History of Blackhat SEO
The Google Web spam team and
Mr. Matt Cutts
(while recently inactive publicly) have long been at war with search
engine spam. The first thing you need to do is take a look at Google’s
stock price
along with current market share of search engine use. Then consider
this engine is the main revenue driver for one of the biggest
corporations in the world.
Yeah they probably don’t want you to
fuck with that. And that is exactly what any type of aggressive SEO is
doing, messing with their lifeblood which they’ve hired a damn army of
geniuses to algorithmically protect. Don’t get it confused, I’m not
trying to dissuade from blackhat SEO, more trying to explain where you
stand in the game so you can act accordingly. Google is not your friend,
Google is no SEOs friend for that matter, they abuse us and we abuse
their search engine, round and round we go.
Here is a nice overview of all the spam techniques that have
developed over time.
Along the way we have also had many key updates which have changed the
landscape of blackhat SEO. There have been different eras we’ve gone
through, from a free for all, to slowly tightening things up, to a more
controlled and sophisticated game that we play today.
The
important thing to remember, is as long as there is a search engine with
rankings are predominately based on links, then there will be a way to
game it. There might be a big change which knocks everyone on their ass,
but we just keep going and rank again eventually. It’s important to
have a general understanding of the history of search spam but you don’t
need to become a historian. The sooner you start spamming and creating
your own data, the better. Your own set of historical data is what you
want to be going by.
The Forums
Probably
the first place you’ll get started is with forums, but many people have
the question of which are legit and which aren’t? Oh man, you’re asking
the wrong question. None of them are free from bullshit, but they all
have some value, especially when you’re just getting started. There is a
wealth of knowledge to be gained you just need to approach it right.
Don’t think you’ll find some exact road map or that someone is going to
spoon feed you some special secret sauce, let’s try not to forget
they’re public forums. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t found plenty of
gems and insights along the way. Here are the main forums:
Now you’re going to use our friend Google and some simple
search modifiers to better navigate the content on these forums.
We’ll be mainly using the
site: modifier and our “keyword” in quotes, you’ll also want to use the date filter sometimes.
With
this simple technique you’ll be finding information much faster than if
you were navigating the actual forums themselves. You’re going to cover
everything on the damn Internet if you ever plan on getting good. No,
you’re not the Bobby Fisher of blackhat SEO, you’re going to have to
hustle your way to the top. Soak up everything you can while getting
started and eventually you will develop a strong bullshit filter. Until
then, you really have to just dive in head first, the forums listed
above will have enough bits and pieces to get you rolling. Quite simply,
the information is out there waiting for you to take it. Are you
man/woman enough to take it?
The Blogs
Meh,
there really isn’t much here. Most good black hats either wind up doing
something else with their cash and eventually losing their edge,
developing a drug problem, getting smashed by Google, or a mixture of
these things. This is why you won’t find too many active blogs about
black hat SEO stuff, it’s very difficult to walk that line of what to
share and what not to share.
With that said, an honorable mention goes to
BlueHatSEO.com
the old blog of Eli Alioso, a fucking legend in the SEO world. This
dude was ahead of his time, for real, there are posts years old which
still apply today but people are too lazy/retarded/brainwashed to test
anything.
If you’re wondering what is up with the site nowadays,
Eli being the beast he is gave it away as the prize for an SEO
competition on
Wickedfire.
Then a gentleman under the name of “Skohh” pulled out some brass balls
and won the competition to be pleasantly surprised with Eli bestowing
the domain upon him. Looks like he’s still in the works of getting the
main site going, but you can use archive.org in the mean time.
Read
every single post on there, every last one. Here are some of the top
ones I pulled by putting bluehatseo.com into ahrefs.com the preferred
backlink checker, going to top pages, and sorting by referring domains.
This is a quick and dirty way to see some of the most popular content on
a domain, we’re assuming the best work has more links.
Yup, Eli you’re the man.
The Tools
So what are the people using today? Here are the two big pieces of the game:
GSA Search Engine Ranker
(similar to Xrumer, Ultimate Demon, SENuke, etc, but GSA is the best
tool for the job) – This is for spamming links of all kinds. There are a
lot of pieces that go with like
proxies, captcha solving, and content creation but this is the main software to master.
PBNs – Private blog networks and all that goes with.
While
we’re on the subject some people seem to be a bit confused about the
definition of “private” and “public”, so let’s clarify.
Private:
belonging to or for the use of one particular person or group of people only.
Public:
accessible to or shared by all members of the community.
Take
those definitions in, seems SEOs have had some serious trouble
differentiating private blog networks from your neighborhood BST selling
the magic Google rank sauce that will help you rank for anything (see
that’s public, go re-read the definitions if it still doesn’t make
sense). Now this isn’t to say there hasn’t been and aren’t any powerful
public link networks currently, just classify and use them accordingly.
Sure
there are many other moving parts but these are the two big link
sources for spamming ranks. There are others of course; hacked links,
CMS exploits, etc., but GSA and PBNs are the meat and potatoes of common
Blackhat spam. This is a more comprehensive
list of tools that I personally use, the whole lineup.
SERP Analysis
Often
times you’ll read something about SEO and think to yourself, do you
even watch SERPs bro? The data is right there for anyone to analyze but
most people have their heads too far up their asses to see it. Go take a
look at some heavily spammed SERPs; payday, phrama, gambling, designer,
replica, the bigs.
Oh yeah, good times. If that stuff excites you
then you’re in the right place. Recently there has been a tool released
by a respected marketer in the SEO community, “CCarter”. The tool is
called
SERPWoo
and it tracks the top 20 search results over time and plots them for
you. This allows you to easily spot new competitors entering the top 20
that are making big jumps, big drops, etc. A bird’s eye view of the
SERPs so you can attempt to reverse engineer them and gain strategic
insights.
Here is screenshot of one keyword I watch that has some cool activity:
A little hectic yes, but let me clear it up for you.
Boom,
now what did those little tricksters do to get up on that page 1 pony?
Sorry bros, gonna have to find these gems on your own.
Testing
If
you haven’t started to see it yet, even for blackhats, data is one of
our most important resources. This is what guides our actions and makes
us stronger over time. Here is a amazing quote that really sums it up:
“Only trust the data that you see yourself, that you caused yourself, otherwise it’s hear-say.” -Bofu2u
That is some of the most badass shit I’ve ever read in SEO, take it in folks. I found the quote
here in a post by CCarter which he says was originally from
Bofu2u, a respected blackhat and automation expert.
Now it should go without saying but since this is a beginners guide we’ll have to be brutally noob,
don’t use Google products bros, just don’t.
Analytics, Gmail, Google docs, and Google Drive are all out.
Nope, nope, and nope.
Nah,
I’m not wearing a tinfoil hat. Don’t worry, it’s just best practice to
avoid their services, no need to give it another thought.
Here are the alternatives that I use:
Clicky, Outlook, Evernote, Excel, and Dropbox.
See, we can accomplish the same thing without using the enemies tools.
For rank tracking
ProRankTracker is my preferred tracker, of course you’re going to need to track rankings so let’s not forget about that.
Take Action
So
what are you waiting for? That is the big question, if you don’t finish
reading this guide itching to throw up a new site and test something
than this probably isn’t for you. But if you’re on the journey then this
should help you get going,
start soaking up everything you can and take action, today.
Sign up your own sponsors.
There is, of course, another way to make money off of YouTube: cut out
the middle man and sign up your own sponsors. If you’re able to build a
substantial audience, you’ll have the ability to sign up sponsors for
your programming who want to advertise their products and services to
your target audience. There’s no simple formula for signing up sponsors
for your program; it all depends on your audience, the number of
potential sponsors, and their budgets. But if done correctly, this can
be a very lucrative source of revenue for YouTube channels.
Promote your own merchandise. While
many YouTubers focus on the “direct” monetization routs available,
perhaps the biggest potential in video is in the opportunity to promote
other products and services that are moneymakers for you. Giving away
free video content can be a great way to make money–if you’re
effectively promoting merchandise or services that your free users will
pay for. If you have products or services to sell and a YouTube audience
that would be interested in purchasing them, this might be your best
monetization opportunity.
Go freemium style. YouTube
can be a great way to generate leads for your paid services, and a
“freemium” business model can be a great way to turn on the masses to
your paid product. This concept is pretty simple; give away a bunch of
content for free on YouTube, but hold back some of your best stuff
behind a paywall on your own site. If you can get a big crowd to enjoy
your free content, odds are that you’ll be able to get a portion of them
to pay for your exclusive video as well. 
Get an affiliate deal in place. If
you don’t have a great premium product to sell, find someone who
does–and cut yourself into their revenue stream. If you have a large
and/or targeted audience, find a partner whose products you can promote
in your videos and hash out a way that you can get credit for sending
clients their way! Affiliate deals can be tough to monetize if there are
no obvious partners for your channel, but there’s a huge opportunity
here if you can effectively become a spokesman for another company in
your videos.
Further Reading: YouTube Economics
Further Reading: Insights From YouTube Stars & Experts
Further Reading: Research & Resources
Further Reading: YouTube Alternatives
Further Reading: YouTube SEO
Further Reading: Making A Viral Video
Further Reading: Building An Audience
Further Reading: YouTube Myths, Tips, Tricks, And Inspiration
Further Reading: Video Production Tips
