SEO for Assholes(startupdispatch.com)
startupdispatch.com
SEO for Assholes
http://startupdispatch.com/opinion/seo-for-dicks/
29 comments
The article is supposedly about SEO, but the author spends half of it talking about fraud and implying that that is what blackhat SEO is about? lol
Blackhat SEO is using programs like Xrumer and Scrapebox to build backlinks en masse, hiding content from search engine spiders by inspecting user agents, and building low-quality content farms of keyword-laden articles. Phishing and credit card fraud are totally separate.
Blackhat SEO is using programs like Xrumer and Scrapebox to build backlinks en masse, hiding content from search engine spiders by inspecting user agents, and building low-quality content farms of keyword-laden articles. Phishing and credit card fraud are totally separate.
There is some intersection as of late, largely in the form of "Why hack and deface a WordPress install with your script kiddie tags when you could instead deface several hundred thousand WordPress installs with pharma links, thereby getting tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in affiliate commissions. It's like robbing a bank except you won't get shot and the FBI can't bring itself to care that you did it."
Yeah, I've seen that, too. A google search for "viagra site:mit.edu" has interesting results. .gov and .edu links are goldmines.
I agree. Blackhat SEOs don't necessarily break laws, and that sentence gave me pause as well.
Xrumer spams peoples websites. As I understand it this is the main strategy employed by blackhates.
Email spam is illegal (CAN-SPAM Act). I hope that one day spamming peoples websites is also illegal.
So it's not criminal to use Xrumer but in my opinion people who use it are on the same moral footing as common email spammers.
Email spam is illegal (CAN-SPAM Act). I hope that one day spamming peoples websites is also illegal.
So it's not criminal to use Xrumer but in my opinion people who use it are on the same moral footing as common email spammers.
Legal solutions don't work online, technical ones do.
CAN-SPAM didn't stop spam. Bayesian spam filtering did.
Every little annoyance in life shouldn't be subject to federal regulation.
CAN-SPAM didn't stop spam. Bayesian spam filtering did.
Every little annoyance in life shouldn't be subject to federal regulation.
> Bayesian spam filtering did.
Really? Not taking out some big botnets? Not a move away from email and onto social networks? This article suggests that email spam, at a three year low, is still at 70% of all email.
(http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9222447/Symantec_says...)
Really? Not taking out some big botnets? Not a move away from email and onto social networks? This article suggests that email spam, at a three year low, is still at 70% of all email.
(http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9222447/Symantec_says...)
My broader point is that CAN-SPAM did nothing to reduce spam. http://www.cybercrimejournal.com/alexdec2009.htm I believe anti-SEO legislation would be just as ineffective.
Most laws have little effect on the outcome of any "lucrative business practice".
It's not that spammers have stopped sending it; it's that, for most people, spam is not 70% of what makes it to their inbox.
CAN-SPAM has been very successful in shutting down big bot nets and sending some of the biggest spammers to jail.
Also this isn't a little annoyance, it's wasting time and resources for everyone just like email spam is. Daily me and some volunteers on my site spent time cleaning up the junk that these blackhats use.
Also this isn't a little annoyance, it's wasting time and resources for everyone just like email spam is. Daily me and some volunteers on my site spent time cleaning up the junk that these blackhats use.
The goal was to reduce spam in inboxes, not to send people to jail and disrupt bot nets (which I presume are already illegal in most cases). So, judging by it's original goal, it has not been effective. (See other links in this thread.) Which is fine, because we have better solutions now anyway.
Not that I don't share your frustration. I run a small wiki that was so overrun by spam I had to install reCaptcha. Now the few people that still try and spam are actually doing the public a service by transcribing books. :)
Not that I don't share your frustration. I run a small wiki that was so overrun by spam I had to install reCaptcha. Now the few people that still try and spam are actually doing the public a service by transcribing books. :)
> I hope that one day spamming peoples websites is also illegal.
Today of all days, be careful what you wish for.
Today of all days, be careful what you wish for.
As far as I know Xrumer creates member profile pages on forums and adds a link to the "promoted" website to the profile. At what point do you see the criminal offense? By creating a profile and posting nothing on the forum? By adding a link where the form gives a legitimate linking-home option?
Even so I feel a bit like playing devils advocate here, but Xrumer profile creation seems to me one of the least annoying activities in comparison to blog comments or other "visible" activities.
Plus the "illegal" argument is always a double edged sword. Just imagine someone else Xrumer'ing your own website and the consequential explaining you have to do afterwards. As soon as Google (or law...) declares a specific tactic as bann-worthy people will use it against their competitors.
Even so I feel a bit like playing devils advocate here, but Xrumer profile creation seems to me one of the least annoying activities in comparison to blog comments or other "visible" activities.
Plus the "illegal" argument is always a double edged sword. Just imagine someone else Xrumer'ing your own website and the consequential explaining you have to do afterwards. As soon as Google (or law...) declares a specific tactic as bann-worthy people will use it against their competitors.
One of the motivations for this article was coming across a link on a Blackhat forum (yes, I keep bad company) about 'demoting' a competitor's website by creating hundreds of thousands of fake links to it overnight.
While this tactic doesn't always work, the article's author was quick to mention that given a relatively young site, it can be extremely helpful in getting rid of the competition.
I thought that was a very dickish thing to do.
BlackhatSEO might not be illegal, but is ethically and morally wrong, plain and simple. And it makes the internet a crappier place. That's a good enough excuse to go on a BlackHat SEO crusade.
While this tactic doesn't always work, the article's author was quick to mention that given a relatively young site, it can be extremely helpful in getting rid of the competition.
I thought that was a very dickish thing to do.
BlackhatSEO might not be illegal, but is ethically and morally wrong, plain and simple. And it makes the internet a crappier place. That's a good enough excuse to go on a BlackHat SEO crusade.
No, it's also that program that leaves comments on your blog posts and creates forum threads and replies. Profile creation is only a small facet of it. Honest webmasters like myself have to spend time each day cleaning the junk these programs leave, as well as much of the time of our forum moderators.
nah man, the author is actually pretty correct in terms of what constitutes actual blackhat seo. Blackhats hack sites and cloak and clickjack. Link spammers are just a shade of grey.
The problem is that link spammers like to sound tougher than they are so they say they do blackhat seo instead of what they're really doing, which is grey. Link spam won't send you to jail. Hacking a site can send you to jail.
I've spammed millions of links in the last few years, and I am most definitely not a real blackhat.
The problem is that link spammers like to sound tougher than they are so they say they do blackhat seo instead of what they're really doing, which is grey. Link spam won't send you to jail. Hacking a site can send you to jail.
I've spammed millions of links in the last few years, and I am most definitely not a real blackhat.
The last paragraph made me laugh because it reminded me of when Google started to discount the power of link directories years ago. All the cutting edge SEOs just moved to new techniques and the exact same thing will happen again. It's a cat/mouse game and the people who continue to win are the ones who continue to innovate new ways of gaming the system.
The guys who were really successful were the ones who were doing forum and comment spamming before someone decided to write a program that allowed absolutely anyone to do it. You can be sure none of them are lamenting Google Panda ... they'd moved on to new techniques long ago. Stuff like this is just one very basic example - http://www.buzzfeed.com/awesomer/the-truth-about-infographic....
The guys who were really successful were the ones who were doing forum and comment spamming before someone decided to write a program that allowed absolutely anyone to do it. You can be sure none of them are lamenting Google Panda ... they'd moved on to new techniques long ago. Stuff like this is just one very basic example - http://www.buzzfeed.com/awesomer/the-truth-about-infographic....
Be careful what you say.
Eli Aliosi had a great blog where he talked about the kind of stuff that you're talking about... bluehatseo.com
He went a little too far and got done in by Russian Hackers, the FBI and a delusional hacker who couldn't tell the difference between anime and reality. His server became the most burned server in the world.
Eli Aliosi had a great blog where he talked about the kind of stuff that you're talking about... bluehatseo.com
He went a little too far and got done in by Russian Hackers, the FBI and a delusional hacker who couldn't tell the difference between anime and reality. His server became the most burned server in the world.
Oh really that's what happened to him? No wonder his blog hasn't been updated for awhile. Smart, cunning guy
Anywhere to read about what happened?
From my own experiences (viewing SEO as a "hobby"), I do think the type of semi-blackhat SEO that's most prevalent - the 20k blog comment blasts and automated WhoIs reports - is righteously dying out. It may take a while since a lot of people still believe that's the easy way to rank highly (and I think a lot of the SEO world fuels that notion to a degree), but I'm at least hopeful.
But I also think it's hard not to use a majority of greyhat methods and, because of that, current greyhat methods shouldn't be totally discredited. It's really time consuming do to a lot of things without using blackhat tools like ScrapeBox and SEnuke X. However, recognize that these tools can be used for more than just spamming. Many popular tools are great for finding a few really targeted sites to, for example, actually post legitimate blog comments to. And I doubt methods and tools that are used by so many blackhats will die out soon. They can still be a vital asset to people who do take into account the health of the Internet and use greyhat methods responsibly.
But I also think it's hard not to use a majority of greyhat methods and, because of that, current greyhat methods shouldn't be totally discredited. It's really time consuming do to a lot of things without using blackhat tools like ScrapeBox and SEnuke X. However, recognize that these tools can be used for more than just spamming. Many popular tools are great for finding a few really targeted sites to, for example, actually post legitimate blog comments to. And I doubt methods and tools that are used by so many blackhats will die out soon. They can still be a vital asset to people who do take into account the health of the Internet and use greyhat methods responsibly.
Who's to blame for the necessity of such methods?
Is it Google? Is it the spammers themselves? Is it the software makers or the SEO specialists? Maybe it's even us.
The fact is, if you want to eat, you need to know SEO, most of which exists only to please Google. Why does an ecommerce site selling socks need 200 blog posts and an empty, keyword filled forum? because it works.
Is it Google? Is it the spammers themselves? Is it the software makers or the SEO specialists? Maybe it's even us.
The fact is, if you want to eat, you need to know SEO, most of which exists only to please Google. Why does an ecommerce site selling socks need 200 blog posts and an empty, keyword filled forum? because it works.
It's a little difficult to assign blame here. Blackhat SEO works, that's why it is so popular. Google's algorithm is far from perfect. There is little reason for an eCommerce site to market itself with blog posts, but the imperfect algorithm and the sheer scale of the competition makes it imperative to do so.
The best techniques make it hard for any human to detect whether any blackhat was involved. Such as scraping content that is NOT already indexed and putting it on your own site.
I can tell you from personal experience that it has become far harder to game Google after the Panda update. The SEO rats are coming out of the woodwork screaming for a solution.
True, there is still a massive amount of spam on the internet, but Google is learning how to filter it down.
The ubiquity of Facebook comments, Disqus, etc. is cutting down on the amount of comment spam. Not to mention that Akismet is becoming really good at its job.
Spamming forum profile links gets you nowhere these days. And Google can somehow sniff shit content from a mile off.
There will always be spam on the internet, but as long as it stays hidden beneath the carpet, Google is doing a good enough job.