So my site is new and in a pretty tough area (video games, play video games for cash, etc) and I have been flirting with the idea of going to the dark side. How bad is black hat? Is there a way to protect the main site, like with landing pages, so if google gets mad it wont crush me? Or should I just give up on that idea. Thanks for the help.
well i don't think you have any knowledge of black hat so the chances are, its not for you, You can spend time learning it but you will be better of working on your site through white hat. Black hatters + noobs don't go very well.
If you really want to do black hat, just get a new domain. It only costs a few dollars anyways. Don't risk your main site.
it is very bad that if you have been caught this might result in permanent ban of your domain or website.
Go for it. Everything is legal unless you get caught. Black hat techniques can work very well, but they are not sustainable. If you are going blackhat do it on a site that you don't care if it gets banned. There is a free ebook on blackhat in the Information Ninja website. It would give you a idea of what blackhat is all about. There are also some good black hat forums. I wish I could remember the name of it, but it totally escapes me. Whenever you are online, you leave a footprint, when you blackhat you do not want to leave a trace. This is done by using a proxy server. This hides you true ip address so you can do your dirty deeds.
In some industries it seems black hat is fast becoming the norm these days to try and beat off the fierce competition.
In my opinion sooner or later your black hat techniques will get caught and your site will be banned.