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Posted By:
cpotts73
69 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://www.search-mojo.com)
Category: Google SEO
12 Comments
Posted By:
cpotts73
69 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://www.search-mojo.com)
Category: Google SEO
12 Comments
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Comments
From the blog post:
Seriously?
You don't think that perhaps people didn't think of it because it's simply unthinkable to do something so utterly deceptive?
(Would have posted a comment in the original blog, but you have to create a login.)
"if you don’t try new and controversial tactics, how will you break out?"
How's about being the best at using the resources available? If an athlete wants to break out, they train their body. It is not acceptable for them to reach for the pills because they don't see how else they will compete.
My view is that if you can't get the results - or break out as you put it - within the regular guidelines, that isn't an excuse to cheat. It just shows you are maybe not as talented as those around you. Talent should be rewarded, not trickery.
Umm so like, you let the search engines decide, huh? What if the algo changes and yesterday's sin gets tomorrow's blessings? Will your ethical balance within your soul experience a shift?
I think Matt Cutts put it best when he said at SMX Advanced that people often know before they ask Google what the response will be to a particular tactic. We all know - even if it isn't explicitely stated in the webmaster guidelines whether a tactic is for the good of the end-user or a trick that exploits a loophole. So we shouldn't really need the search engines to tell us what is good for the industry at all.
I think we can all agree that is is incredibly unlikely for eyesterday's sin to ever get tomorrow's blessing. If anything, yesterday's sins will find penalties getting more severe as the algo perfects ways of capturing more.
If you honestly believe Google will turn around tomorrow and say 'write what you want - we don't care" you're bound for a fall.
Having said that, I'm not letting the search engines decide. But as I have said many times, if you want to compete in Google, you need to follow their rules or risk backlash, just like if you want to compete at the Olympics, you gotta stay off them drugs or risk disqualification.
A cheat is a cheat whichever way you look at it, and claiming that it was only intended to help break out is no excuse.
Seth Godin summed this up brilliantly in his recent post, 'The Spirit of the Game'.
Common sense and a good feeling about what you do should always be the deciding factor. Whatever you can live with and take the consequences for, is ok. Relying on Google to always be fair and expecting Google to be like the Godlike judge in Mountain View is rediculous however. Google is a corporation, not the internet FBI.
I do agree that there are much better ways to be in business longterm than living your life exploiting. I do however believe that most of today's SEOs don't get it and hang their flag into the wind to blow wherever their opportunity may be. SEO is about exploiting the algorithm, white hat or blackhat. It's about manipulation. Unless you really have skills and awareness to simply use SEO as a guideline to produce quality, but tell me, how many of the "white hats" really have that?
I much rather go to Google and search for something and see some funny and targeted result created by a blackhatter than something written for Google that doesn't tell me anything.
Believe me, I get what you're saying and am not playing stupid. I know however that about 80 percent here do not care and are only out to make a buck and will agree with whatever is being said to look good.
The only difference between them and hard core blackhatters is that they lack the skill.
Lack of skill being the reason for not participating in hard core strategies doesn't make you more ethical. It makes you a brownnoser if you publically elevate yourself above the ones doing exactly what you would do ... if you could. ;)
Mike
Mike, I thing your missing my point, but appreciate you doing so with a smile.
Could I write a story tomorrow that pushes the same buttons as Lyndon's piece? Most probably. I'm after all not only a trained journo but also a scriptwriter with many years of study in how to construct great fiction. So no - the argument that says we are only complaining cause we couldn't do it ourselves is getting very old - cause what Lyndon did was not really that hard. In fact, it is the far easier road than the path I have chosen, although fraught with risk.
To continue with my Olympic analogy, by your argument, if I am competing in the same race as Lyndon and am coming last because I'm not as fast, but then complain because I discover Lyndon was using drugs, I'm somehow less ethical and / or a brown noser? It really isn't a case of 'we would if we could'. I would rather run last than take Lyndon's path - and not because of the risk or because of any inability to do so, but because I think it is wrong.
Also, your assertion that you would "much rather go to Google and search for something and see some funny and targeted result created by a blackhatter than something written for Google that doesn't tell me anything." is rather quaint.
Black hat is about making a piece appear more relevant than it actually is - a search for 'used cars' sending you through a BMW doorway page to something completely different for example. So I think your point has things the wrong way round. If something was 'written for Google' as you say, it was more than likely written for the end-user, meaning it should be more relevant and closer to answering your query.
Also, what's wrong with wanting SEO to be about producing quality content? Shouldn't that be the goal if we want to serve the end-user anyway? Often in these debates, the end-user becomes an after-thought as people seem more concerned with Google or traffic, etc.
Personally, the only real SEO techniques I use on my own website are regular quality (hopefully) content updates, appropriate anchor text where possible and the appropriate use of keywords in headers, etc. I know my urls could be optimised far better and there's half a dozen ways I could try to get more links other than through the usual content channels. I'm certainly not a lapdog to Google, because, to me, Google doesn't even come into it. By focussing on my content, I'm catering for the end-user which means, by default, Google responds well to me. Believe it or not, it works.
But in the absence of any other online code of conduct, the only set of guidelines I can use to illustrate my points are those from Google.
"Black hat is about making a piece appear more relevant than it actually is"
While I mostly agree with your stance on ethics, I think this statement is debatable, to say the least.
If you have the third biggest online database of [whatever] but you aim for the #1 spot for the query "whatever", will that make you a black hat -- because you only "deserve" third place?
If you put "the best" in your title tag (thus making your piece appear more relevant than it probably is), is that black hat per se?
If you're the new kid on the block but don't want to wait 5 years before Google gives you the chance to compete with the old, entrenched sites, are your attempts to break out unethical?
If you are one florist out of 148 similar florists in your area, how relevant are you for related searches? Should your site be the first, the twentythird or the hundred and fortyeighth result? Based on what? Assortment, quality of service, user satisfaction, price, title tag, incoming links or the age of your site? Should you just stand by and let Google decide?
Who else can decide? Are you saying that, because I believe my florist has better service, that justifies me using black hat technisues to appear at #1 instead of #3?
Google can only assess relevance by the content on the page - which is limiting but faira. If everyone tried to decide their own worth, everyone is going to say they deserve #1. Sure, more entrenched sites appear stronger in Google, but that only reflects the every day reality that people trust established brands more than untested ones. You may think your business is brilliant, but you still need to prove yourself. Black hat techniques are just a way of cheating around this 'proving' of worth.
And yes, if you are #3 and you decide to trick the system to get to #1, of course that is black hat, because the #1 directory has lost their spot earned legitimately through their content.
I resent webmasters telling me that their site is the most relevant for my search by using black hat techniques to get to the top - which is basically what you are suggesting with your florist example. How can the florist decide how relevant they are amongst the competition? That's not an objective view. And going dopwn that path is what leads us to corruption, manipulation and exploitation. Black hat.
If you're the new kid on the block but don't want to wait 5 years before Google gives you the chance to compete with the old, entrenched sites, are your attempts to break out unethical?
Google wants to provide searchers with useful results. They are far from perfection. Providing results which are years old and outdated news articles because the page is on an authority site is not cutting it. Sure, it's safe to say that old sites which have never been penalized are more likely going to provide something useful than a brandnew one. But still, the relevance is not always there, so sometimes a healthy push is needed for people and not Google to actually improve the results. What happened that suddenly Google became super human and people cannot use common sense and understand that what matters is the market? The market decides. Google is trying to get better at it, but how in the world can you be such a follower that you don't even understand that above Google there is the people using the search engine?
Those who are masters at white hat without aggressive link buying strategies and still able to rank sites, are the ones who understand what Google is trying to do more so than what it takes to get ranked in Google.
It always gets to me when some half wits keep saying "but Google says" or "Matt Cutts says". Who cares. With that attitude you will always be a "white hat spammer".
If you find a strategy which works for you, then continue with it. No need to ask for permission.
Those are the people who are going to stand for nothing and fall for everything, and trust me, whoever they think they can make the most money with, they will follow as long as they benefit.
No, I am not always talking to the better 10% on here. I am talking to the masses, the ones who don't really understand what they're doing, but make enough to keep going and sticking around.
Do you guys really want to live your life following a corporation's guidelines without ever testing what you yourself are capable of? If you fall into that category, cool. Be like that. But then turning around and talking about something you do not understand in a bashing way, is something you should leave up to those who have actually seen both sides and understand enough to make an educated judgement.
Some of you do great work. Some of you do pathetic work and whether or not you believe it, you are spamming Google. According to the original webmaster guidelines, you are not supposed to do anything with search engines in mind. So what does that make the SEO industry?
What does that make Matt asking people to use no follow or not utilize drop down menues because Google "needs help"?
Give me a break, guys. I am not here to talk to the sheep. I am here to let you guys know that there is an interesting and highly skilled crowd coming up which will put most of you to shame.
Are they ethical or not?
Many are not. No doubt about that. But neither are the ones who praise Google, Matt and his cat in public and then tell me on messenger how they just got a great deal from some guy on 4 PR6 links while making statements that blackhats are evil link buyers.
And another thing: When you look at the hot topics on Sphinn, are you going to tell me that those are the most important search engine related news in the world?
Give me a break, guys. I am not pro blackhat at all, just pro my friends which some of them happen to be blackhat. But I do know that with all of the hypocricy and snake oil sales going on in this business, I am welcoming any sort of change with open arms and let the market decide what the future might bring.
Mike Dammann
I never said "because I believe my florist has better service, that justifies me using black hat technisues". That's you putting words in my mouth. Strange that a guy like you should begin to use the strawman argument after so vehemently denouncing false argumentative techniques during the fake linkbait saga.
I was reflecting on your statement: "Black hat is about making a piece appear more relevant than it actually is".
Isn't all marketing about this in some way or another? What is your proposed ethical way then?
Should every "ethical" site owner start by assessing the relevance of his/her own site (let's forget about the inconvenient fact here that relevance is subjective), and then (a) either trust Google to place the site exactly in the spot corresponding to that relevance, or (b) try to rank for that "deserved" spot, but immediately qualifying as a black hat when reaching a higher ranking?
It is so naive and detached from reality I really don't know what to say.
In this vein, perhaps every company should make some kind of "objective" product comparison survey across the market before launching an advertising campaign, and then try to reach the exact market share the results of that survey warrant their product -- but not even a percentage point more, because that would already be unethical?
"How can the florist decide how relevant they are"
They can't. But Google can't, either. When any 10 of those 148 florists could be the "most relevant" top ten without hurting the user experience and deceiving anyone, there's nothing wrong with trying to be one of those 10 sites.
"Google can only assess relevance by the content on the page"
This is the kind of factually wrong assertion that even has the potential to discredit your complete argument. Oh, and #1 sites earning their place through their content... OMG.
Great thoughts here, all!
Did anyone but me notice that Kimota and Mike D. were saying basically the same thing in many parts of their comments?
i.e., that there's no need to ever worry about what Google supposedly tells you is right and wrong.
I couldn't agree more, and especially agree with Mike on this:
So true, so true!
Kimota and Mike: Thanks for the great discussion! It's always fascinating to see the different points of view with intelligent discussion. I definitely get all your very valid points.
Jill: To your first comment, I do think that there are many out there that wouldn't ever consider stepping over that line but, conversely, there are many who don't mind it at all. It is most definitely not a black and white topic. Some out there really don't care how you get the results, just that you get them and I guess that falls in line what some consider to be cheating (to Kimota's point).