I never said Black Hat SEO was Illegal
I never said Black Hat SEO was illegal. I have said it is unethical and many websites on the internet agree with that including ALL the search engines. Now it is not all that uncommon for search engines to punish sites whose rank suddenly and artificially climb for no apparent reason. You can get banned completely or at minimum lose your ranking. Once you are tagged for using these techniques it is very hard to climb back up.
The search engines imply, as do I, that using Black Hat SEO methods is cheating.
I really don't see the comparison of using Comment Kahuna to find complimentary web sites to comment on, on occassion AND using a program to spam a bookmarking site with 100's of artificial posts and links. I can do a search on Google click the blogs link and accomplish the same thing. Like all of you I have things to do but again 1 post in a follow or no follow comment is not spamming to increase search engine ranking.
I post on complimentary websites so other people who might be interested in what I have to offer will come over and see. Like my car example...there is a guy blogging about rebuilding '57 Chevys' writes about how hard it is to get original parts. I have a site on '65 Mustangs and write a comment saying " I know how you feel...I have the same problem with early model mustangs. I'll keep a lookout for Chevy stuff and let you know when I come across some." Then I leave my name and link. If you guys consider that kind of commenting spamming then you don't know the meaning of the word. 1 comment here or there will not raise my Search Engine Position.
There seems to be a large crowd here that seems to think that cheating is OK. And I guess they believe in the old saying "It's only cheating if you get caught."
If you are OK with one kind of cheating are you OK with others too?
Cheating on your spouse?
Cheating at cards and games?
Cheating on your taxes.
Cheating on tests.
If your child gets caught cheating on a test at school...Are you going to scold them for cheating? Or just for getting caught? There are some here who apparently would give their child a high five. Cheating on a test at school is not illegal either but it can sure give you a bad name. Depending on what grade you are in at the time you can carry that reputation for a long time.
The keywords here are Natural and Artificial.
If you want to use these methods then go ahead. But as long as they are promoted, taught and approved of here at WA I will never recommend WA to anybody.
Recent Comments
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YOU promoting YOUR work Is not a problem when done in a natural way even with anchor text. YOU writing 20 "relevant" articles about your product, course or service is not a problem. Even in the offline world people write books, editorials, go on TV and radio to promote their products. Get on Oprah and you can make a killing. Over the natural course of time you might have hundreds of backlinks, anchor text or otherwise, from your writings, videos and comments and hundreds or even thousands from other sites from PEOPLE who found your work relevant.
Now I can afford all the black hat crap that's out there but I don't bother. You say that creating a text link is artificial...not me. I say using software that creates 100's or 1000's of NON-relevant text or url links, comments and such is artificial. YOU Writing 25 blog posts and having software post those to your blog say one every few days is not artificial. Its efficient. NOW about paying your mortgage and feeding your children, DO what you have to do. But remember the person who's website you are trying to beat out may have the same responsibilities as you. Maybe even more. Did he cheat to get to where he is at? Don't know. I do know this. I make plenty of money on the internet without having to use this spamming software or pay people to sit all day and make comments and build links for me. Do I self promote? Yes, BUT I, me I'm the one doing it. Have I had people write articles for me...YES. But they are to my guidelines and they must read well. Not like some of the spun crap I've read on the net. I've read articles that look like they were written by a 2nd grader and made no sense at all and had no real relevance...but whoever put it out still got their link out there. I don't want my name or even my pen name on anything like that. I don't have to use these methods I've talked about to gain the system but If you do then go ahead. Like the man said it aint illegal.
There seems to be a lot of people trying to justify THEIR actions by pointing fingers at me and making up ridiculous scenarios and making up Googles rules as they go along. i write articles, posts and comments for PEOPLE to find my site not search engines. If I do my job right my websites will, and DO rise in the SERPS on their own.
Here's a scenario....
I create a landing page that reviews products....
Then I write say 20 articles with anchor text backlinks to my landing page..
Then maybe make a hubpage and a Squidoo Lens with anchor text backlinks to my landing page...
In your way of thinking this would have to be cheating and here is why....
Google finds and uses those anchor text backlinks to rate my landing page as an authority...
Is it not cheating to be creating my own authority anchor text links when Google intended this system to be used when independent sites (not my own) have found my site to be relevant enough to provide an anchor text link to my landing page?
Google did not intend for me to go out and keep creating anchor text links to my own site to "fool" the system into thinking my landing page is an authority right?
So in your line of thinking ANY achor text backlinks created to raise the authority ranking of ones site would be cheating right?
I am assuming that you only post blog comments or links ANYWHERE using your url and NEVER anchor text links cause that would be cheating in your eyes.
If this is the case then you would not only be saying WA promotes cheating...
You praised PotPieGirl on the forums for how she runs her business and she promotes using methods you would consider cheating as does Travis Sago and EVERYONE that teaches affiliate marketing.
You talk about natural and artificial. You creating an anchor text authority backlink to your own site is artificial with regards to the intended use with the Google authority ranking system.
Without promoting your own site using anchor text backlinks you are not going to rank for anything or make any money and that is a fact.
I am not saying it is right or wrong but I am saying I have a family to support and have to work within the system to put food on the table.
Last time I checked there is not a "integrity bonus" that pays my mortgage or puts food on the table.
I would much rather be proud of the products I promote and the fact that I am helping people solve problems as well as helping hard working and legitimate merchants increase their online sales.
Is your problem REALLY with cheating or is it with people that use automated tools because they get to cheat more than you do?
Thanks for the response and for the record I do not use automation tools for back links. I create all of my back links on my own with hard work.
I also do not post spam comments on peoples blogs as I have to spend enough time deleting this crap from my own hosted blogs.