I think most of us use Co-Op to increase the amount of inbound links and also Pagerank and therefore, this is BlackHat IMHO.. will keep using it tough
I added one of my sites to the co-op for about a week last month and noticed that I had gotten some solid traffic from it. So, I’ve added it again and I hope the same will hold true. I’m a newb to the co-op and I don’t want to make a mistake. Can you describe what types of usage fall under the four categories you listed? White Hat: Grey Hat: Chocolate Hat: Black Hat: I just added them to one of my sites and then let the rest handle itself. I can’t comprehend what the difference is between wise use, not so wise use and unwise use. Can you please explain the differences to someone who has a hard time with these things? Thanks, Kimberly
It can't, IMO. I think you got it right on your first post. As time goes on it seems to be becoming more obvious. All links are under the Google microscope now. What would be an interesting experiment if all of us piled the weight on Google...would they ban themselves? H
Really?.... Interesting, please explain how a service that artificially increases your backlinks by thousands on unrelated pages using an automated system can be used "wisely" to make it not blackhat.
Listen coop works on non-google serarch engines. It was built for traffic not backlinks. Though shawn can add rel="nofollow" statement to make it cleaner.
Just because you can kill someone with a hammer, doesn't mean the hammer should be illegal. 'The Co-op' isn't black hat, it's not designed for PR gain. Some people use it for that purpose, that could be considered dodgy.
Good point but that's looking at it as a user of the coop. Now look at it from the standpoint of a search engine. Would you not classify the tool as a blackhat method of getting PR and backlinks? It doesn't matter what your "intentions" are. If you use the coop you are gaining PR and backlinks artificially.
No. I'd classify it as 'possibly disruptive to our PR algo' and then filter those links, any unrelated links, whether co-op or not, out. But then again, I disagree about how Google et al want you to only link to 'relevant' stuff. Topical relevance isn't the only relevancy measurement there is. It can be demographically relevant for instance. All of it just proves that their linking system is flawed and they know they can't rely on it. That's why it has become less and less important.
Although it wasn't "designed" for PR gain, and whether the person using it wants PR gain, it will happen. Whether you try to use it for that purpose or not... you don't have a choice. **edit** George beat me to it.
Can't argue that. Though right now it seems it is the only choice they have to combat artificial link building like the coop (ok I had to take one more stab ) it really is a flawed system. If the system is intended to allow "voting" for a site by linking to it why can't I "vote" for my favorite videoconferencing site on my webmaster blog? Flawed indeed.
Firstly, what is black hat? A term that Google coined themselves. Secondly, what does it mean? That Google doesn't like it. After reading this thread I thought i'd search Google for more clearity on this. I find this site ranked #1. I find this a little odd. On one hand Google is trying to 'clean-up' the net. On the other hand the #1 ranked site for 'google black hat' has a complete list on how to cheat adsense. I mean no harm to anyone by listing urls but it really seems like Google is cleaning up their act .
You call it a bad result, I call it google giving you the most relevant linked to result for 'google black hat'.