Some say that “black hat” search marketers will do anything to gain a top ranking and others argue that even “white hat” marketers who embrace ethical search engine optimization practices are ultimately trying to game the search ranking system. Are white hats being naive? Are black hats failing to see the long-term picture? This session will include an exploration of the latest black and white issues, with lots of time for dialog and discussion.
Moderator:
- Matthew Bailey, President, SiteLogic
Speakers:
- Greg Boser, President, WebGuerrilla LLC
- Todd Friesen, Director of Search Engine Optimization, Range Online
- Bruce Clay, President, Bruce Clay, Inc.
- David Naylor, SEO, Bronco
- Jill Whalen, CEO, High Rankings
Notes:
- No Presentations will be given. It is a packed session here at SES. Quite a rowdy crowd. The discussion will be town hall format.
- Definition of Black Hat -
- Bruce Clay: The search engines define what it is. Most white hats play in the middle; gray hats play on the edge; black hats focus out of bounds
- Jill Whalen: Attempting to deceive the search engines
- Definition of White Hat -
- Todd Friesen: He agrees with Jill’s assessment but brings up the verticals differences
- Greg Boser: White hat is defined as SEO with no game
- Dave Naylor: Black Hat is like driving a Porsche in competitive industries
- Is there risk in both white and black hat techniques?
- Jill says work hard to make a great website
- Bruce says if you are working on your site and Matt Cutts comes up behind you, you close your notebook- you are at risk. White Hats color within the lines. Since search engines don’t publish the rules some white hat techniques can appear as black hat even though legitimate.
- Todd agrees.
- Greg indicates that most of the black hat techniques are server on his personal site not clients.
- Jill brings up the idea of incompetent SEOs and the fact that they are the worse group. The crowd agrees!
- The topic has turned to buying links and what that really means to the search engines. Dave says what does the footprint of a specific tactic look like. Black hats are always testing the limits of link building.
- Bruce agrees if we spend time working on a project we need to know what the rules are. The question becomes do we take the time or do we buy links.
- Jill chimes in on the rules…don’t read Google’s guidelines she says it’s common sense. We are all adults. Todd disagrees…this is not common sense.
Questions now coming from the floor.
- Will links in RSS feeds help?
The panel defines it as really simple spam (LOL) This could be a dangerous technique. - Using widgets effectively could be helpful.
- The owner of SEOChamp.com chimes in about how black hat techniques are coming from overseas. He really is passionate about how there are 70 parts to the Google algorithm. Matt chimes in at over 200.
- The challenges between a 1 month vs long term plan. Ticket brokers buy links and it is a tough space.
- Greg says look at the competitive research and then explain what can be dome and what is the risk tolerance.
- Affiliate marketing does get a bad rap sometimes. Todd is a big fan of making money. Certain verticals have a hard time following the rules to compete.
- Bruce says you should take time to build credibility over time and that an aggressive link building techniques can be risky.
- The BMW brand who was penalized for 72 hours shows that the bigger the brand the easier it is to ask for forgiveness. The interesting fact was they got tons of blog links fro the PR. The BMW SEO work was amateur at best.
- Now Matt Cutts has asked for the mic: His disclaimer is when we remove sites, they are removed based on the facts not the name. Matt indicates that there is a large subsection of a major newspaper that is currently banned and has been banned for some time. Google does not talk about what sites big or small that they take out. Matt says don’t take the risk.
- If you are banned you can ask for re-inclusion. Greg says look at the entire space when you choose to ban sites.
