Louisville Kentucky SEO Consultant

Seems like a lot of people tend to think blackhat = spamming.

I will tell you what I think blackhat SEO is and the ideas behind it. First, I would like to point out that the terms whitehat and blackhat actually started decades ago within the computer systems/network security industry. Blackhatters were generally people that found and exploited holes in computer systems and networks. Whitehatters were generally the admins of the systems that the blackhatters exploited.

Now, you have to think to yourself a few things:

1. Blackhat guys were people that knew these systems really well, knew how to find holes or problems in these systems, and work them to their advantage.
2. Whitehat guys must not have known about these flaws in their system or they would have “patched” them somehow.

Given the above example, you could generally make the assumption the blackhatters were a tad bit smarter then the whitehatters.

What you manifest in your mind as being “exploited” or “work to their advantage” is up to you, but many times these blackhat guys were considered the leading edge tech gurus of their time. They could do what “whitehat” admins could do, plus more. Many times, blackhat guys were hired by large firms to test and break their software and computer systems so that they could improve them later on. Without blackhat gurus, you would not have the types of technology you have now.

Blackhat people didn’t break into computers for profit or harm, they did it because they could do it. They did it many times to show that computer systems were weak and vulnerable and needed to be fixed. They did it because they wanted to learn and test their limits. Once someone decided to cause harm or profit from this tactic though, they become a criminal. Criminal does not equal blackhat. That would be like saying that since I own a handgun, I am a criminal. Its what I do with that handgun that could turn me into a criminal. Just because I use a handgun or have a handgun, doesn’t mean I am a criminal.

I can say that many of the tools of the blackhat guru are similar to the tools of the spammer. They both are keenly interested in automation and making things easier/faster. They both generally work within the “law of large numbers” and use software to achieve their end goal. Just because you are doing something blackhat though, doesn’t mean you are spamming.

I’ll give you a good example. I have several sites that are mashups. These sites collect data from various sources and will republish it in different formats to an end user. Remember, I have several of these sites and they are all spread across different servers and datacenters in the USA. These sites offer great content and provide a valuable service to people using them.

Guess what.. it only takes me on average about 10 minutes to build these sites once I acquire a domain name for them. I have scripts set up that set DNS for these domains to my servers, set up the new account on the server, set up the databases and files required to run the sites, populate those databases with information extracted from the various sources based on select keywords, and then obtain links to this new mashup from other sites I own or have accounts at ( directories, social media, etc.. ). All this is blackhat, but do you see anything wrong or illegal with what I have done? Have I spammed anyone?

I could easily build 3-4 of these an hour if I wanted, but honestly I don’t have that many freely available domains. There is nothing wrong with adding a link to my new site from other sites/accounts I own and their is nothing wrong with using the various public and free information sources I pull from either to create these mashups. Sure, I know some “holes” ( shortcuts ) within a Linux server, in PHP programming, and within search engines.. and I do use them to my advantage. Then again, do you know any professional that doesn’t use their years of experience to their advantage when they need it?

People may think I try to “spam” the index of search engines with these sites, but I don’t. My goal is to get the sites up, promote them some, monetize them, and move on to the next project as quickly as possible. Kinda like Henry Ford’s idea for the assembly line where he could crank out a new Ford every few minutes. I know these sites will rank well with little promotion and if I can turn a profit from it quickly then my goal has been met.

Blackhats are just smart people that know the ins and outs of the systems they are using. They then automate their tasks based on this knowledge and use this to their advantage. Its what you do with your knowledge/automation afterward that defines who you really are.

Went to the SMO event last night at Ramsi’s and meet some interesting people.

Todd Earwood was there along with Rob May. I also noticed Joe Wheeler, but didn’t get to talk to him.

Jason Falls was heading it up and I got to meet Brian Wallace from NowSourcing as well.

Ben was taking some pictures and Aaron Marshall was there as well.

It was cool to see Scott Clark from Lexington too.

Me and James sat with Ben most of the night and talked about Volodex and how to improve some things based on what the presenters talked about in regards to people adapting to social media. We have some good plans in the works. I think overall the SMC is a good idea and one that me and James would like to fund with a sponsorship actually.

I did find it funny that each of the presenters had at least one comment about blackhat “stuff” and how it does not work in social media. I hate to be the one to go against the grain, but it does work if done correctly.

One thing to keep in mind when it comes to blackhat is that true blackhat is not about spamming or gaming the system, it is about automation. Anyone that says different is a someone that doesn’t know their head from a hole in the ground. If I can automate the process of submitting a Digg story, automate the process of signing up for a Gmail account, or automate the task of finding my competitors link from search engine result pages.. then I am doing blackhat stuff. Matter of fact, we all do it daily to some degree.

Ask yourself if you use any tools at all to help automate anything you do online. Do you use a RSS feed reader? Do you use your Blackberry to connect to Twitter? Anything that helps automate a task for you can be considered blackhat to some level. Just because you chose to use blackhat for chatting on Twitter or reading your mounds of RSS feeds on Netvibes and I chose to use blackhat to help me create 20-30 gmail accounts a day doesn’t mean I am doing something wrong. I simply created a service of my own that helps me automate a specific task.

I like how Rob May put it, which in summary was something about risk takers and non-risk takers and how you have to take risk sometimes to get a bigger reward.

You can game Digg and social media outlets. Just because the wannabe script kiddies decide to create 30 Digg accounts on the same IP and then submit a story from one of their sock puppets and vote up their story from all their digg accounts at the same time with all the accounts only having the same exact stories in them does not mean a real blackhat can not game the system. Its these people that make blackhat look bad. They lack the education and desire to do things correctly and this is why they make blackhat seem so “wrong” and “bad” to many people.

Like with any automation, there are good automatic process and bad ones. To be good at blackhat means to be good at whitehat, but make it a lot easier to go from beginning to end.

Many of us have tons of whitehat sites and blackhat sites.. if done correctly, you would never be able to tell one from the other.