It never fails. Find a good thing that everyone can benefit from and watch some people go out of their way to ruin it. SEO Marketing is one of those things.
Since the majority of website traffic comes from places like The Google and Yahoo, it was only a matter of time before the people who dwell in moral twilight figured out some techniques to cheat their way to a better ranking for their website The problem is these people lose track of the real objective. Wendy Boswell at About.com writes, "Black hat SEO basically is a short-sighted solution to a long-term problem."
Yes blackhatters get a quick boost in site ranking and more than likely make a fast buck (their goal anyway) but over the long term they run the risk of being banned by the very search engines that could really grow their business into a traffic generating, money making dynamo that last for years.
Want to play Russian roulette with the search engines? Try these techniques:
1. Link Farming
You have probably seen those sites with a directory page that contains hundreds of links. The trouble is they have no relation to the website theme. Putting up links about mortgage loans, acne, the history of wastebaskets etc when your site is about the quality of fishing in Great Falls Montana would be an example of link farming. There was a time when the search engines were okay with this but as is usually the case, people went overboard with it.
Make sure the links on your directory page relate directly or indirectly to the content on your website. In fact save yourself the time and effort by focusing on getting one way links to your site. A couple of quality one way links are worth way more than thousands of links unrelated to your niche.
2. The Sybil Attack
One of the most famous TV movies of all time is Sybil: The Girl with 16 Different Personalities starring Sally Field. This is the blackhat foundation for setting up mirror sites.
By creating multiple web sites with the exact same content but different domain addresses, blackhatters are able to trick the search engines into ranking their main website higher. Sybil attacks can also turn quite nasty and take control of large scale computer networks including peer to peer systems which are quite vulnerable.
3. Cloaking
Cloaking software was an underground rage a few years back. The concept is to present two types of content: One for the actual visitors to your website, the other was for the search engine spiders that crawl your web pages looking for updating content that has been keyword optimized. This was an elaborate way of getting the search engines to show a page they normally would not.
All of this may sound ridiculous and totally unnecessary. Yes on both counts. The easiest way to stay on the good side of the search engines is to give them exactly what they want; namely a website with good content (preferably unique) that grows at a more natural pace.
This maybe a slow way to success for some people but it's safe and it works. You are growing a business which you hope will be prosperous for years to come. Do not let anyone talk you into putting it at risk by using blackhat techniques.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Asian Search Engines
By: JazzyJeff | 23-06-2008
Can Asian search engines bring me more traffic?
Who would like to develop a trust business relationship and benefit from the great links I have for sale?
By: shmitche | 27-05-2008
I need trust based business relationship because... This is what I have to offer: 1)Permanent one way links. 2)In a network of 1000's of untapped websites: PR2 ? PR5 only (Class ? C). 3)Unique handwritten content only in this network and every post. 4)You can target and rank for any text link keyword you choose. 5)You can direct your link to any page you choose in your website. 6)Completely untraceable. 7)Only 5 dollars a link. 8)Content and links are distributed naturally (chosen from options by buyer through me) for SEO. Restrictions: 1)No porn, gambling, or black hat websites or cheap websites. I will have to authorize the site. 2)Security is tight there are no reports (I don?t have access for my own sites) only yahoo link search and a jump in rankings and traffic will be evident. 3)I only want to sell once a month to one client. 4)I will only sell $500 - $600. per month 5)Payment must be upfront (A must for system to work) 6)Will not reveal my source. Contact me for any questions.
Does Paying For Gauranteed Traffic Work? I'm ...
By: dunn1423 | 29-08-2007
Does Paying For Gauranteed Traffic Work? I'm thinking of investing close to $100 per Month in the next 4 mths leading up to Xmas as i have a Online Gift Shop. There are verious companies that i have surfed and found that does this type of traffic generating. If would also appreciate if you can recommend a good one here's one i'm thinking of using....http://buyhitscheap.com/guarantee.php or http://www.guaranteedwebsitetraffic.net/ which would be the better of the two??? Thanks D.B
Developing Success Metrics for website benchmarking
By: Isdaron | 10-09-2006
Dear fellow Yedda-Users, I'm currently working on my master thesis, where I would like to benchmark different websites for success. I'm aware that there are traffic services like Hitwise and Alexa, but I would like to broaden this view by additional metrics. For example, I would like to list how many "Diggs" a site has had or how many people have bookmarked it via Del.icio.us or similar services.Is there a way to find out:1) How many Diggs a website (not a specific page on that site) has received? 2) How many Websites link to a website (not a specific page on that site, but the site in whole)3) How many bookmarks have been made on Del.icio.us (for the site in whole, not a specific page on the site)I would also be very interested in your point of view on if there are additional metrics to compare the success of websites. Thank you very much, Bjoern
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