Ok so Ive been just playing around, and running a few searches here and there to catch up on whats been happening in the world of SEO today. And I came across a few articles arguing the old argument. Black Hat Versus White Hat Search engine optimization. I could have gone around throwing my opinion around all of those blog comments and forum posts, but screw it, I cant be bothered. Id rather have the content here on my blog. Yeah and im posting here rather than seostreet, I dont know why, I just am so bite me.
What I dont get about this whole argument, comes from both sides. White Hats have this preconceived notion of what Black Hat SEO is. White Hats seem to believe that Black Hats are somewhat less ethical than they. And that sites created by Black Hats simply wont be around for long because of the risky methods involved and the Google bannings.
Black Hats look at White Hats as ball breaking SEO snobs that think they are better than Black Hats and dont have a problem with voicing their opinions. Effectively driving the methods used into some type of forever spiralling, ill thought of practices and something that White Hats can spit on when they decide they want to rant about something or that they’re sites are not performing.
Well Ive got news for both of you. Whether you are Black Hat, white hat, green hat, purple hat or some other kind of vagued colored hat, you’re all there for the same reason right.
You are there to ‘game’ the search engines.
Seo should be renamed. I think it should be called Search Engine Manipulation. Or SEM for short… Then when describing SEM we can cover both fields.. Search Engine Manipulation, AND Search Engine Marketing all under the same banner.
After all thats exactly whats going on. We are all trying to manipulate the search engines in order to rank our websites higher in their rankings are we not?
Its all about traffic, which ever way you go about it.
Me, personally.. I just dont care, you can put me under whatever banner you like, and yes, I game the search engines by my above definition. I dont believe I do anything unethical, or illegal. I simply want to get a better ranking so i can get more visitors, and make more money. Its business. And thats what a business does. Makes money.
I’ll take techniques from all and apply them in a way that well… works for me.
Some define this as Grey hat.. Well, I think I’ll change that.. Id rather be called an “IDontGiveafuck” Hat. Actually maybe I should put that in Wiki, might get me one more backlink ….
Now onto the definition of Search Engine Spam.. Now this really gets my tits up.
Spam, spam, spam… Why the hell is it called spam? If you put up a page with random crap on it.. throw some ads up.. and get into the search in any way you possibly can….
You’re actually still giving the end user, the information he is looking for, either directly on page, or through the ads you are serving.
My definition of spam is unsolicited stuff, you know shit you get that you did not ask for. Spam emails, yep thats spam. So going by that definition, that would make every site in the search engines NOT spam. The person searching, approved of his results when he typed his word into the little search box. Simple. He asked to see it.
Now onto the discussion of ‘people complaining about spam sites beating them in the search engines’… Ok this is just stupid.
I stand back and watch in amazement that some SEO’s complain about a spammy site kicking their proverbials in Google for ‘their’ targetted keyterm. Get a life.
SEO is by my definition, manipulation. You’re obviously just not as good as a ‘manipulator’ as they are. Thats why they’re beating you. So sit the hell down and shut the hell up, suck it up, learn some more stuff, and work on it. Complaining never got anyone anywhere.
And yes, Ive had useless, low on content sites rank above mine, and you know what i did?
No I didnt file a complaint, and no i didnt sit around pissing and whining about it. I dug my nails in, with determination and work, and beat the hell out of them.
Hell, sometimes its not even the site owners fault, sometimes googles algo just gets all screwed up and throws random pages to the top.. It happens, either wait it out, or do something about it. Plain and simple.
Ok, so ive rambled a bit… To end this post, I do just want to say that at the time of writing this, Im just a tad annoyed about the constant witchhunts and bullshit sissy girl attitude of some webmasters out there, who just havent taken the time to soak things in and see things from all sides of the square. The ones that jump on forums, and just agree, for the hell of it without reading things, and without putting an original thought in about a topic that they are responding to. There ARE obviously differing opinions and I welcome them, we all have a different perspective, and also all desire different results.
Lets just cut the bullshit and see things for what they are… Without the search engines to manipulate, and get our traffic, none of us would be here. The web would be an endless void of type in domains, where nobody could earn a living. Be thankful they are there and that we can all get our slice of the pie. Actually forget that, just bog down and keep working, Im sure you’ve probably got something better to do than read my rants… If you’ve gotten this far, get back to work!!! Your sites are falling in the serps as you’re reading this!
June 3rd, 2006 at 2:36 pm
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June 3rd, 2006 at 9:04 pm
Nice rant. I do work for both types, the only difference is black hats know they are breaking (read:bending) the rules and white hats are generally clueless.
This latest Big Daddy update has certainly bought out the whiners into the forums and no matter how sound the advice they get the keep on whinging.
Black hat’s are generally a lot more tolerant of the rules set down by SE’s and learn a lot more by reverse engineering what works and what doesn’t.
White hat’s jump on their ’soapboxes’ and rant about Google being broken etc, like the web follows them. It’s a classic. They are SEM’s (search engine manipulators) too.
The line between White and Black is a lot closer than you’d imagine. Often the only difference is ignorance.
There is no such thing as Black, White and Grey, we are all SEM’s, some admit it, others are confused, and some have no idea.
To be it’s a greay area still as some can be totally whit hat (like my dad for instance) and other black (linke an expired domain spammer that farms PR and links), where the lines between White, Grey and Black exist no one knows. That’s because there are NO LINES.
June 16th, 2006 at 7:46 am
Fantastic rant that, and i totally agree with you when you say you dont file a complaint you just dug in a tried to beat them.
I get so pissed off when all people want to do is spend their time emailing complaints rather than doing something about it themselves, they are like schoolchildren bickering over someone cheating at a school quiz.
As you say it is a business and clients wants results although they will know of “unethical” tactics i really don’t think they will care if you use them if it gets them to the top of Google or any other engine.
And as for spam totally agree, it is what you get in your inbox offering you something you haven’t asked for. The pages that people claim are spam are usually pages made up from content of the site in question andoffer the searcher content on what they are looking for usually
October 2nd, 2006 at 11:29 am
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