Black Hat SEOThe Good, The Bad & The Ugly.

Found out that was a Moz article title so title is becoming the catchy:

Spooky Intro To Black Hat SEO

About Me• SEO.•White hat for clients.•Black hat for testing.•HQSEO.co.uk• SEOOasis.co.uk•@tombucklandseo

What is Black Hat SEO? •White Hat•Grey Hat•Black Hat• Super-Black Hat (Illegal)

•On-page vs. Links.• Cloaking pages (Iframes)

Quick Note….Sorry for the reading…• Black hat SEO that doesn’t work (anymore) is just sh*t SEO… This

generally includes ONLY the following. (But when used in conjunction or moderation these techniques could work…. But generally don’t.)• Link farms.• Referrer spam.• Anything social.• Pingbacks/trackbacks.• Blog comments (it’s not 2008)• Duplicate content (on the “money site”)• Hidden text.• Keyword stuffing.

Why It Works | Why it Doesn’t Work (Rant)• SEO works – Black, white, blue.•Google & Fear.• Rather “great content” than SEO.• Google’s #1 Deterrent to SEOs.

When It Works• Real Site.• Unreal Links.• Hidden Backlink Profile.• The site itself should look natural to the average

consumer/customer/client/lead.

When it Doesn’t Work• Sites look like spam.• Link profile = “Too far.”• Hence Penalties….

Quick Example: “powerliftinggymcardiff.co.uk”

- Ranks #1 for all Powerlifting / Weightlifting terms.- All backlinks were purchased (Through Sape)- Been live for 1 year and still ranking….

- But the KICKER: It gets real leads! – 3-5 leads a month. - Kicker 2: It only cost about £200 and took about 5 hours to build &

rank.

Leads – Anyone Want them?

BH Link Building Strategies• Tiered Link Building (Automated)• Buying Links• Sape.

• Hacking.

Tiered Link Building

Hacking Sites For Links• Illegal.• Difficult.• If Undetected initially, links can stay live for a long period.• Forget this……

Buying Links | Sape | Paid Links• Effective.• Cheap.• Russian…?

Calculating the POWER of a Black Hat Backlink1.Currently Clean and not penalised by Google.2.Has a powerful, clean link profile itself (essentially tier 2)3.Golden rule 1: Ranks for organic keywords!4.Golden rule 2: Generates traffic through Google.

Let’s Take An Example.•http://www.buycheapfollowersfast.com/ • Spammy domain.• Highly-Spammed Niche.• But, Highly-Profitable Niche.

Site Looks Good….

Link Metrics…. Look Great!

But…. If we dig into the specific links.... Every single one of the top 10 links are paid links (The

majority of which are sidebar links)

But…..The Site Makes a Killing.The site ranks for hundreds of hugely competitive keywords….

P.S. This site has been ranking for about 2 years…….

The Key Point – ROI.•Risk Vs. Reward.• The Return On Investment (Time + Monetary)•What Can White Hat SEOs Take from BH?• In some cases, taking a risk earlier on can be advantageous for client profits.

• Black Hat Strategies Turned White:• Outreach vs Hacking.• Guest Posts vs Purchasing Links.• Favourite strategy for non-client SEO Sites: BH start, turned white (Re-invest

earnings, clean link profile up)

Questions?

•@Tombucklandseo•tom@ghostmarketing.co.uk