{"id":214,"date":"2011-04-29T20:26:29","date_gmt":"2011-04-30T03:26:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/themanwhosoldtheweb.com\/blog\/?p=214"},"modified":"2011-04-29T20:26:29","modified_gmt":"2011-04-30T03:26:29","slug":"black-hat-seo-everyone-does-it-so-should-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/themanwhosoldtheweb.com\/blog\/2011\/04\/black-hat-seo-everyone-does-it-so-should-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Black Hat SEO. Everyone does it, so should you?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Black hat SEO is a topic that has been getting a lot of media attention, as of late.\u00a0 The term black hat SEO refers to manipulating Search Engine results using &#8220;unethical&#8221; means. <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/White_or_black_hat\">Here&#8217;s more info on the top from Wikipedia<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>A couple days ago, this article was published: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.digitalduediligenceadvisors.com\/seqouia-fails-to-spot-milanoos-black-hat-tactics\/\">Sequoia Fails to Spot Milanoo\u2019s Black Hat Tactics Before Investing<\/a>.\u00a0 It details how a fashion start-up, Milanoo, backed by the most well known Venture Capital firm, Sequoia, engaged black hat tactics to rank itself for 4 keywords:\u00a0 &#8220;cheap dresses&#8221; (rank 2), &#8220;evening gown&#8221; (rank 1), &#8220;cheap wedding dresses&#8221; (rank 1), and &#8220;summer dresses&#8221; (rank 2).\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In terms of Google AdWords spend, these 4 terms and spots are worth $200K\/month.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s quite an interesting read and makes you question how you can successfully compete with someone engaging in black hat.\u00a0 (In case you&#8217;re wondering, I consider the <a href=\"http:\/\/themanwhosoldtheweb.com\/blog\/2011\/04\/the-seo-matrix-deconstructed\/\">SEO Matrix<\/a> methodology white hat.)<\/p>\n<p>So, are only the more daring, budding start-up sites engaging in black hat techniques?\u00a0 Certainly not!\u00a0 The New York Times published a great article just two months prior on the wide use of black hat by well known Fortune 500 companies.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Another interesting read: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/02\/13\/business\/13search.html?_r=2&amp;pagewanted=1\">The Dirty Little Secrets of Search<\/a>.\u00a0 This article details how just this past holiday season, J. C. Penney engaged in massive amounts of black hat to get ranked for competitive and sale-generating keywords.\u00a0 Again, this was a <strong><em>massive undertaking<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 The were ranked #1 for keywords ranging from &#8220;bedding&#8221; to &#8220;skinny jeans&#8221; to &#8220;grommet top curtains&#8221; to &#8220;Samsonite carry on luggage&#8221; (yes! J. C. Penney was ranked above Samsonite itself), and so on.<\/p>\n<p>Considering Christmas season represents the largest retail sales period of the year and online sales hit a record high this year (not to mention online searches leading to increase retail store traffic), I cannot fathom how much money J. C. Penney reaped in through this black hat effort.\u00a0 (Actually, I can probably look this up from their 10-Q, but I&#8217;ll leave that to your curious mind. :))<\/p>\n<p>Now, onto the moral dilemma.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Google is becoming a crowded and competitive arena.\u00a0 If companies, big and small, are engaging in black hat, should you?<\/li>\n<li>If not, how do you economically (in terms of time, effort, and money spent) compete against someone who is engaging in black hat?<\/li>\n<li>If your competitors are all doing it, does it still make it unethical?\u00a0 <em>(If everyone&#8217;s collaborating on a take home exam, does it make it wrong for you to do the same?)<\/em><\/li>\n<li>Is it our jobs not to engage in black hat, or is it Google&#8217;s job to police and prevent these methods from affecting results?<\/li>\n<li>To put it another way, is our only responsibility to not get caught?\u00a0 <em>(If you drive over the speed limit, but aren&#8217;t given a ticket, are you still breaking the law?)<\/em><\/li>\n<li>Finally, are you really doing anything wrong by breaking rules created by a company, i.e. Google?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So, where do you stand?\u00a0 I personally put responsibility on Google.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>dave<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Black hat SEO is a topic that has been getting a lot of media attention, as of late.\u00a0 The term black hat SEO refers to manipulating Search Engine results using &#8220;unethical&#8221; means. Here&#8217;s more info on the top from Wikipedia. A couple days ago, this article was published: Sequoia Fails to Spot Milanoo\u2019s Black Hat [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[81,82,84,86,87,85,88,89,204,83],"class_list":["post-214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-seo","tag-black-hat","tag-black-hat-seo","tag-google-adwords","tag-j-c-penney","tag-jc-penney","tag-milanoo","tag-new-york-times","tag-ny-times","tag-seo-matrix","tag-sequoia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/themanwhosoldtheweb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/themanwhosoldtheweb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/themanwhosoldtheweb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/themanwhosoldtheweb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/themanwhosoldtheweb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/themanwhosoldtheweb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":216,"href":"http:\/\/themanwhosoldtheweb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214\/revisions\/216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/themanwhosoldtheweb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/themanwhosoldtheweb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/themanwhosoldtheweb.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}