Is Black-Hat SEO on the way out?

Published on January 6th, 2009 Join the conversation »

As long as there have been search engines, there have been active techniques to make the most of the search results for business and profit. But could the day of direct profits from search through clandestine activities be seeing the deep orange of a sunset?

As search engines evolved, so the methods each used to determine the results of a search were probed, prodded and tested to breaking point. Thus the Black-Hat SEO was born with the intent to achieve big profits by directly manipulating inadequacies in the search engines’ techniques.

What makes SEO Black-Hat?

The boundaries between “white” or “black” SEO techniques are thoroughly blurred with a range of grey tones. Boiling down to the core principles of Google’s thoughts on the matter, one might consider any technique deliberately and strategically employed with the intent to manipulate a search engine’s results could be considered Black-Hat. Google defines it as techniques which violate their terms of service.

But when do we step into the dark territory? Could it be the moment we simply become aware that adding a few strategic keywords to a piece of text and creating some links to it can enhance (manipulate) that page’s position in the search results?

Is Black-Hat in decline?

Once the stuff of dark alleys and locked away in grubby discussion forums, the secrets of the Black-Hatter are now to be found by anyone capable of performing a search. Try and find an article spinner, content scraper or forum posting bot a few years go and you would need the right connections and the right money. These days, just mention Black-Hat and the options are endless, often even free.

The Black-Hat world is opening up , and it’s the Black-haters themselves that are unlocking the doors.

Unlike hackers - who are motivated by the urge to crack because they can - Black-Hat internet marketers are motivated by profit, and a quick and sizable  profit is the ultimate goal.

As the Black-Hat world opens up, however, the techniques they employ are being exposed for all to see, use, and, most significantly, abused. A credit card in the right places and you can grab a large handful of the tools you need to make a fat pile of cash on the internet selling other people’s products to people who don’t really need them. And that’s the god side of Black-Hat which can stretch from merely deceptive search engine manipulation techniques to all-out financial scams.

The result of all this is two-fold:

• First, the tools are being employed by an ever increasing army of people ho don’t know how to use them and so are exposing themselves and their techniques just as reliably as i they had posted their web address on a billboard over the road from Google HQ.
• Secondly, the saturation swamps the dedicated Black-Hat pro in sheer numbers. They have discovered the need to dig deeper and deeper to uncover the profit opportunities that once lay scattered about their feet.

Switching tactics

With hard profits more difficult to prise out of the internet, Black-Hatters are evolving from exploiting the search engines to exploiting the masses of would-be internet marketers hunting for a quick buck.

More and more closed, limited communities are opening up, where for a monthly fee anyone can learn the real secrets of Black-hat internet marketing. Tools to beat the search engines, cheat the affiliate networks, and spam every bog and forum on the planet. are available with the tempting promise that only 100 people will be permitted access to the treasured secrets.

You have to admire the Black-Hatter’s resourcefulness. But when one’s method of paying the mortgage is based on discovering and exploiting online opportunities, the switch is not surprising.

Google loves Black-Hat

You may be surprised to learn that Google is perfectly happy to permit pay per click advertisers blatantly promoting Black-Hat techniques to beat Google at their on game. But consider that th more information is available in the public domain, the easier it will be to understand and subvert the techniques being employed.

Is there still money in Black-Hat marketing and SEO?

I am sure there is. No matter how the space evolves, so the techniques, opportunities, and secrets also evolve. Spend any amount of time in a Black-Hat discussion forum and you will see ideas, techniques, scams, downright fraud being described for the purposes of making a fast buck. It is a very mucky world.

One factor that never ceases to be consistent is that big bucks are only achievable with big effort. Most apprentice Black-Hats enter the space searching for those tens of thousands for just an hour’s investment. But big, consistent earnings take as much effort - I believe more in the long run because of the additional energy exerted in need to cover one’s tracks - as any more legitimate techniques for online business.

Tags: blackhat, Google, marketing, SEO, spam
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Photograph by Nicolas Raymond