finally relisted several months later from what I remember.

Can they be really that great though? They can be good designed, well made sites run by decent honest people but their problem might be they exist in a market which is hugely over saturated (such as ecommerce) so no one cares about them.

That's not really true Gullanian, there are simply industries that get relatively less links because fewer people link to say "concrete washouts" than "SEO training" pretty intuitive. Does that mean a site about concrete washouts is a bad site? I don't think so. It's about delivering the content people expect with the terms they are searching. No matter how well a site informed me about "concrete washouts" there's still a very low chance that even as a high volume Twitter user and blogger I would ever link to it. The other side is that it's going to pretty easy to rank a concrete washout related term if you have a plan to get some links.

The ecommerce phenomenon is well known, even Amazon and eBay struggle to get deep links to the majority of their content.

Ok I guess you and Phresh are right. However, less links surely means that relevant good quality links are more highly weighted as they are harder to obtain? It's an equal disadvantage for everyone in the "concrete washout" business. I don't see how low quality/irrelevant links could really be a sustainable way to overcome a high barrier of entry in regards to obtaining links to rank better.

Edit: Just re-read what I posted, I'm missing the point.

(ITT we will rank #1 for "Concrete Washouts" lol)

I would say that is accurate but low quality links are also going to be worth more as well because it's likely the industry isn't SEO savvy and doing simple things like registering a Twitter account and local page will have relatively more value.

Hey,

I am currently setting up an affiliate program and am wondering what one of the best affiliate program available is according to you guys.

I've been looking at http://www.idevdirect.com/. I know BFP has been using them. Are they any good, do they charge fair rates compared to others?

Great to you is like some super useful and cool site. Great to a search engine is delivering exactly what the user needs. If someone searches for "green bay packers beanie" a simple page selling a Green Bay beanie is considered perfect. But people aren't going to voluntarily throw nice links at that page.

It's substantially more complicated than that.

I use this software. I've written a fair amount of custom scripts that interface with our .NET platform and it seems to work rather well.

My point remains, the pages which are exactly what the user wants are often very difficult to get natural thinks to, forcing people to link build.

The process is complex but that is the core idea no? What else would the search engine be trying to do?

I had a bigger response typed out, but edited because I think he means the criteria is more complicated. As in like, just having the right product doesn't make it "the best" even though I wasn't implying it did.

The other criteria are things like page load time, user input for the site, manual reviews, trustworthiness, downtime, etc. Like an eCommerce site with a crappy organizational structure would probably be less liked by Google than a super well organized and easily navigable site in Google's eyes. Just tons of criteria that Google also takes into account, which I know you're aware of.

I can't see what else he'd be taking about, especially since I wasn't trying to imply that every site which has the same product is the same, just that getting natural links to blue-widgets ages are difficult.

How is there not an internet sub forum yet in BFI. This is one of the largest threads on 2+2 and every day there is a new internet related post. Sort it out 2+2. Someone start a petition.

I think they asked before and we preferred to just have this. I'd rather have everything in this thread personally. Most of the stuff blends together and is like a helpful chat room. That's just me though.

I think there's more active useful discussion on internet business than general business so maybe bfi should be a subforum of internet