I can only imagine one of these spammers (even if “successfully” earning money) at a family reunion when Auntie Mabel asks what they do for a living. “Oh, well, I make shady porn sites, drive lots of traffic to them with comment robots, and rake in lots of cash, and then when Google de-indexes my site I delete it and start over!”

I suppose the upside of this is that while all these unpleasantries go about their business chasing each other around in circles, we have less competition while we steady build up valuable assets.

This came to my attention recently – one of my sites has been slowly climbing, and is nearly on page #1 for a particular competitive keyword. I got some spam comments with links in the text, using this same keyword.

Of course I deleted them. But at the same time I had to wonder – do these people REALLY ACTUALLY think they are going to rank on page 1 for a keyword with 31,000,000 results, by using blog comment spam? They must think Google is really stupid!

Thanks for your input on this blog – I hope to see you around again

Thank you for your very informative reply to my comment. The thing is I am actually 100% in agreement with you, but I have heard some SEO experts talk about these short term companies that pop-up, do their thing and then leave. So they go the sneaky “blackhat” route. From what I hear some of these companies are now showing up on E-Lance and other job search sites. People are requesting copywriters and SEO experts to “blackhat” my website to stardom please. Not so pleasant really.

Yes, if long term is the goal then playing by the rules and avoiding the rather unethical “blackhat” tactics is definitely the way to go. This is the way I do it. But because I keep hearing about these requests for “blackhat” tactics, and the distribution of “blackhat” software, tools and e-books all over the net I just was putting the other shoe out there to see what people thought. You responded as I imagined. Good for you.

I like your site and the wonderful information you provide.
Please keep up the great work.

Good luck to you and your endeavors,
Mac Bull

Well, first of all, there is a point of ethics and doing one’s part to keep the Integrity of the Internet itself intact. Black hat or sneaky tactics are generally have some element of dishonesty or trickery involved – that’s why they are black hat. So, even if one makes some money for the short term, one has to also look at the overall picture and how this effects the Internet as a communications medium – as a whole.

Secondly, you talk about using black-hat techniques for a brief campaign and then disappearing. Have you done this successfully? I ask because I have never known or heard of short-term internet projects being successful, as compared to a long-term solid project where one builds and develops a valuable online asset that will be there for years to come, is valuable and useful to its visitors, and will stand up to search engine algorithm changes because of its solid quality.

I would personally never want to spend time on an online project which was going to be removed or deleted after a certain time. If I wanted to work on projects which pay only now and do not create any long-term business value, or long term residual income, I could just work on a regular offline job or project.

Another point for people to remember is that things sometimes have repercussions you don’t expect. For example, maybe I have website A and website B hosted on one account. Website B is black-hat so it gets black-listed. Website A, being on the same server, is also affected by that black-listing. Even if I delete Website B, I have harmed Website A’s reputation.

This is just one of many many ways I could think of that these tactics could backfire – in the end, I would rather not have to worry about this kind of thing. I far prefer the simplicity of honest and solid, good content.

A very nice article on SEO. Thank you.
I am not the first to say the following, but perhaps some “blackhat” tactics are worth using for certain situations.

Let me clarify that…

If I am running a Halloween website for the month of October only and then I am gone,
then I would be smart to use all the sneaky tricks to maximize sales for that month. Then I dissapear from the net. It maybe is a rare case, but it does exist. You used to see this a lot in direct mail before the internet. Some company would have some high-end silk shirts made in Taiwan or somewhere. Then they get a mailing list from a list broker and begin mailing. They hopefully sell out the “limited supply” of the product they had made and then they disappear. Later they form up again with other members on a new project and do it all over again. Now you see this on the Internet as well. So if that is the operation you are running then I think it is fair game to use these “blackhat” tactics. By the time Google lays down the law you and your business are gone-so it doesn’t matter.

However, if long term is your goal then you would be foolish to use these “blackhat” tactics.
But that is a given and for obvious reasons.

Just wanted to share the other side of the coin there. Let me know your thoughts.

Good luck to you and your endeavors,
Mac Bull

Besides, I am not even savvy enough to know many of these tricks.

I think you said it best that maybe we should just rely on our integrity to guide our decisions. Amen to that sister, business is about integrity, IMO. And I am not about to let a little more traffic cause me to compromise mine!

Freddies last blog post..Monday’s Motivational Moment: Urgency

Yeah I think its time for all of us to study up on this – at least those of us who can confront a bit of honest work! It tends to remind me of the story of the tortoise and the hare!

Normal Joes last blog post..The Real Way To Succeed Online

I think in the long run it pays off much better to be involved in a few networks that are appropriate for your niche, and then really do them justice.

Of course one might have a couple different accounts for different niches. Ie, if you are in the video-game niche and also in the organic foods niche, those don’t really mix so well. But I don’t think anyone really minds that.

In any case, having a few profiles in the best networks for your niche would allow you to make friends and utilize their power more. Look at Friendfeed for example. I just signed up. I find it actually useful to get an email telling me what my friends Dugg or Tweated or bookmarked that day. It leads me to some good references and ideas. But if one person on my list is making a million posts a day and crowding out all the others, I don’t feel like keeping that person on the list. Which is better – backlinks or friends?

In any case I think we all can get pulled in the wrong direction from time to time. I’m glad Charles is giving us the heads-up. And it makes a lot of sense that even if these tactics are working now, they probably won’t work forever. So we have the advantage of knowing now, so we can start to go in the right direction!

I really hope I’m not…I do keep a good mix of article marketing involved as well. But, I do use things like Jack’s submitters, and also software through FirePow that will automatically bookmark etc. I do use pseudo names for most of these accounts, but, it’s because I haven’t got time to build profiles on all of these networks. I mean, trying to drive traffic is a lot of work as it is. As if, I have time to build friends lists on all of these sites!

I have main profiles at the sites I frequent like Facebook..Digg etc..but I don’t have time to put into all of them. Who would?

Cheers
Davin

Davinator-Viral Marketing Strategiess last blog post..Titles That Make A Blog Popular