Watshit

We hate spam, and there’s nothing worse than a contest that condones it. SEOs love to spam links almost anywhere they can, sometimes these links have no meaning, and mean nothing, the content they build around these links is also almost always useless. Nothing constructive can be picked out of most spam blog posts, but we’ve seen a changing trend, although a slight one, like this BlackHat Fish post by a Slovenian Designer who is part of an ongoing SEO contest.

His post took time, he designed something for the contest, not only that but provided his readers with something related to the contest he entered. Origami? It was still creative, and very useful. But in general, we all know that most BlackHat SEO contests, or any sort of contest run by or for SEOs is most usually going to result in an amazing amount of spam.

Contestants will look for blogs to comment on dropping their links when possible, they’ll find forums to spam too, add links on all their own sites and do almost anything to get that extra boost. To them it’s fun, it’s making some money, it’s winning a contest, to the www users, it’s spam, it’s sifting through junk to find what we want, it’s having to deal with all these spam comments on our blogs.

So are SEO contests useful, some can be if they all were expected to be creative link in this blackhat fish contest over at Shouting Zone. Remember, it’s the quality of the links and content around the links that matters most, not only the quantity. Don’t help make spam more of an issue than it already is.

We have received numerous complaints in the past about services and directories forcing users to place banners or links on their sites to be considered for a particular service. Directories claim you have a ‘higher’ chance of being listed if you place a banner on your site pointing to them. some state that’s the only requirement, you get listed for free if you link back to them.

Even though Google heavily relies on links to determine the ranking of web pages, they have cranked up the tempo on link exchange schemes and are penalizing site owners for being part of such activities (the extreme). Which raises a red flag on the penalty directories were slapped with not long ago for the paid link submission issue. Could this be another snowball in motion slowly gaining momentum only to slam directories once again?

Most directories online today require users to link back to them in order to be eligible for inclusion in their listings. Could this be a loophole to link exchange schemes that Google will bust soon?

designer.am is one of the many directories we have received complaints about. They are accused of forcing designers to link back to their site in order to be considered for inclusion. Several users sent us emails sent to them by designer.am which contain the following;

…However, we encourage you to try registering in our directory again, after you upgrade your web site and/or post our link or banner on your web site. The web site suggested will have more chances to be accepted and added to the Directory, especially if our link or banner is posted on your web site\’s Home Page…. - designer.am (Design Directory)

Should this be considered as a technique that’s trying to bypass Google’s rules, is this yet another link exchange scheme technique, or should it be accepted? Is it not reciprocal linking? Can submitting to hundreds of directories potentially ruin your sites reputation and rankings if Google takes actions against these directories? We would list most of these directories, but I’m sure we all know about them anyway. I think it’s time these directories cleaned up their act and get on the honest business band wagon already!

For years people have been trying to rank their businesses high up in the search engines in hopes of widening their potential client base and gaining more exposure. Somewhere along the lines, early on that is, people started to give up with original content, related link building and quality blog posts as well as real unique articles and so forth, basically all that used to help in ranking sites for certain keywords. SEO became hot and with anything hot like that, it started to get abused.

With what first started out as fixing headers, site titles, targeting certain keywords in anchor text, optimizing a page and it’s navigation to push up a site in the Search Engines, turned into a keyword stuffing, web page cloaking spam fest. The practice of Search Engine Optimization took a 90 degree turn and headed into the realm of no return, the realm that we now call Black Hat SEO. With more and more webmasters and business owners realizing that Black Hat SEO worked better with a faster response time when it came to ranking, it spread like a plague.

So what about all those companies claiming to be able to handle YOUR SEO work for you, and they claim to do this the WhiteHat way, the old fashioned legal way, how can you be sure these companies wont cause you heart ache in the long run and get your site or business banned from ranking in any Search Engine?

Below is a list of common and not so common Black Hat Techniques.

• First, and one of the best known BlackHat Techniques a BH SEO uses, is Spam, and lots of it. Here’s an example, WideCircles. Now these guys are not even original, barely note worthy,  scavenging the internet registering on Black Hat forums, BH networks even on Web Master communities to spam their site and claim to be the best in the world. They claim to be an SEO company that can do wonders for you and also go on to claim they will rank your site high up in the search engines for almost any keyword you want. With sites outranking them for almost every keyword known to man, even their own domain name keyword ‘Wide Circles’ these crooks, these scam artists, these fake SEOs prove only one thing, that even when it comes to spam, they fail…miserably.

• Which brings us to the second technique used by these SEOs, duplicate content. It’s easily caught by Search Engines these days but surprisingly it’s still widely used. WideCircles for example spam forums with the same phrase in hopes of ranking for a combination f the same keywords they stuff into this phrase.

• Now duplicate content is not only posts, it’s blogs, articles and even multiple sites. Some submit the same keyword stuffed articles to hundreds and hundreds of article sites in hopes of not only ranking for such keywords and key phrases but also scoring extra backlinks. This does not help, these backlinks are devalued due to the nature of the duplicate article. Best submit it to one or two strong article sites and write new articles with unique content!

• Beware of domains  registered through a proxy domain server as this usually means the site owners are hiding and don’t want to be found. Only logical reason is they plan to pull a scam then drop the name and run.

• Backlinks, these days BH SEOs will do anything for extra backlinks, they will just about go to any length to add keyword rich anchor text links that will help them. Some look for exploits on .edu related sites, some even hunt .gov sites because they know, a backlink from either one will help them. These blackhats make simple searches using google to find exploits in blogging scripts used by these .edu and .gov sites.

Link selling is now pretty much against SE regulations and rules, but new Black Hat Techniques are still found and used that outsmart Search Engines, and even manual inspections, one such technique that is being used more and more is the fake adsense.

Passing off a link as if it were part of an adsense box, when in truth it was simply a paid link posting with not only anchor text but a little description to make it that more valuable.

• Cookie stuffing is something BlackHaters do to get referral fee’s and commission for users they did not really refer. How they do this is simple, they load the site on a page they lure the user on, with several different hidden frames that contain the said referral web pages, this stores the affiliate cookie in the users browser and if they end up buyng things from those said affiliates, the Black Hat will get the commission. It’s pretty much day light robbery. To help you spot this iframe, some black hats slip up and don’t cover their tracks well, this leaves a mark such as the one circled bellow, that is a mini window with the referral url loaded in it!!!

There are hundreds, possibly thousands other Black Hat Techniques being used as we speak, the important thing is not to fall victim for any of them. Please, whenever you do business with an online company of any sort, check their contact page and make sure their is a real address there, check their #’s and if they are providing a service that requires some sort of license then check with the proper authorities to make sure they are actually registered. Never fall for an online scammer who is too afraid to give his/her/their contact details. They expect you to trust them enough to pay, you should accept nothing less than a phone number to confirm they are real or who they say they are.