SEO Black Hat: SEO Blog and Private Forum

The Book, The Selfish Gene, is a fantastic Read and I highly reccommend it

It was Interesting that Dawkins seems to have coined the term “meme” in his 1976 book “The Selfish Gene”(which, in itself, is pretty cool). But I found this snippit from one of the World’s most vocal Atheist truly inspirational and I thought I’d pass it on to you:

“If you contribute to the world’s culture, if you have a good idea, compose a tune, invent a sparking plug, write a poem, it may live on, intact, long after your genes have dissolved in the common pool. Socrates may or may not have a gene or two alive in the world today, as G. C. Williams has remarked, but who cares? The meme-complexes of Socrates, Leonardo, Copernicus and Marconi are still going strong.”

“We have the power to defy the selfish genes of our birth and, if necessary, the selfish memes of our indoctrination. We can even discuss ways of deliberately cultivating and nurturing pure, disinterested altruism- something that has no place in nature, something that has never existed before in the whole history of the world. We are built as gene machines and cultured as meme machines, but we have the power to turn against our creators. We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators.”

Richard Dawkins - The Selfish Gene

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Imagine yourself in VIP section of Munich best dance club after a day of eating, singing, and drinking at one of the biggest parties in the world: Oktoberfest.

You’re sitting at private table with the likes of me (QuadsZilla), Rsnake from ha.ckers.org, Marcus of Mediadonis and several other super affiliates and black hats. Sprinkled throughout our private section are 6 German Playboy Playmates dressed in (classic german girl outfits) that we hired to come along for the ride.

The drinks are flowing and the secrets are slipping. The talk is all about what’s really working to make money, current and future ventures, and forging new relationships to grow our businesses even more.

That’s how we’ll roll at SEOktoberfest.

Last year I spent Oktoberfest with Marcus (Mediadonis) in Munich. It was awesome. As a Munich native, he’s got all the right connections to make the most of one of the World Greatest Parties.

When I visited Marcus 2 weeks ago, we got to talking about doing an SEOktoberfest; a gathering of 20 or so industry elites centered around one of the best worlds best parties. We know we can make this event the most worthwhile for your time and attention: and that’s exactly what we’re going to do.

Private tables, VIP at the best Clubs, and real connections with people living the Good Life thanks to Internet Entrepreneurship: that’s the essence of what we’ll be creating at SEOktoberfest.

Our main motivation behind SEOktoberfest is to create the type of “conference” that WE would want to attend. If you’re like us, then you’ll want to attend too. This kind of VIP access has never been available before.

Do You Want In?

To do it right’s gonna take a little coin: 5,000 Euros a head. If you can’t afford the cover charge then this gathering is not for you.

But if you’re doing the kind of business that some of the attendees here are doing, you should be able to get some of your top sponsors to foot the tab on this one. Just tell them you want to go and for them to make it happen.

We’re going to reserve VIP tables on September 24th and 25th at the two best tents (Hippodrom & Käfer) at Oktoberfest. All the food, drinks, restaurants and entrance to the best after-parties will be included in the cover.

As a bonus, when you sign up you get a 1 year Subscription to the SEO Black Hat Private Forums (a $1000 value). In addition, you will receive 2 hours of follow up consultations from Marcus and Quadszilla.

Do you wanna roll with us at SEOKTOBERFEST?

We know you do.

Avaiibility is very limited: there are only 10 seats 9 seats available. This is a small and exclusive gathering. Once we reach capacity, your window will close and you will be locked out of this awesome event.

It’s only about 60 days away: so the time to make a decision is right now. So if you’re genuinely interested in going, contact us now so we can get you in the group.

EVERYONE WHO BLOGGS ABOUT THIS AND SENDS A TRACKBACK WILL BE ELIGIBLE FOR THE 1 FREE SEAT WE ARE RAFFLING OFF.

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Being away from the Internet for a few days, I was surprised to see GOOG trading below 500 for the first time in more than 3 months. They missed consensus earnings estimates by a few cents and the stock has been beaten down around 20% in the last couple weeks.

This is a buying opportunity. There are no signs that Google’s growth will dip below 30% for the next 5 years. Yahoo is a train wreck and Microsoft refuses to take the steps necessary to compete. This last quarter GOOG earned $4.64 per share. At 30% per year, that will be $17.23 per share for the quarter in 5 years or annual earnings of around $69 per share. Even at a PE ratio of 20, that gives us a valuation of $1378 per share. At 30X earnings (about where they trade today) that’s $2067 per share. Even if it trades at a mere 10X, you’re looking at $1033 per share – or more than double what you can buy it for today.

Even if their growth slows to 20% per year, that would still give us earnings 5 years out of $46 a share. At 20X, that’s 923 (still about double what you can pick it up for today).

I’d love to see MSFT get their shit together and start to grab market share. In fact, I know exactly how they could do it and would love to manage the project. But, alas, that’s not going to happen. Even if it does, the writing will be on the wall long enough for any of us in the search space to unload our GOOG shares before the Wall Street firms have a clue.

GOOG is for all intents and purposes a monopoly. They are arrogant dicks to deal with; monopolies always are. But they have the reach, the growth, and the traffic - so we really have no choice.

As long as we know we’re getting fucked dealing with a monopoly, we might as well make money on the proposition. That’s why I’m recommending you put any money you’re not going to need for the next 5 years into GOOG stock.

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London was awesome. On Saturday afternoon, we met with the guys from torrentfreak.com: they were both cool and we talked about some of the interesting happenings in that niche. Trying to find them at the Witherspoons on Oxford street was interesting (the peeps in London should appreciate how silly a meeting spot that is: the biggest chain of bars on the biggest street.) We got out of the subway and asked “are all these people here for the fat boy slim concert 3 stops away?”

Response from a random: “No, they’re all here for the gay pride parade.” And sure enough, there we were standing in between floats of rainbows, bare chests and designer jeans.

Later on at the fat boy slim concert, my yellow jacket was the same color as the security guards, which in British translates to “Free back stage passes”. Line of the night was probably from Fatboy Slim’s Mother-in-law “So how do you know Norman?”

Me: “oh, he’s a friend of a friend.”

Aren’t we all?

Monday I had an 8 hour layover in Munich before getting a flight to Bangkok. Since Marcus is in Vegas, I decided to call a girl I met there to take me to lunch while I was in Munich. After arranging a meeting point, it turned out that I was standing at the wrong entrance to the train station. Not seeing me, she decided to call to see where I was. The only problem is the only number she had for me was Marcus’s. It was 1:15 pm Munich Time when she called . . . which is like 4:15 am Vegas time.

I didn’t hear the conversation, but she said he sounded pretty pissed. Sorry Marcus.

:o

Now I’m in Bangkok. This city is absolutely nuts. I’m not sure what I’m doing for the next week, but I’m going to be at the Full Moon Party at Koh Phangan on the 19th.

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Tomorrow I’m headed to the Fat Boy Slim Concert at Hyde Park in London.

Sunday, I’d like to go to the Wimbledon Mens Finals. If you’ve always wanted to meet me and happen to have extra tickets, now’s your chance.

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Google’s Homepage Now Links to Privacy Policy.

Why? It’s not like someone is raping them on some bull shit Quality Score factor. . .

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Thanks Google, that is exactly what i meant.

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The whole letter is worth a read, here’s an excerpt:

As for the Google deal, HOORRAY! Now, you might be thinking that we employees - particularly those in Search - who have spent most of our waking hours trying to do battle with Google might in some way be disappointed that we are now getting into bed with the enemy. Au contraire! We love it! Nothing indicates a job well done better than outsourcing your own job to the competition. Am I right, or am I right? After all, it is not as if we had sold the entire search team to another company for a premium price - that would have been a slap in the face! By contrast, outsourcing as much of the search business to Google as legally allowed in exchange for near term cash, that is much more re-assuring. It tells us all that we are truly valued.

 

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At the Edinburgh SEO Class, I was asked “what makes you a successful seo black hat?”

I responded something like:

“There was this passage in the Guns of August about a French General’s famous aphorism ‘What is the essence of the Problem?’ I think that quote applies to winning both on the battlefield and online.

It’s that problem solving nature that keeps us excited, keeps the game evolving, and keeps the winners at the top.”

Going back to the recalled passage, I noticed that 2 other critical elements to battlefield success translate almost 100 years later to online success. Here’s Passage from the The Guns of August (emphasis mine):

“General Ferdinand Foch was the molder of French military the­ory of his time. Foch’s mind, like a heart, contained two valves: one pumped spirit into strategy; the other circulated common sense. On the one hand Foch preached a mystique of will expressed in his famous aphorisms, “The will to conquer is the first condition of victory,” or more succinctly, “Victoire c’est la volonte,” and, “A battle won is a battle in which one will not confess oneself beaten.”

In practice this was to become the famous order at the Marne to attack when the situation called for retreat. His officers of those days remember him bellowing, “Attack! Attack!” with furious, sweeping gestures while he dashed about in short rushes as if charged by an electric battery. Why, he was later asked, did he advance at the Marne when he was technically beaten? “Why? I don’t know. Because of my men, because I had a will. And then—God was there.”

Though a profound student of Clausewitz, Foch did not, like Clause-witz’s German successors, believe in a foolproof schedule of battle worked out in advance. Rather he taught the necessity of perpetual adaptability and improvisation to fit circumstances. “Regulations,” he would say, “are all very well for drill but in the hour of danger they are no more use…. You have to learn to think.” To think meant to give room for freedom of initiative, for the imponderable to win over the material, for will to demon­strate its power over circumstance.

But the idea that morale alone could conquer, Foch warned, was an “infantile notion.” From his flights of metaphysics he would descend at once, in his lectures and his prewar books Les Principes de la Guerre and La Conduite de la Guerre, to the earth of tactics, the placing of advance guards, the necessity of surete, or protection, the elements of firepower, the need for obedience and discipline. The realistic half of his teaching was summed up in another aphorism he made familiar during the war, “De quoi s’agit-il?” (What is the essence of the problem?)

 

The main takeaway are - to win in battle and online:

1. You need the will to conquer. Without that underlying will to succeed, you’re going to lose to those of greater will.

2. You have to learn to think.

3. You need to define “What is the essence of the problem”. Then, of course, you just solve the problem.

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Class has just wrapped up in Edinburgh and I’m fairly confident that everyone there felt it was worthwhile. Nice work Jim!

I’ll probably head to Ireland on Thursday after exploring the city here a little bit.

p.s. Chris Anderson’s The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete is a fantastic read.

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