Bh has no longevity? I think you're speaking from rumour mill and what people would have you believe here rather than empirical evidence. How many blackhat sites do you have? How many blackhat sites have you tracked?

Among many others, I've personally seen moneyexpert in the top 3 for "loans" for over a year now. How is that not longevity? You've admitted that BH can deliver better ranking results than WH and quite frankly, I think a lot of people who don't bother getting into BH like to tell themselves it's not worth doing because they won't last. If you do it badly, no they won't last. If you do it well, they'll last ages - or if there are other "circumstances", like moneyexpert. Do you have any idea how much money it is worth to rank in the top 3 for "loans" for 12 months? You're going to honestly tell me that your businesses strategy is better than a £x,xxx,xxx per month key phrase ranking for a year? Let’s face it, if anyone here had a BH method which stood them a good chance of getting that ranking, even for weeks, let alone months, now going on years, they'd drop everything and do it.

I also fail to understand how whitehats always seem to think blackhats are totally incapable of making a "good" (content/design) website, if they wish too. Without going over old, old, old ground, I think it's pretty obvious to say that the best SEO is the one that can practise both WH and BH to a high level.

If it's a subject you are interested in, I can give you examples (with archive.org to back it up) of numerous, competitive, very well ranking, nicely design, but *totally* blackhat sites that have been in top 3 positions on Google for over a year.

Yes a bad blackhat will get banned, it's no different to a bad WH never ranking in the first place.

I'm not having a dig at you, just giving my point of view. I'd like to thank you for your polite response.