I am talking about spam comments which are being used for SEO purposes.  They seem to be legit and written by a real person – and they most usually are – but at the end of the day, if you analyze them, they are nothing but shameless plugs that do not mean much for the owner of the blog where the comment was made.

You may be thinking, so what if they are actually spammers?  Their comments are somehow coherent anyway.  But would you want to take the risk of attracting the ire of major search engines simply because they see an association between you and these new breed of spammers?  I don’t think so!  I certainly would not!

This increase in this kind of spamming is actually troublesome.  As I mentioned, we cannot rely on Akismet and other similar features to catch them automatically.  What is left to be done is for us, the bloggers, to manually check and analyze the comments.  Naturally, this takes time and effort – time and effort which could be channeled to other worthier activities.

What do you think should be done with them?

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However, when link building remember that while links always count it can count AGAINST you. We all know what I mean by this – those links that associate you to black hat methods that will get you penalized by the great Google and the other search engines. A clear example of such links is links that you got from link farms. Make sure you do not sabotage your efforts by joining link farms. Getting backlinks by paying websites to link to your page(s) is also a big no-no IF you do this to get link juice passed on to you. You can only solicit paid links if you make sure that those links don’t get to pass value to your pagerank. So I guess in SEO terms there’s absolutely no point in doing this. However if your motive is to simply generate traffic to your site or create awareness then there is no problem. Just make sure you specifically ask webmasters of the sites with paid links to your site to use the “no follow” tag.

Again, remember every link counts so make sure the back links you get count in the way you want them to.

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If you find that the SEO company you are currently dealing with or is considering employs any of these techniques then run away as quickly as possible. The list below is from Google Webmasters Help pages. If Google says run then run!

* owns/uses shadow domains
* puts links to their other clients on doorway pages
* offers to sell keywords in the address bar
* doesn’t distinguish between actual search results and ads that appear on search results pages
* guarantees ranking, but only on obscure, long keyword phrases you would get anyway
* operates with multiple aliases or falsified WHOIS info
* gets traffic from “fake” search engines, spyware, or scumware
* has had domains removed from Google’s index or is not itself listed in Google
* requests your FTP account information or root access to your server

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Cloaking
Cloaking is the practice wherein the web site owner provides information to the search engines which is different from what the site actually contains. Obviously, this is a practice that reeks of deception. However, there are certain cases when this practice can be deemed acceptable. For example, if the web site has content that is available only to members then it could be acceptable. Then again, this practice can very well be abused. That is the main reason cloaking is considered gray hat SEO.

Paid links
We all know how important links are for SEO. That is why it is quite understandable that the practice of buying links can become questionable. Purchasing links for advertising purposes is fine. However, if you purchase links solely because you want in link-popularity, then it could be considered shady. In fact, the suggestion is that you work on links to increase your traffic and just consider the increase in link-popularity as icing on top of the cake.

Duplicate content
Duplicate content can be considered legitimate in certain cases but rarely. For example, indexing and abstracting web sites may have duplicate content. In most cases, though, duplicate content is considered unacceptable.

Bottom line: when in doubt, be on the safe side.

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When it comes to SEO, the gray areas abound. However, in my point of view – as well as many others, I believe – gray hat SEO leans towards black hat more than white hat. This is because gray hat SEO simply employs techniques that are quite akin to spamming but not quite labeled by Google (and other authorities in the field) as black hat – as of yet.

Practicing gray hat SEO is much like trying to fly below the radar, trying not to get the attention of those who are in the lookout. However, the fact that you feel that you need to fly under the radar means that you are engaging in illegitimate activities or, at the very least, activities bordering on the illegitimate.

Why would anyone want to engage in gray hat SEO? If you are asking that question, then you may very well ask, “Why would anyone want to engage in black hat SEO?” The bottom line is the same – they want to achieve good search engine rankings the “easy” way. Somewhere along the road though, Google will catch up on these practitioners and penalize them – then, regret will be felt.

In the next post, let’s look at some gray hat SEO tactics.

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When it comes to SEO, long-term thinking may be the best way to go.  Anyone who has had any experience with SEO and all its intricacies would know that sometimes, short cuts just don’t work.  Oh, they may get short-term results, that’s for sure.  But in the long run, what a web site owner wants is to build a lasting impression online.

Think about it, why are you maintaining that web site or blog?  Do you merely want to reap the benefits within a few months time?  Perhaps for some specific purposes, that would be enough.  But for many, the idea is to keep the blog or web site up and running for as long as it could.  More than that, you would want to keep that site popular and alive for years to come.

The only really clean way to do this would be to plan for the future.  This is where white hat SEO has the most advantage over black hat and gray hat SEO, I believe.  The latter two activities may bring about quicker results but in the long run, they may also be the downfall of the site.  Believe it or not, Google would probably catch up on these shady activities and bring the hammer down on the site.  What happens to the long-term growth then?

If I were you, I’d look into long-term results before deciding on any SEO practice.

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Your competition could be using black hat tips.  If they are, you need to understand their SEO gameplan well if you’re to outwit them.  You can only do that if you’re familiar with black hat seo techniques yourself.  Find out what their strategy is and try to beat them with your own tricks.  Or, you know, you could just report them when you find out (sneaky!).

Black hat tricks give you a better idea of how search engine algorithms work.  This is because black hat SEO practitioners exploit weaknesses in the algorithms, and use it at their own advantage.  This kind of knowledge will prove to be useful when you’re planning your SEO campaign.  Almost everyday, black hats figure out new ways to take shortcuts to the top of SERPs.  If you find out about these shortcuts, you can find a legit way to use them for your own site.

It’s much easier to explain to others what they can/can’t do during their SEO campaigns.  If you’re a web designer or SEO practitioner and your client is saying “I’ve heard something about raising your PR through a 301 redirect…” you need to know what your client is talking about.  A lot of people, especially those new to the SEO world, get a series of bad advice, often black hat in nature.  Knowing these techniques like the back of your hand can help you explain to people the downsides of applying them to their SEO campaign.

Because they make you look marginally cooler.  In other words, if you’re an SEO practitioner, you’d have more credibility if you know all the possible tricks – whether you actually apply them or not.  Although wearing an actual black hat on your head might make it seem like you’re trying too hard.

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Right now though with the would be victims on the path to unauthorized sneek peaks I can’t imagine the Harry Potter guys trying to do anything about the it. After all word of the malware distribution might even help quell illegal early distribution of the movie.

Aside from the Harry Potter movie, Rik Ferguson, senior security adviser at security vendor Trend Micro, is reported to have said that he also expects black hat SEOs to use the Michael Jackson tragedy to do harm and profit.

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I am hoping that you have not been victimized by any of these but to be on the safe side, here are some of the major warning signs that they have pinpointed:

• Emails guaranteeing number #1 Google rankings.
• Offering guaranteed rankings for a very small fee.
• Achieving a #1 ranking for a unique, very long search term. The very long search term has no search volume. This practice is a scam.
• Guaranteeing a #1 search engine ranking by purchasing it with Google Adwords or pay per click advertising. The Adwords might show up on the top of the search page or in the sponsored link section in the right column. However, the majority of searchers use the organic search results located in the left column.
• Offering to submit a website to a vast number of search engines for a small payment (this strategy simply fails).
• Not having a legitimate website or they own an amateurish site.
• Offering to submit a website to over a thousand important directories, however there are only a small number of directories that bring traffic to websites.

My suggestion is for you to start learning about the basics of SEO yourself. You can build on this in the future and actually be your own SEO person OR you can use your basic knowledge to hire legitimate and knowledgeable SEO professionals.

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What is your track record?
This actually applies to most any service that you outsource. You can begin with the background of the company and the businesses they have worked for. For SEO companies, in particular, they should be able to show several web sites that they have serviced and the results they got. Four to six web sites at the tops of SERPs should be good enough.

Can you provide customer testimonials?
Ask if they can provide you with the contact information of some of their customers and if you can get in touch with the directly so that you can ask them specific questions about the SEO company’s services. If they have nothing to hide, then they should be able to do this. On your part, ensure that the customers are real and not fabricated.

What is their proposed strategy?
Even if you are not well-versed in SEO, you should at least have an idea as to what path the SEO company is going to take to achieve your goals. You may even give your own input as you see fit. This is also a good way to determine that their service is legitimate.

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