The conferences have already had link buying panels, but they were pretty tame as far as things go. Would you attend a panel that focused solely on greyhat SEO at an SMX/SES show?
There’s nothing shameful about wanting to learn and even use greyhat SEO, imho, yet the conferences are between a rock and a hard place.
On the one hand, they get massive sponsorship dollars from the SEs. On the other, their audiences want to learn the most cutting edge stuff. Typically, this means where blackhat methods being adapted to a more whitehat environment without fully anaesthetizing their effectiveness.
I’d love to hear your thoughts.
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There’s nothing shameful about wanting to learn and even use greyhat SEO, imho, yet the conferences are between a rock and a hard place.
On the one hand, they get massive sponsorship dollars from the SEs. On the other, their audiences want to learn the most cutting edge stuff. Typically, this means where blackhat methods being adapted to a more whitehat environment without fully anaesthetizing their effectiveness.
I’d love to hear your thoughts.
24 Comments
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Sure, but any good techniques that get given out would be shut down relatively quickly.
I guess the participants would wear ’cloaks of invisibility’ in addition to their grey hats. :)
I can just picture Matt Cutts at the back of the room, writing in a little black notebook.
@ Todd - SMX West saw some mentions of greyhat stuff by panelists and the techniques are still working. Happy to share privately if you like.@ Barry - For quidditch matches only. It’s ungentlemanly to hide from your audience.@DM - That’s where the ’oops, we scheduled you for the site review panel’ line comes out of Danny’s mouth ;D.
yeah but imagine having to choose between the grey hat panel and the MC site review panel...
@Gab I would prefer it be a closed private session with all members vouched for by at least one top member... ooops sounds a bit like a cult ;) No honestly, sounds like a good Idea, but instead of a session on current practices, which would be unfair to disclose in public, past practices and case studies would be really interesting, because it would encourage the thought processes necesarry to learn black/grey hat techniques... that would also mean that no tactics are given out that still work ;)
This would be a bad idea from many perspectives. However the worst in my optinion would be all the brand new SEOs getting into the session and coming out with brand new game plans. That would be like giving a toddler a machine gun and telling him to "go outside and play".
imo it really depends on who is on the panel... as long as its not 3-4 recycled speakers and actually have some people who really know what they are doing & making a living off of it - then by all means yes. But dont throw the regular "speaking rockstars" up there...
@Boggles - haha yeah, could be tough. Matt’s an entertaining guy at times. I’ll always have that "1993 called: they want their design back" line in my mind....@Rishi - Great points, though personally I wouldn’t mind sharing currently functioning greyhat techniques. I mean, if I blog them, why not present them on a panel ;)? But for other speakers who might be concerned, that could work for them to hide their current practices.@ John - You make it sound like the people attending these conferences have no judgement and would do whatever a speaker tells them. Read any ’tips to attending’ post (like Todd Malicoat’s for example) and you’ll find people saying there’s no ’truth’ and not to take people’s tips for granted. So I have to say I don’t think your argument holds up. It’s paternizing towards a group of educated adults who can make their own choices; it’s exactly not giving a machine gun to toddlers. Besides which, if there were any doubts as to the risks involved and/or people’s taking things for granted, there could be a clear, long-winded disclaimer at the start by the moderator.
@ Streko - That’s a good point. I think this would be a new panel, though, so theoretically the same rockstar speakers who get many of the panel spots wouldn’t necessarily have their places earmarked.
I definitely would attend one of these. Shit, I’d be MORE likely to attend.There’s definitely some guys that would be awesome speakers for this that I can think of..
Yar, I’d do ’er.
Guys . . . the best option would be to have a set time and place to meet that is by invitation only during one of the conferences. We (note I said we) would meet at this predetermined location, close the doors and have some great conversation. I picture it being in the back room of a bar but it could easily be in one of the unused conference rooms (as projectors and laptops tend to bode better in such environment) or in one of the high roller suites that the black hats will be in anyway (cuz they’re the ones making the real money in this industry).It’d be a secret society.I won’t be able to use most of the tactics in the their black hat form but I would be able to utilize the learnings for white hat purposes. There is actually some really good uses in learning black hat to back it off for white hat purposes.I doubt you guys would invite an open black hat turned white hat guy like me to such a cool meeting considering my LinkedIn has too many Yahooligans and Googlers but . . . I’d take a blood oath (just as I do with those on my LinkedIn). In other words . . . please, please, please, invite me. ;-)PayneAn SEO that’s going the wrong way in the industry to find the real money.
@Brent-D-Payne: always the voice of reason. Under 21 though, so the bar might exclude me ;-) haha. Amazing how often that seems to be an issue in this industry.
actually, yours truly was too at smx west but that didn’t cause trouble for the friendly bar-folks.
Sounds like a great idea, not that I could attend currently. But the topic would be definitely up my alley. It would probably be one of the most worthwhile to me at this point. What is gray hat seo anyway? Using blackhat SEO but making sure your domains are very seperated. Just joking. I am not quite sure what all the hats are about because as far as the general public goes, everything is black hat.
Count me in. I’ll be under an assumed name with a fake beard...oh wait, i already have a beard. Mike, you can drink virgin daiquiris and o’douls ;)
Count me in too. My mind is like a sponge for every shade of grey! The darker the better -- for educational purposes ofcourse... *cough* *cough*
@SlightlyShadySEO: Come to Canada where the drinking age is 18 ;)For the record, I would relish the opportunity to attend a grey hat panel/discussion.
@crashingflwrgrl - only in certain provinces though! Not if you come to Toronto, though - Although I’ll hook you up with a few brewskies ;)... or just go to Montreal, or Alberta.
@eristoddle: Grayhat is mostly doing things that would make Matt Cutts frown, but are not explicitely mentioned in the TOS. So bans for them are considered more rare than straight blackhat. Also, sometimes people will mix BH/WH techniques to create a kind of plausible deniability.@themadhat: Actually, in the states O’Douls has too much alcohol(0.5%) for someone under 21 to legally buy. Ridiculous. haha.@CrashingFlwrgrl: Hellll yes. I’m only 8 miles north of detroit too, so it’s pretty close..
it sounds like a good idea in theory, but unless it were more on the secretive side, and the "guest list" were very limited, it could end up causing problems all across the board. but i’d love to attend something of the sort, that’s for sure.
Yes.
That’s interesting Gab, I would definitely. Hopefully there is no inclination to black hat and no Google guys over there...LOL