Improving Site Traffic: Why Blackhat SEO Sucks

2009-11-05T14:18:00.000-08:00

Like a lot of bloggers, I enjoy writing and sharing my ideas, but I also have mercenary intent. I am running a business and want to make money. To that end, I am constantly looking for ways to get more website traffic. Blackhat SEO is often promoted as an attractive shortcut for getting traffic. But here is the shocking truth: Blackhat SEO is a Bunch of Crap.

But I guess a slightly more nuanced explanation is in order.

I can get my site indexed and on page 1 in about a week if I work hard at it and break all the "play nice" rules established by the search engines. But after a few days or weeks (if I am lucky) I'm nowhere in the search results, which is to say I am on page 10 or beyond. Tacit obscurity.

SEO for the Long Term

Let me clear up a misunderstanding. SEO for the long term does not mean you don't see results quickly. You can see improved traffic to your site within a few days. The difference is that these methods build traffic for the long run. Your backlinks don't get eventually ignored and your site doesn't get banned.

Okay, So what are these long haul methods?

For starters you do your research. Find a niche. Do your keyword research. Unless you do this as a hobby, you need to look at the monitization - what is the commercial intent of searchers in this niche and for each of the keywords, but I'm not getting into the how-to for all this today.

If this sounds unbearable - then I have some bad news: the blackhatters do these steps also - at least the ones that make any money.

On-Page SEO

The implementation for on page SEO is straightforward. On-theme content that is at least mildly original. Pay attention to title, headings, and sub-heading. Use nofollow links for overhead pages and preserving silo integrety. Don't worry about meta keywords. Hell, ignore them. Meta description? Not for SEO but keep in mind that google usually uses this for the snippet it shows in the SERPs.

More bad news: Except for the actual content, blackhats pay attention to all this also. They will typically scrape the content from other sites then blend it into keyword-laden gibberish. For example, I often find pages that have content composed of random sentences apparently taken from theme-related articles.

Off-Page SEO: Backlinks.

You have to have backlinks. Quality backlinks. Which is to say, backlinks that have on-theme anchor text from pages that are also on-theme, and better still if the site has other on-theme pages. Books have been written on the how-to of this, but it boils down to article marketing, social media participation, press releases, blogging, on your own blog and other blogs (guest posts and comments), directory submission, on an on.

Blackhats do a lot of these things but it's all automated. Posts and comments are often content scraped from other site or just boiler-plate spammy junk.

The Exciting World of Blackhat SEO!

Most successful black hatters have automated the bejezus out of everything they do. Why? It's the only thing that allows them to be profitable. One reason is that they do everything on a large scale. It is not surprising that a large portion of these guys (yeah, about 99 percent male) have coding skills.

People who pursue blackhat SEO write their own scripts to automatically build, publish and get backlinks to sites en masse. This isn't the civilian stuff sold at crapbank (thank you for that word splork) because if it makes them good money they're not going to sell it to other people. How dumb would that be?

Another reason for automation is that their sites don't last very long, They attract and funnel traffic for hours, weeks, and maybe a few months if they are really lucky or very good. But they get discovered and removed from the index, usually after a human review. (You can usually recognize these sites for what they are after a painstaking half-second inspection.)

As a result, they need to continually replenish their stock of sites. It's kinda like being in the fresh food business; everything is perishable - backlinks, the content, domain names and even hosting accounts and servers. Also, since the search engines are always improving. they also need to find time to research new methods and update all those scripts accordingly.

So, if you really enjoy running on a treadmill in front of your computer, you'll be in hog heaven with blackhat SEO. But then, since you are a sexy blackhat, you'll get to dress in black and wear your ray-bans indoors, not to mention that you'll have your choice of beautiful women. Guaranteed.

Astroboy Moves to Blogurbia to Find Fun and Danger

2007-01-26T19:34:00.000-08:00

You don't have to wonder why blogging has become the one of the most popular activities on the web -- only looking for pr0n [sic], entering your credit card information at Amazon and wasting countless hours at You-Tube rank above blogging, in my estimation.

The reason blogging is so popular is (grabbing the first idea within easy reach) Everyone Thinks What They Have to Say is Interesting.

OK, that's just a bit cynical. But is it?

A lot of people look at the occupation of "writer" with some envy: Work your own hours, you never break a sweat and you get a lot of attention. And blogging lets you be a writer without the annoying formality of having someone else decide whether to publish your work. Just type, submit, then bask in instant writerly fame!

Right. It could happen. Honest.

All the above plays a role, but is only part of the picture. There are bloggers whose motivations are as far from soap-boxing as Donald Trump is from having a good hair style. They are in it for more mercenary reasons, to say the least.

What these bloggers are about will be the first of many topics for this blog.

Whoops! Speaking of mercenary activity, I gotta go pay some bills. But if you find this before I get back to add more posts, drop me a line or two in comment section. If you're Donald Trump then let me say I am sorry for the wise-crack, but Dude - either get a buzz cut or grow dreadlocks! Anything but 70's nostalgia.

robomuse

Improving Site Traffic: Why Blackhat SEO Sucks

Astroboy Moves to Blogurbia to Find Fun and Danger