From as far back as when I was 8 years old I remember trying to find holes in computer systems to gain an “unfair” advantage. I remember copying ghost files for the DOS game dungeon hack to get more items for new characters. Back in 1988 when I was playing Pool of Radiance, I learned hexadecimal so I could use xtreepro to modify the character stats to give myself all 25s when the highest normal stat was 18. It worked, it was fun, and my enjoyment of the game was enhanced because I had an “unfair” advantage. Part of the fun of game to me was beating the system. Today, game cheats, hacks and cracks are a huge part of the multi billion dollar a year gaming industry.

Although this incredible example of in game deceit was not technically cheating, it was so intriguing to me that I almost started playing Eve Online. It was not done with hacking accounts nor did they use alts. The beauty of heist was that it technically fell into the rules of the game and was all done in character. The result? They made off with more than 15,000 real dollars worth in virtual goods in the biggest in game heist in MMORPG history.

In high school, I learned that if you penciled in the “key” above question 1 in space 5 of a scantron, you would get a 100% on the test and everyone who got a question right that you got wrong whose scantron was fed after yours into the machine would get those questions marked wrong. This tactic was only really good if you were only going to get 1 or 2 questions wrong anyway – otherwise it might raise a red flag and you ran the risk of getting caught. Personally, I never used this tactic unless I knew that someone else was going to be doing it on the same test. But if someone else was doing it, I’d be damned if I was going to be penalized as a result.

Maybe it’s that mindset that attracted me to black hat SEO. I like unfair advantages and I am clearly not alone.

From the New York times article on cheating in College:

In a survey of nearly 62,000 undergraduates on 96 campuses over the past four years, two-thirds of the students admitted to cheating. The survey was conducted by Don McCabe, a Rutgers professor who has studied academic misconduct and helped found the Center for Academic Integrity at Duke.

So if two thirds of college students admit to cheating, and gamecheats have become such a major industry – what does that say about the future of black hat SEO? Is black hat SEO like Cheating? And is cheating always wrong?

For example, I am against click fraud, shaving, fishing and most anything that can clearly be construed as stealing. Also, I think that it’s unethical to do Black Hat SEO consulting for a client who is not aware of all the risks involved. But to me, Google or Yahoos guidelines only enter into the equation in so far as they access penalties for specific practices. I don’t have a problem with comment spamming unless someone takes it too far. And I have no problem with creating computer generated content sites, newsmaster sites, niche aggragator, doing XSS, 301 tricks, doorway pages, typo spam, cloaking and a host of other practices. I don’t give Google any moral authority to judge what I do. If they have to make certain business decisions, I’m fine with that. But don’t try to tell me that going outside Googles webmasters guidelines is the moral equivalent of fraud. It may be for you, but it’s not for me.

With deeper analysis, we find that most everything does not fall into simple absolutes of black or white; most often things are shades of grey (or pink, blue or hex:24b655). With SEO, as with everything in life, you should measure things in terms of risk vs. reward and cost vs. benefit. If moral concerns increase your “costs” (as they do for me) then they should be part of your decision making equation. It all comes down to what you are comfortable with and what your risk tolerance is.