Judging but some other treads /post It seems than some people have a genuine interest in duscussing and/or learn some "black Hat SEO" techniques. I'm personaly interested in learning all that stuff, I probably won't use it but I feel that I should Know to be an informed SEO and If I start working as a SEO profesional I need to know it to inform all the pros and cons of it to my clients. Mods: Will Open discussion of Black Hat SEO stuff will be welcomed on DP? What are posibble subjects , details, etc people would like to talk about. I think we could start new treads with each technique, topics and, tools.
"Black hat" is what you make it. There are many "black hat" tools and methods that everyone knows about... I think you'll find that it's the black hat tools that people develop themselves, that do all sorts of weird and magical things that are going to be the ones that really make a difference. We can talk about cloaking until we go blue in the face, but that doesn't change the fact that cloaking is actually a pretty average "black hat" technique... It's thinking too small...
This is my current blurb on Black Hat SEO. Comments? ------------------------------------------------------------ What is black hat SEO? Within the SEO comunity, some optimization tactics are considered Black Hat SEO. These are tactics which are not considered to be good or fair by search engine operators, search engine optimizers, or web site visitors. There is no generally accepted definition for black hat SEO. What may be considered appropriate by one webmaster may not be considered approriate by another webmaster. In addition to personal differences, guidelines for appropriate conduct vary across web site categories. What might be considered acceptable for a web site in the gambling industry may not be equally acceptable for a health care web site. Here are several guidelines for determining if a technique should be considered Black Hat SEO. Search Engine Operator Policies Many search engine operators, such as Google, MSN, and Yahoo, publish policies and guidelines which document what they feel are appropriate and inappropriate SEO techniques. One school of thought believes that if you stay within these guidelines, you are not practicing black hat SEO. One difficulty with this model is that the search engine operator guidelines tend to be extremely vague and non-technical. Another difficulty is that the guidelines differ between search engines. For example, Google prefers 301 redirects, while Yahoo prefers doorway pages which inform the user of the new URL. The Property Rights Approach The property rights approach to the question of black hat SEO believes that anything you do with your own property is acceptable, but that you should leave other peoples property alone. By this standard, most on-page SEO techniques are acceptable, but off-page SEO techniques like guestbook spamming should be considered black hat SEO. This is probably the most reasonable and fair guideline for determining acceptable SEO practices, but it does have some limitations. It does not, for example, address keyword spamming or cloaking. The Visitor Value Approach This school of thought believes that SEO techniques which do not add value to the visitors experience belong to the school of black hat SEO. This approach labels on-page techniques such as hidden text, micro-text, and ALT text spamming as black hat SEO. The visitor value approach has benefits not only in defining black hat SEO, but also in promoting general practices for good web site design. Black hat SEO practices which violate this guideline may result in a boost to your SERPs, but they will not lead to return visitors or natural incoming links. The Unnatural Rankings Approach This school of thought believes that anything which causes a web page to rank unnaturally highly for its keywords is black hat SEO. Unfortunately, there is no generally accepted definition for "unnaturally highly"! If followed to its logical conclusion, this school of though considers all SEO to be black hat SEO. Under this approach, even the use of proper heading tags (H1, H2, H3) can be considered black hat SEO.
Welcomed? I doubt it will get its own forum, I don't think Shawn will advocate those practices. But it certainly won't be surpressed either (at least not by me until Shawn says I should). There's nothing criminal about it, it's not like discussing how best to execute an assasination or make XTC. Go ahead an post about it if it concerns/interests you. This is a webmaster forum and everything you have a need for can be discussed about that subject (within reason).
Tops I mean good discusions about it in The SEO forum, not getting its own forum. I guess some people are really against it since I already have some red rep just for asking if people want to talk about it.
The problem with discussing blackhat SEO, is that the people who could contribute most, are also the ones least likely to reveal their key blackhat secrets.
Sometimes I think its funny to see people get their panities in a bunch when people discuss "black hat" stuff.
Exactly, SEO is done to get us rankings and make us money. Either Black or White its all for the money. Black Seo should be respected if its done correctly and if your not caught, ur still in the game. I really hate people that use same color text as bg.. thats like 1997 stuff and it makes me laugh. I dont use any blackhat stuff for my websites at all just to clear things up.
I agree that whitehats don't have secrets.. that is why there are really very FEW white hats out there. Most of us are probably "grey hats" that do things for search engine purposes in addition to human visitors... The grey areas are where the secrets many SEO's use. Black hats usually have their own tool set that for obvious reasons are not readily available on the net. They also have tactics that are not readily shared... I don't think a forum would work due to the fact that any info coming from it would probably be mis-information due to the fact that the things that work in black hat seo work EXTREMELY WELL... I am talking 5 figures a month well.. ($xx,xxx). I don't think anyone knowing some of this information would readily share it to the competing world. With that said, all the secrets to black hat seo is out there.. in pieces on various forums.
Black Hat is considered anything that does not focus on the visitor. Though, there is no real definition for Black Hat (as mentioned by Will.Spencer - great article) but its the mind of the SEO specialist. Some may agree with the so called "Black Hat" techniques while others will disapprove. Totally agree. WhiteHats do not have any hardcore secrets. Its just a simple matter of designing and promoting your site for the benefit of the visitor while keeping the search engine in focus (because visitors will find your site 85% of the time through use of search engines) opposed to designing and promoting your site for the sole benefit of the search engine (hidden text links, link spamming, etc.)
I don't see anything wrong with discussing anything out in the open. But remember, the ones who you are trying to trick are watching forums like these
What secrets... White hat SEO is pretty basic stuff... Title tags, H1's, good URL structure etc etc etc...... If anyone has any white hat secrets, I'd love them to share