Search Engine Strategies Chicago ended with a discussion on blackhat vs whitehat SEO. For the ones among you that aren’t familiar with these terms: They refer to evil and good wizards. In search this could mean that a blackhat SEO crosses certain lines that a whitehat won’t.
But what are the lines to cross? Is it taking the risk of being banned from Google? Or is it taking the risk of losing positive brand perception? Unlike the discussion at SES I’m not going to try and find the best definition of blackhat SEO, but I’ll try to open your eyes to new possibilities and their risks.
SES Chicago 2008
The discussion at SES had some great panelists like David Naylor, Todd Friezen, Doug Heil and Eric Enge. The first two not afraid of taking risks, the last feeling they are as white as snow. Most questions asked were about “What defines blackhat?”.
I asked “Is outing your competitor’s mischief, a blackhat tactic?” and even Doug Heil replied that he does it himself. But I’d like to comment that because you do the outing from for instance your Google webmaster central, your sites could also recieve extra investigation. Just be careful.
After a good discussion, where Dave got a lot of laughs, there was slight agreement on good SEO practice. Whenever you get full consent from your customer on a technique after full disclosure on the risks, you’re not a bad SEO just by taking these risks. If an industry standard would be set, this should be the only thing in it.
Is blackhat SEO technical or social?
I believe every method that artificially boosts search term focus or topical authority is a shade of grey. When I do viral link building by getting links to one message and transferring (there are many ways) to another, I would call that less ethical. But does the lack of a negative stance by Google make it right?
“Taking risks is part of being in business”
When you’re active in a competitive industry, you have to be open to taking risks. In SEO there is the risk of being penalised by search engines and you could suffer brand damage. Both pose dangers that can be averted by hiring an experienced search engine marketeer (or reading carefully through my blog 
. Here are some examples of social and technical blackhat activities.
Problem: A spammy competitor ranks above me
Don’t you hate it when someone ranks above you, but he has clearly used a spam tactic that should be too easy to detect if Google just took the time? I get this all the time as well as many of my clients. But do you then use Google webmaster central to “snitch” on that activity?
I do have a special snitching Google account that I use from specific IPs and other identifiers. I always help Google by also explaining what fingerprint they could use to ban this tactic for once and for all. Otherwise they ban this instance, but other websites using it still get through.
Another way of exposing a tactic and making sure the entire strategy gets tackled is by overusing it. Once a tactic becomes common practice by for instance porn affilliates, Google will definitely try to add some rules to its algorithm. Explaining in much detail how a tactic works on for instance a blackhat forum will make sure it gets overused. Especially when people that are already under extra investigation start using it, this will kill the tactic entirely. Because I didn’t use the stupid tactic myself or out it through webmaster central, my sites aren’t effected in any way. Is this Blackhat? It sure is grey!
Problem: I can not make my site linkworthy
People who intend to link to some interesting piece of information on your website, do look at the rest of the site. If the interesting piece of information is just a small part of your very commercial website, they will either ask for money or not link to it entirely. The solution is a satellite site!
A satellite site is a site under a separate domain and if needed even separate ownership. By using a separate site you can appear less commercial and less branded. When the piece of interesting information resides on this satellite site it is far more likely to be linked to, even by your competitors. For a fun example of a satellite site take a look at JohnBukakke.com. This extreme example shows that you can get links to anything.
“How do I get the linkjuice to my commercial site?”
There are many ways to get the acquired links to have a positive effect on the ranking of your commercial site. Here are some examples.
- Link out to your commercial website as being the sponsor. Make sure there is little link juice leaked to other websites.
- After the links are acquired and few people visit the site, 301-redirect it to your commercial website. A 301 diverts al link juice.
- Use client-side redirects so not the link juice but just visitors are redirected to the commercial site.
So is swapping messages this way any less Blackhat than the tactic listed before? Because there are more legal practices that divert link juice than less decent ones, Google doesn’t have a stance against it. But I think they should! This is a social blackhat trick. Or at least it is a shade of grey.
Problem: I want to influence social systems like Delicious, Sphinn and Digg
There are many ways to influence these networks, but you need real visitors instead of bots. All these techniques are definitely blackhat!
The best way is to open a Digg (or other network) URL unseen while someone visits a page that you controll. This can be accomplished by using various Javascript and Flash exploits. They would have to be logged into Digg while they visit the page, but the odds are in your favour. It works simular to the trick used here.
Because I still use the full technique for a couple of projects, it would be unwise to out it to everybody. The select few who meet me at conferences could probably share in the fun. This way it doesn’t get overused and penalized in time. This is an example of an extreme blackhat tactic that is both technical and social. Links from these networks aren’t worth much for your ranking, but your popularity will result in valuable links.
So?! Is blackhat social or technical?
It is both. Fooling people or fooling Google doesn’t make you any less evil. Most of my customers don’t need any risky techniques, so I just do whitehat. Shades of grey are only used when factors like competition and budget make it a logical choice and only with full consent from the customer.
I happen to like evil and I’ve got a huge network of people that keep experimenting to find the limits in shades of grey. We’re all experts and never put valuable websites at risk. Whenever you touch shades of grey, make sure you have full understanding of the risks and the search engine’s ability to detect things (standard and thorough, algorithmic and manual, now and in the near future). For most of you, blackhat just isn’t the thing. Keep it for the experts and even they lose sometimes.