Hey Guys,

A few of you may remember me, I have been posting here for around 5 years now. My posts usually stirr up a debate with chris hurst or van gogh as my methods are a little harder and faster than most.

I run a internet company, we control many different products and websites and I pay a 6 figure number to google for my PPC so SEO is something that I do take very seriously as it can save/make me a lot of money.

When I first started SEO around 8 years ago I was a complete black hat. Search engines were still very vulnerable and I exploited this fact by creating multiple interlinking networks, doorway pages, IP cloaked sites with automatically gennerated content for funnels and even at one point had a team of people doing nothing other than trading links in online link trading directories and software. You may think that all these things are fairy stories but no, they did have their time when they worked very well, and they did represent a very healthy return on investment.

Where are the sites now? The IP cloaked ones got de-indexed but I removed the cloaking scripts and all sites that were banned have been re-indexed. The sites with humongous links directories still do great now. I deleted the links directors on my sites but there are still thousands of incoming (and now one way) links coming into these sites.

Funny thing is google seems to rank these sites better and better every year with little work on my behalf. I can only put it down to link aging and a now natural growth of genuine links.

About 3 years ago I took off my black hat and replaced it with a white one. The search engines had tidied up their game and link trading was not cutting the mustard on the big money keywords. I knew then that success hinged on being able to get a sufficient number of one way links. I rejected most of the conventional methods as slow and difficult to maintain and instead replaced my team of link builders with a team of offshore software developers.

The concept I follow is simple. I survey the target market of the website and find out as much information about them as possible. I then work out a free service that would be useful to this target market and set the programmers to work. Once the service is online I use a little paid advertising plus a few guys in india to talk the site up in foums etc and hey presto if I did my homework right lots of quality links (how you name the tool & domain is crucial for getting right anchor text) and traffic start to pour in. Also making the tool available on other peoples sites as long as they link back to you can work.

Ok so this all sounds very nice but it is a hell of a lot of work and can sometimes not work as well as hoped. This (eventually) brings me onto my dilema. I have been following the progress of some associates who have a much simpler way of achieving results. They go out and sign up to every oneway link spam program under the sun, buy links etc.. and hey presto.

The official word from google is that all they will do if they discover a dodgy link pointing at your site is to disregard it. From the results im seeing with my own eyes google are not disregarding the majority of these links. Perhaps they are just being very lucky but their results are consistent. They aways try to use an old domain that already has a number of links pointing into it but it is not essential, they can do it with new domains also.

So here it is. There is no chance of permantly damaging my rankings. All it can do is increase my rankings. Is it time to don the black hat once more and go for some uber link spammage? I know it's probably naive of me to post here for some genuine advice (from reading recent posts the level of flaming on this site has risen dramatically since I last visited) but I hope that maybe someone out there has tried something similar. Thanks.

PS I am talking about optimising good sites with lots of content that already get traffic from long tail keywords. I optimise for the highly competed short tail keywords that perform well in PPC.

There is no chance of permantly damaging my rankings. All it can do is increase my rankings.

You HOPE that it won't permanently damage the site. There is evidence that some can recover and other never do. It is a game of chance.

The official word from google is that all they will do if they discover a dodgy link pointing at your site is to disregard it. From the results im seeing with my own eyes google are not disregarding the majority of these links.

Sure, some they catch, a lot more they don't. But it's really down to what the google algo determines as "dodgy"

plus a few guys in india to talk the site up in foums

You don't need to tell us about this. Here we usually try to eliminate the obvious culprits when we can determine their raison d'etre for posting.

Funny thing is google seems to rank these sites better and better every year with little work on my behalf. I can only put it down to link aging and a now natural growth of genuine links.

Yep. longevity counts

I have seen many big sites do what you have done and one of them is now under Alexa 1000 and is a huge site now and they used to trade links with sites of similar PR and suddenly when I visited the site a month ago I see no backlinks and so probably they removed and obviously would not notify 1000s of webmasters and now they have good links going forward.

Try and see how it goes

I was always partial to wearing black..............but white is so much more fun because it makes others think you are a good guy. LOL

I too used to be more of a black hat. Eventually I got some websites penalized by the search engines. All of my shady efforts essentially went down the drain. Then I woke up and realized that most of the time it just isn't worth risking your website's future just to do well now. You can get rankings the slow ethical way and be confident that your rankings will stay. Or you can risk it all and get rankings asap, but stand a chance of losing rankings just as quickly as you gained them. So if you care about the long term success of your website, I recommend staying white hat.

The search engines are just going to get better and better at detecting all kinds of spam and black hat techniques. Doing anything shady is just going to make the search engines not trust you when they finally catch on.

Even if the spam isn't on your own website, I wouldn't be so sure that you won't eventually get penalized for black hat techniques.

Originally Posted by Jeremy80

The search engines are just going to get better and better at detecting all kinds of spam and black hat techniques. Doing anything shady is just going to make the search engines not trust you when they finally catch on.

Even if the spam isn't on your own website, I wouldn't be so sure that you won't eventually get penalized for black hat techniques.

I think people give the search engines way to much credit. Google are not omnipitent. If they penalise incoming links then they leave the door open for malicous attacks.

My post wasn't about me going totally black hat, just about gong mad on buying up incoming links. If I wanted to go total black hat I would buy a blog spamming program but if that day ever comes you have permission to kill me, and make sure it is a slow death, those blog spamming bastards are the scourge of the internet.

Has anyone out there bought links enmasse and not afraid to speak out about their results? or are you all tucked away furtively typing articles and promoting your RSS feeds?

Buy links enmasse if you wish by all means. I don't really see why you consider that a "black hat" means of promotion. It's the equivalent of opening a night club in an out of town location, then paying for a flyer distribution and poster campaign in the surrounding areas.

About the worst that can happen is that it does not have the effect you hope for/expect and you have spent a lot of money on some unnecessary education.

Cheers for the view Chris. You may enjoy throwing a few grand in the bin but it's not my favourite past time. I class buying links for SEO purposes as blackhat as it is not in full keeping with Google TOS. I know they target sellers, but still...

I know the general opinion that people have that buying links is bad etc.. but when pressed the people usually giving this advice have never bought links themself and don't have access to accurate data that can calculate if buying the links delivered a good ROI.

Sometimes I think the advice given in SEO forums is similar to a virgin giving sex tips to a porn star. That's not targetted at you Chris, I know you have a lot of experience with SEO, but it just feels that most of the advice given in forums is from people that have never actually tried the thing they are talking about.

Before I comit myself to spending money I seek out as many opinions as possible. I may decide to buy links, I may not. If I do I will have researched where to buy them and will do my best to track the results so after a time I can refine the process.

The reason for my lengthy post is that I am going to great lengths to generate natral one way links and I'm wondering if its worth it. If I can get good results by buying links for high profit sites then I think I'll give it a go. Before I spend money I want to talk to as many people as possible who have had success or failure using this method. So far this forum hasn't turned up and juicy leads but I am hoping a lurker who buys links may yet send me a PM or reply to this thread.

Part of the problem is that the people who have great success with a certain technique don't necessarily want to go tell everyone about it. What if their competition reads these strategies and uses them to surpass them in the search engine rankings? Link buying does work, but it is against Google 'rules'. So there is a chance that your website can get penalized. People claim that only the sellers get punished, but that's not what Google says. I think part of it depends on how spammy your entire link profile is. If you have strong trustworthy links you can probably get away with a bit more. If you have lousy links, I think the search engines would be less willing to take any crap from you.

"those blog spamming bastards are the scourge of the internet."

but you pay illiterate indians to fill up our forums with junk and are not the scourge of the internet? but hey, look at me. I was ready to do the same (well, without using idiot illiterate people or any form of slave but myself), but to be fair to me as soon as I had a better model with no slavery, I chucked it in the bin (and finally resurrected it as a political tool).

What you're talking about is NOT about choosing a moral position, left or right - it's NOT about "black or white hat seo giving you a bad rep" - because as scelson the famousest spammer said to the national press when asked why he didn't give a rat's biro what they wrote about him... "I can reach more people than you". Spam is as powerful as military force in the real world and works the same way - brutal, one-sided, scale-tipping activity designed to exploit everyone in your path for your gain.

The truth is it is NOT about your rep, it's about your longterm assets. Businesses driven by this approach, and businessmen growing their skillset in this field in this way, will simply end up washed up very soon. You say that people overestimate google and on one plane you're right, but on a different plane you're the one who's in trouble because eventually, not so far away either, technology's pace will quicken yet again, and another wave of "black hat" action will be made completely impotent.

Think back - you obviously have experience. Think of the times when MLM and similar phrases were bandied about by people making successful cash? But it was washed away. Think of the term FFA - it once had a lot of meaning because of how common FFA constructs were. Now they're all but gone. Forums and blogs will no longer be spammable within 2 more years. And social network and bookmark site moronpeople will have no more facility in less than 6 months - those networks were an excess creation produced by the boom. They are already just evaporating. Facebook will eventually die and that will be the tombstone of this particular zone of development, but as this forum makes clear, it is ALREADY being totally savaged by the vultures of talentless hack-based advertising.

Luckily my resurrected spam tool (mostly my own slavery and a spreadsheet, I don't abuse software like that, if i have to do a dirty job, i do it with my own hands) will never be stoppable because it doesn't try to spread a link or sell a product just promote a boycott - which means everything from "nofollow" barriers to angry webmasters not liking people trying to make a bit of profit so they can eat, don't act as a hindrance. Amazing how the world changes when you do things for the right reasons.

Who am I to try and help someone who could, if they abandoned the dark path, end up beating me at my own game? A fool? Probably. Carry on with the black hat. Makes less competition in my zone.

You may enjoy throwing a few grand in the bin but it's not my favourite past time

Oddly enough not my idea of fun either.

I know the general opinion that people have that buying links is bad etc.. but when pressed the people usually giving this advice have never bought links themself and don't have access to accurate data that can calculate if buying the links delivered a good ROI.

Buying links for the right purpose makes sound business. Treat them for what they are, paid advertising and if they also have some effect with SE traffic as well, count that as a bonus.

Originally Posted by Jeremy80

Link buying does work, but it is against Google 'rules'. So there is a chance that your website can get penalized.

For one: Google doesn't have rules, they have suggestions that you can follow or not, it's your choice.
Google are NOT against buying links per se, their standpoint is against links that are bought only to subvert their algo.

Buying links for the right purpose makes sound business. Treat them for what they are, paid advertising and if they also have some effect with SE traffic as well, count that as a bonus.

Yer, I'm talking about links for SEO purposes. I really cba to buy links for advertising purposes, I just use the google content network, makes my life easy and give a good ROI.

Originally Posted by witnesstheday

"those blog spamming bastards are the scourge of the internet."

but you pay illiterate indians to fill up our forums with junk and are not the scourge of the internet? but hey, look at me. I was ready to do the same (well, without using idiot illiterate people or any form of slave but myself), but to be fair to me as soon as I had a better model with no slavery, I chucked it in the bin (and finally resurrected it as a political tool).

You really should leave your racist bigatry at the door when posting in a public place. The offshore writers I have working for me have university degrees and better english than me. They are the same writers that write good quality content and they do not spam, they contribute, and get paid for it. Just because my offshore team are in india you jump to this conclusion, you should be ashamed of yourself.

The truth is it is NOT about your rep, it's about your longterm assets. Businesses driven by this approach, and businessmen growing their skillset in this field in this way, will simply end up washed up very soon. You say that people overestimate google and on one plane you're right, but on a different plane you're the one who's in trouble because eventually, not so far away either, technology's pace will quicken yet again, and another wave of "black hat" action will be made completely impotent.

wow, never heard that before. Thanks for pointing out the completely obvious and irrelevant.

Think back - you obviously have experience. Think of the times when MLM and similar phrases were bandied about by people making successful cash? But it was washed away. Think of the term FFA - it once had a lot of meaning because of how common FFA constructs were. Now they're all but gone.

They are not gone, just evolved into one way linking networks.

Forums and blogs will no longer be spammable within 2 more years. And social network and bookmark site moronpeople will have no more facility in less than 6 months - those networks were an excess creation produced by the boom. They are already just evaporating. Facebook will eventually die and that will be the tombstone of this particular zone of development, but as this forum makes clear, it is ALREADY being totally savaged by the vultures of talentless hack-based advertising.

Can I have some of what you are smoking? Web 2.0 isn't a phase, it's the new standard expected by the masses.

Luckily my resurrected spam tool (mostly my own slavery and a spreadsheet, I don't abuse software like that, if i have to do a dirty job, i do it with my own hands) will never be stoppable because it doesn't try to spread a link or sell a product just promote a boycott - which means everything from "nofollow" barriers to angry webmasters not liking people trying to make a bit of profit so they can eat, don't act as a hindrance. Amazing how the world changes when you do things for the right reasons.

Yer sure, i'll sack my developers and install excel

Who am I to try and help someone who could, if they abandoned the dark path, end up beating me at my own game? A fool? Probably. Carry on with the black hat. Makes less competition in my zone.

Did you read my post or just key words from it?

As I originally posted I was naive to come here for a contructive dialogue. Forums are a great place to share knowledge and make contacts but I fear that the best I can hope for here are flames and offensive assumptions.

I'm not cussing you. I understand why you do what you do. For love or war, I apparently have no hesitation doing the same. But I think for talented people there is no reason to do things the dishonest way. "black hat" does, essentially, no matter how you dress it up, mean that you KNOW what you are proposing is in some way, even if not in ways the laws of the marketplace punish, dishonest. Sure anyone can make a lot of money if they know enough tricks. But assets are more than just tricks.

I was just saying that you want to use your experience (and gain new experience) of ecommerce development to make above-ground constructs which can become worth a lot of money. Why build machines whose value disappears the moment they're unplugged? Honestly, I'm not trying to tell you you are evil, otherwise I must be too - at least when I'm in love or at war, and I deny the charge.

This may be ridiculously obvious and that's why nobody else has suggested it, but if you are considering buying links, why not try AdWords or a similar program? Your ultimate goal is to get conversions, so why not put the links in front of a targeted market? AdWords also supplies a number of tools that lets you test and track campaigns and you can scale it however you want, both financially and in terms of the number of links, so you don't have to dump untold thousands of dollars away on a campaign that may or may not work. Combined with a tool like Google's website optimizer, you can iteratively improve both your campaigns and landing pages for higher conversion rates through multivariate and split testing. Plus, it has the added bonuses of staying within Google's suggested terms of use and not having even the appearance of spam.

bigotry (is how you spell the word you used to describe my statement about people working for you being illiterate) rather than bigatry {which is what you wrote}

(see what i mean about illiterate. even you are illiterate. there's a lot of it about!)

now calm yourself. if you say you are doing something black hat, you can't get up in arms when someone says "you are doing something black hat"!

Anyway, there is a very good reason not to do anything black hat and I just was reminded of it moments ago when google approved me onto their affiliate network. If you want the people with the money to do deals with you, you can't go around doing stuff you label "black hat" when discussing it with other techies. Such stuff does NOT please google or any affiliate network selling real goods or any other big company or payer or interested party. They looked at my site properly first and then approved me - so my site is okay with them, which is good for me because it means that I can be assured that overall, as long as I am careful not to break any rules in their agreements, I can make lots of profit for years to come, and thus if I through choice or fate proliferate and expand my life, there is some hope that I may manage to afford to pay for it.

But lighten up. It's only money. If you're this stressed about it, it can't be a good idea, whatever it is. Take a week off. I find that always helps me when I'm stressed. You need to switch out of guerilla marketing mode, as you had done at the start of your thread. Well, you just need to forget about the idea of using black hat mass-link sowing robotic mechanical lifeless soulless profit-traffic-farming and apply your mind, as I suggested, to doing something which you could talk about openly, which if you advertised it, even in the most blitzkrieg driven way possible, would never be any more "black hat" than coca cola, which could be worth 83.8 billion dollars when google buy it off you.

Originally Posted by VirtuosiMedia

This may be ridiculously obvious and that's why nobody else has suggested it, but if you are considering buying links, why not try AdWords or a similar program? Your ultimate goal is to get conversions, so why not put the links in front of a targeted market? AdWords also supplies a number of tools that lets you test and track campaigns and you can scale it however you want, both financially and in terms of the number of links, so you don't have to dump untold thousands of dollars away on a campaign that may or may not work. Combined with a tool like Google's website optimizer, you can iteratively improve both your campaigns and landing pages for higher conversion rates through multivariate and split testing. Plus, it has the added bonuses of staying within Google's suggested terms of use and not having even the appearance of spam.

I thought he seemed intelligent enough for the obvious not to be stated. But maybe he can farm 10s of millions of lower-grade hits from other dodgy link-traders (i've researched cheap hits and found 1000s of people selling the millions of painful hits we spend most our time avoiding, from popups in every direction, stupid interruption pages, and more) and turn them into good money on sites selling anything from pharmaceuticals to seo tools to ebooks. In which case you can see why he can't go using an open above-board mainstream ad-seller like Google or MSN or Yahoo or the umpteen other major mainstream traders in traffic most of us at this forum buy from or sell to or in some way are affiliated with.

I am Indian, I have experience of many Indian graduates who "speak english". 90% of them, to me, a native English speaker, are illiterate. They do not understand a lot of what is being said, their pronounciations are terrible and in writing they use awful grammar. Really awful grammar. Just putting the word graduate on someone as a label doesn't make them literate in a foreign language. I was at Oxford, that doesn't mean me and everyone who went there speaks Chinese fluently. In Chinese, we are mostly illiterate, we who I was a graduate with. So you are rather lost in these crazy ideas about racist bigotry. Plus, ironically, you cannot spell, making it clear that my accusations of illiteracy hold true. The path to good money is good spelling.

Upper and lowercase chaos is a disease some of us, still literate, get - from using perl too much. Go to any forum where perl is being discussed by gurus and you'll see that people go made with lowercase letters, almost killing off the uppercase, and many a semi-colon is used, without warning.

Are you a developer at all? Do you just hire other people to do all the technical work and you orchestrate it in some way? I'm curious. Me I work from the frontline all the way to the back. That's why what I do has only ever got stronger for the entire decade I've done it, through good times and bad.