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

Came across a (seemingly) whitehat SEO site recently that had a list of ALL sites owned by its owner - who claims to be an SEO consultant. Just how funny is that? I didn’t take the time to see his other sites but something tells me they could be all interlinked. Moreover, he had his clients’ sites listed on the same site in the same long list. Doh - linkfarm yourself like it’s 1998!

Now, a blackhat SEO would have never done anything like that. First, we don’t want Google identify all of our sites alltogether and ban them all simultaneously. Second, we don’t want other SEOs to see all our niches and increase the level of competition. Lastly, we’re just paranoid by nature - but in this business, it’s a good thing.

Does it take a practicing blackhat SEO to understand stuff like that? - Probably not, it’s all pretty much common sense. Do blackhats never do anything foolish? - Far from truth. But seems like sometimes those whitehats forget the common sense.

The post I’ve done on blackhat SEO vs. ignorance recently has gained some exposure - people have commented on the post itself,  it’s been commented on at digg, it’s even been translated into other languages. While it was pretty complete in the context of the discussion on  SEOMoz mentioned in that post (that discussion has actually ben one of the main things that inspired it), with this ider exposure it’s been taken out of context, so I fel it necessary to clarify my views on this topic. Do not worry, I won’t be bashing white hat SEOs (or even those who call themselves so) much anymore.  I just don’t want people to get the impression  that I endorse blackhat SEO wannabe scripting kiddies. Because  that is NOT  black hat SEO. that is stupidity in action, and ignorance of the same kind as whitehat SEO wannabe ignorance.

So you think the fact that you’ve got a comment spamming script makes you a blackhat SEO? you think firing it off to try to post meaningless bullshit accompanied by your pharm and casino links on my blog will get you far? If even 50 unsuccessful attempts don’t drive it home to you that comments on this blog are moderated you might as well  sell your computer to your neighbour and never touch anything related to the Internet again. What is it you’re trying to achieve, the same sort of relationship with me that Matt Cutts has with search engines Web? You’d be better off spamming A-list bloggers, they might actually let your stuff through  and if you piss them off enough they might even give you some link love.

So you want to be a true blackhat SEO? Put off all your scripts and start by learning all the classical whitehat stuff. Quoting Sugarrae, “every good blackhat I’ve ever known can whitehat their asses off”. Once you’ve learned the main things, make sure you’ve got some imagination. If you’ve got none btter stay where you are - a whitehat without imagination is mediocre of course but at least the amount of stupid things you will do is smaller. or you can still pass for a selfproclaimed whitehat guru if you start a KKK-style war against blackhats - the louder the better.

For those who hasn’t paid attention reading the first part of my musings, let me repeat it again. Blackhat SEO is NOT about pushing buttons to fire off scripts somebody else has written - it is about THINKING OUT OF THE BOX.

There’s a post over at Performancing talking about comments and trackbacks which made me go doh! when I read it. I never imagined people who write about professional blogging would be so poorly informed when it comes to comment and trackback spam. While some points the author states do make sense the rest would make any spammer worth his AdSense checks laugh. Here goes:

I may yet have to deal with it [comment spam] more strongly in the future by blocking a list of IP addresses, if necessary.

Raj - don’t you know that comment spam is done using scripts as a rule, not manually, and those scripts use proxies to post comments to thousands of blogs without getting tracked or banned based on IP? Surprise surprise…

Next one:

Since spambloggers don’t generally write content, you will not have  spambacks

- doh! I’ll have you know that there are at least several trackback ping tools that can send trackback pings to targeted blogs even if the spammer doesn’t have a blog at all. The comments are funny too:

Comment spam and trackback spam are the same thing. I am pretty sure that someone out there is working on an XLM-RPC spam bot right now. It shouldn’t be too difficult.

- no Marcus, they are not the same thing. They use different mechanisms - but you’re right, creating a spam bot for both is a breeze.
What else do we have here:

Enabling trackback comments encourages people to write posts that reference you, more so than if you only allow regular, manually-submitted comments. This arguably adds a bit more weight and credibility to the trackback comment, and thus might encourage other readers to visit the linking site.

It’s true that trackback pings help get links from other people, and it’s tru that seeing a bit of a post on the otehr blog referring to the topic of the current post is likely to encourage people to visit the blog that sent the TB ping - but the downside is that there’s little control to what people will see as the text accompanying the trackback ping link. You never know what ends up displaying on the receiving end - it might be the text adjacent to the link to the targeted blog in the best case - or it might be the beginning of the post - or it might just be some random meaningless bit like “posted on… by… del.icio.us this…” and so on.

And to complete this chef-d’oeuvre of a post, there goes another bit of sheer disinformation in the end of it:

…some blog platforms just do not support them [trackback pings]. This includes Blogger.com…

Raj - where have you been for the last few months? It’s been a while since Blogger has enabled trackback pings - only they call them differently - backlinks.

The comments, like I said, are no better:

With trackbacks turned on you would be linking out to spammers. Linking to bad pills, pr0n and “enhancements” neighbourhoods.

Chris - AFAIK, and it concerns most if not all existing platforms, trackback pings can be moderated just like normal comments - so you won’t be linking to shite if you don’t like it.

And finally:

But I didn’t realize comment spam was generated by trackbacks.

- Raj, it’s not generated by trackbacks. Comment spam is generated by comment spam scripts and trackback spam is generated by trackback spam scripts - they are different although might be looking similar at the first glance. I will leave out the next passage about Blogspot blogs as it’s not exactly related - but I am seriously surprized. OK you might kick my arse and say I’m a blackhat spammer so that’s why I know all the stuff decent people are not suposed to know - but dang people you’re making a living with blogs! - You should know things like trackback and if you know the mainstream part of it you are bound to know the spam part as well…

Rand mentioned on his blog that I should probably do a guest article on Performancing - methinks it’s a TB spam and other blog-related spam FAQ I should be doing then

I wonder how many searches it takes a term to make it to Technorati Top Searches?

The rest is just technicalities….

There was a thread  in the syndk8 forums discussing the footprints some less eperienced black hat SEOs are likely to leave behind when producing their sites. The thread was much brader than this post as it went into discussing the details like online privacy, legal aspects and so on, but I decided to do a quick summary of a sort in the form of a not-to-do list.

So, if you’re in your right mind don’t do this:

1. Use the same old tired feckin template from site to site - heck I can almost put the name to the face already
2. Once you har of a new technique, get stuck on it and use nothing else and do not innovate anything
3. Do not invent anything to make your sites look more legitimate, or just invent something so stupid and unnatural that Matt Cutts’ cat can tell it’s scraped spam
4. Interlink all your sites into one giant spam network yelling Google ban us all
5. And of course, generally, don’t ever ever use your brain when creating your sites - just repeat what you have seen/heard of even if you didn’t really get to the point of an idea.

6. Use something unusual in your css classes names (thanks UKGimp for this one)

7. Use the same IP for all your sites and the same whois information (thanks again UKGimp)

If anybody has anything  useful to add to this list feel free to either post in the forum thread or add your comments here.

I have been approached by a number of people asking me if I can “spread the word” about their tools if they offer them to me for free. This issue is especially itchy for those tool developers since spam advertising on syndk8 forums is strictly prohibited - the forums are maintained through paid advertising we offer those wishing to display their products in front of a large highly targeted audience that syndk8 members are. However, I thought about all this and decided to come up with this offer. I can review the black hat tools you want to introduce to our community and post my reviews on this blog that is part of the syndk8 web site and is read by many community members as well as other people that come from elsewhere. But bear in mind that I won’t endorse these tools unless I find something really unique and useful about them.

If you’re interested in this offer and wish to discuss the details contact me either through comments here or by emailing irishwonder at irishwonder dot com.

Nadir reports on his blog of an article on ZDNet about Google headhunting for Stanford grads. When the Google home page is loaded from a Stanford IP Google serves up an ad offering people to work for them.

And you told me I was bad for picking my nose!

WebProfessor has posted on his method of making affiliate sites last longer and function more effectively, starting from the point of building a site and up to getting links etc.:

I ask myself, “does this site still look like a useful resource after 3 clicks?”. If I can say yes then I know I have succeeded in my mission of making a site that might pass a hand check. Proper use of camouflage is needed to make this happen. You have to equip each site with a template that looks like it took longer than ten minutes to put together, common feedback forms ( ie. reviews, contact us) , and common documents ( ie. privacy policy, terms of use ). The site needs to have or appear to have live updated content. Sure all these things take time but they make the difference between a site that earns a little for a few months versus a site that earns a moderate amount for a long time.

Perfect advice! This all certainly  takes more time than an average black hat spammer is willing to spend creating each site - but if we go the route of legitimizing our black hat sites this is definitely the way to do it. As for templates, in particular, I would add something especially for those unsuspecting spammers who think that spending ten minutes on a single template is all their sites (bulk!) need and take off using that same template for every site they make. There’s no foot print more stupid than that - and if you’re not in the mood to create a piece of art of a template for each site at least make them different!

Graywolf has an excellent post on err… editing Wikipedia to your own benefit. I can confirm from my personal experience all said there has great value and maybe this just  happens to be one more step in the direction of making spam intelligent. (Those reading my blog jmore or less regularly know how I hate dumb buttom clicking spammers - if you’re doing it make sure you’re using your head not your backside)

There are a couple points I might as well add to Graywolf’s post:

• While holidays (e.g.  Christmas etc.) are generally good for spamming (less people will notice your activities) this goes the opposite way for Wikipedia - the less activity is happening there per minute, the more likely you are to get busted.
• Creating usr accounts is certainly the best way to go. However, when editing anonymously, use proxies and change them frequently as your IP can be tracked for activities there as well as a user name for a logged in user - but before using a proxy, make sure it’s not one of those spammed to death proxies that’s been used by other spammers ad nauseam.
• One more good place to add links is actually the discussion pages for articles - but USE YOUR HEAD eejits!

Gray Wolf did an excellent post on Black Hat SEO terminology and what it translates to when the intent is to make it look more legitimate - a must read for those considering whiter kinds of activity. After all, so many once spammy, shady and marginal techniques are making their way onto the mainstream scene, soon it will be impossible to imagine any decent SEO’s portfolio without them