Irishwonder’s Black Hat SEO Blog A blog about blackhat, general SEO issues and other things related to the life on the web

OK Blogger blogs are not as popular with black hats as they once used to be but some still use them though it takes more skill to get anything out of them nowadays. Hence, I thought it might be useful to trace a pattern I seem to see with most Blogger blogs. This pattern, though it doesn’t really tell you what exactly to do with your blogs, can be useful in getting the most out of Blogger’s service.

So - what happens when you create a new blog on Blogger?

First it sits there unnoticed by anyone - and this stage can last from a few hours to a few weeks, depending on your luck and some other things

Then, you start getting traffic from other Blogger blogs (in some cases even massive traffic) - this happens when people start clicking on “Next Blog” button and/or the link in the list of recently updated blogs after you post. This traffic, while consisting of the least savvy users who are likely to click on your ads/affiliate links or whatever it is you use to monetize your blog, it the least targeted - so your income can hardly increase during this stage.

Next, if you’ve been pinging Technorati and other blog/feed indexing services, you start getting hits from there. This traffic is a bit better targeted but the exposure is normally still pretty low, and due to the nature of these indexing services this is short term traffic, so to say - it mainly happens when you post unless you cover some really unique niche where you’re one of only a few people to post

Then the search engines come into play. The order who comes first (Google or Yahoo or MSN) can be different and it can take some SEs much longer than others to pick you up. But this is where the real traffic starts. First, you would only have one home page indexed and not ranking for anything at all - but gradually, they pick up your archives. This is when, depending on the content of your posts, you start ranking for every niche search out there - and this is the peak of your blog’s lifecycle.

The final stage: Blogger spam blogs (like I said, I hate the word splogs - blogs is already unnatural enough) end their life either being banned by the search engines or terminated by Blogger. Well, the third outcome certainly is you stopping to post there/use the blog.

What should you do in the end of your blog’s lifecycle to maximize its conversion?

In the first case, your traffic clearly drops significantly - but since as a rule blogs don’t necesarily get banned by all the SEs at once you can still enjoy some traffic from those who left it intact for now. If it is you who stopped using the blog, its exposure will also drop with time as search engines love frequently updated blogs much more than dead ones - unless you had something truly unique posted there. But don’t kill your blog physically in any case - leave it be and if you have something to click on there there will still be people clicking on it, even if less frequently (2 cents by 2,000 blogs…. you get the picture).

But what if it’s Blogger that killed your blog? - well, even in that case it might still uprise you with some minor conversions. Search engines are sometimes slow to delist sites that no longer exist - and this applies to terminated blogs as well. there will still be cached pages in the search engines - and there will still be characters who would want to see them - and you won’t believe me but I have personally sen soem of those characters clicking on Adsense ads on those cached pages!

UPDATE: Well, I just checked out of curiosity and it appears that very often Google only displays public service ads on cached pages…. so one source of income less - not too bad anyway since nobody can still do anything about the affiliate ads and the like - and I haven’t checked Yahoo, let me know if you find out

Even though Blogger blogs have been undergoing a lot of changes recently it still causes people who use it quite soem headache. One recent example: even people as well known as Mike Grehan fall victim to a Blogger template acting up. Check out this post of his - which in itself is an excellent post with a lot of insight, but it is hardly readable in Firefox. (I have posted about Blogger template problems in different browsers a while ago - in my case, it was IE though.)

While Mr. Grehan’s post contains a lot of interesting and discussable points, the comments to the post are a great example of, so to say, “post hijacking”, even though it wasn’t intentional - half the people commenting talk about the template problem. From this point of view of view, it is interesting to see how Aaron Wall handles both issues - he mentions the template problem while giving a lot of thought to all the informative content of the post

If only those spamming this blog ever read it. They could have been more effective (not necessarily here but in most other places).

Some time ago I came across this post in Aaron Wall’s SEO Bookblog pointing at this thread at SEW discussing content exchange as opposed to the oldschool link exchange. Since the last Google update(s) renderign reciprocal linking totally useless, webmasters and SEOs all over the web have been trying to find a better solution and this one indeed seems like one.

Content exchange on blogs has existed since the advent of blogs. It is called comments. You contribute a useful/insightful/witty comment and in return you get to display your signature link on the blog that you comment on. But try taking the easy route by posting irrelevant crap only designed to insert your links, and all you get is pissed off blog owners and your comment spam modded out.

When people started using blogs for marketing, it gave rise to comment spam increase. On one hand, there is manual comment spam that already constitutes quite a problem (check this Threadwatch thread for a discussion of one of such cases). On the other hand, there are automated ways of comment spamming which are much worse due to the volume. Take some button clicking script kiddie who thinks he’s a big bad black hat but totally lacks creativity and imagination and you have half the Blogosphere pissed off. This is totally ineffective of course. These spammy comments only stand a chance to remain intact on dead blogs, thus achieving nothing.

If you want your links to stay where you drop them use some imagination. First, do some topical research for posts on blogs that match the same topic as what you are going to comment spam for. By doing this search, you achieve two goals:

1. You get topically relevant posts;
2. You get live and most likely frequently spidered blogs.

Then, design your comment. Take the time to do it carefully. It should be more or less general but still relevant to the posts in the blogs you’ve found. The more URLs you want to cover in one run, the more difficult it is to achieve this…

This strategy is probably not really universal as there will always be people to lazy to work it out properly, or there are spammier industries out there where most blogs are automated spam blogs - but there there’s no need for tricks like this as those blogs are never moderated anyway and the comemnts there are eitehr published right away or not published at all. But for less spam-dependent topics this, if done properly, can definitely improve te overall picture

Comment spam automation tools definitely need more logic to run more effectively (or some brains in the heads of those using them). Firing them off to just post anywhere that seems to be supporting posting just doesn’t cut it. For example, trying to comment spam this blog will only be a waste of your time and consequently a waste of my time when I delete your comment spam. You won’t get any mercy here just because you are a fellow blackhat, especially if your intellectual abilities are so much below average thast you are trying to comment spam me. Every eejit can understand that if I am familiar with different black hat techniques I will also make efforts not to fall victim to those using them against me (makes sense doesn’t it?) Your comment spam just won’t make it through and will only remain a wasted effort on your part.

Attention comment spam scripts authors, from now on make it an industry standard to filter my blog out of your list of collected URLs if ti appears there by any chance. Heck, it can be even used as a marketing bonus if you sell your script to other people. Here’s even your free weekend marketing tip: on your site where you sell the script, put a banner saying “Our script does not attempt to comment spam IrishWonder’s blog! Spamming a Syndk8 mod is useless!”

Good luck, get coding now! the best script out there might end up getting reviewed by me here

I have been reading a good deal of other people’s blogs recently, and there are some blogs I tend to read regularly. Not all of them are necessarily Blackhat, many are just general SEO. In the meantime, I’ve been watching what those other people do with their blogs. I guess it’s time for me to make up a little collection of links to those blogs somewhere, not only as a recognition of my appreciation and interest but even for my own convenience - sometimes when using a computer other than my own and not having my bookmarks within reach it is quite a task to remember all the places to go to. Now, I’ve been wondering how I should go about it. Obviously, all the blogs that I read do it either by making a Blogroll of links in the sidebar or by having a page of links/resourses/whatever they call them linked to from the sidebar. Since having sitewide links is not cool any more, I guess I will opt for a separate page, but I’m still considering it.

Seems like everybody’s busy creating terrible sounding new words - the one I just ran into is Shoposphere, mentioned by SEW’s Chris Sherman in this post about Yahoo expanding its shopping search. I am not sure if this is the first mention of the word, and feel reluctant to really research this. Anyway, this is one more word along with splogs and splogosphere that I don’t like at all - it just sounds too unnatural.

An update: it appears that Yahoo itself came up with the word! - Ugh….

Blogger has finally got off its arse and added an option to moderate comments posted to Blogger blogs for the blog owners. However, it is pretty limited:

* Comments that have already been published or rejected are removed from the moderation list. Rejected comments are deleted and cannot be recovered. Approved comments can be deleted in the usual way if you decide you no longer want them.
* When rejected comments are deleted, a “this comment has been removed” message will be left in their place. You can remove this by deleting the message from the post page like you would for a regular comment.
* Only blog administrators will be able to moderate comments. Team members without admin privileges will not have access.

Some people state this will cut down on comment spam - I doubt it. Only those following all the news know of this feature. Unlike captcha verification on comments promoted through a message on the dashboard when the user logs into his Blogger account, this feature is not likely to be noticed. Thos creating new blogs will see it of course - but I guess most people (especially those wihtout much tech knowledge) simply running their blogs and not messing with their settings every now and then probably won’t even know it’s possible…

Seems like nowadays most people think if they’re blogging they just have to post something about splogs. However, this one made me wonder. Have CNet’s authors run out of topics to post a month-old story from Google Blogoscoped? The story features an interview with a person who doesn’t consider himself a splogger, but CNet begs to differ. Of course all the moralizing is in place, including the call to report the guy to Splog Reporter, but don’t we all already know what all these lame spam fighters are worth… I’d just suggest to take counter measures and report the reporters At least the original interviewer at GB was nice to that guy…

What’s really nuts about the original interview though is that the guy is actually listing all his blogs there, thus making himself vulnerable to all those do-gooders’ attacks… I’d understand if they were live links from GB’s PR5 page - but alas, they are not. Not a black hat practice for sure, but then like he says, he’s new to the internet.

Well, a newbie he may be, but he seems to already have sound understanding of some things. Here’s my favourite quote from the interview:

So I benefit because I have relevant content on my blog that people may be looking for. People may come to my site and might click on an ad then I make some money. Also, they may read part of the article, desire to finish reading the article, then go to the source and they might click on one or two of their ads so the publisher makes money.

And another one, from the comments following the post:

Am I adding value to the internet? That was never really my goal.

Go “unflag”/”unreport” him or something?

Every good little white hat/do-gooder is now obscessed with catching bad sploggers. There is a number of sites set up to report/collect data about spam blogs. Especially funny are those providing “lists” of recently caught/reported splogs. Here’s one at http://www.splogspot.com - I took a look at their “recently updated splogs” list and couldn’t help laughing. Either they are suffering from a very bad case of paranoia or they have fallen victim to automated reporting in order to undermine their “heroic” efforts - but what’s wrong, for example, with this innocent girl’s blog that it appeared on their list? And this is just a randomly clicked link… I believe there are many more like that one.

Guys, if you can’t handle splogs coming out in bulk at the speed of sound don’t pretend to be so smart and powerful - just recognize your wrong and look for a better way… meanwhile we the blackhats will look for more ways to make the puzzle more difficult for you

Been checking my stats again (as you might have noticed I do every now and then) and came across people coming from Google search for “blogger deleted accounts” - no big wonder after all my anti-Blogger campaign posts. What’s nice, however, is that I’m #4 in Google SERPs for that search - after Blogger itself, Scott on Feedster’s post and a post on InsideGoogle - hehe seems like I’m becoming a top resourse for all things Blogger

Another search of note that brought people to my blog was “blackhat blog” - now that’s really flattering! There, I appeared to be #3 - after one extremely “relevant” result (see Google’s cache here - congrats on delivering quality SERPs Google ) and a list of blog posts tagged with del.isio.us tag “blackhat” displayed on a site called bemovil - these guys deal with providing access to information and information exchange through mobile devices…

Now my ambition is of course to become #1 for this particular search - hell, which might as well happen during this G update!

UPDATE: the information differs across different datacenters - we seem to be right in the middle of the Google Dance now. Anyway, across all the datacanters, I’m way above DaveN - isn’t that flattering??