SEO Black Hat: SEO Blog and Private Forum

If you Google for porn today, you may not find it.

That’s because this past weekend saw a huge shake up in the online porn world. A change in the Google algorithm caused almost all TGPs to fall out of the top results for single-word porn search phrases.

If you Google for any of the following words (as of this writing), you won’t find much free porn in the top ten:

Last Monday:

The last 10 days:

Yesterday (after the weekend update):

The lesson for everyone here is this: Don’t focus on just a few competitive keywords for your long term sites: if you have plenty of Long tail combinations, Google Twitches that look like they could kill you may actually increase your traffic.

Update: The “Porn Free” filters in Google seem to have reverted partially to where they were.

Tagged: best posts |

As I sit here writing on the world’s greatest personal computer (The Mac Pro Quad Xeon 64-bit workstation with dual 30 inch monitors):

I can’t help but pity you Wal-Mart shoppers who still use software from the Antichrist (Microsoft) and can’t figure out how to get on the front page of Digg (Idiots!).

So, I did some statistical analysis, using my Open Office Firefox plugin, of all the stories that made the front page of Digg in the past year and have come up with:

The 10 Steps to Guarantee You Make the Digg Front Page

Hopefully, you will be able to use them before we all die because of global warming next year . . .

1. Make A List or Tutorial Headline. Your Headline should make it seem like the reader’s online success is just a 5 minute read away. Remember, the average digger has the attention span of a gnat on crack. Diggers want the fast, easy answer that will solve all their problems. Your headline must appeal to people with severe ADD or most people won’t even read your article - let alone Digg it.

*In the past year, a “top 10” or “top 100” list has made the front page on average once every other day.

2. Write about Digg. Could a site be any more narcissistic? I think not. Digg likes itself so much that Paris Hilton looks about as humble as a Nun by comparison. People must be sitting at their computers going “OMG Look it’s a story about Digg! That’s sooooooo cool! I’ll totally digg that!” Bonus points if you mention Kevin Rose.

* In the past year, stories with “Digg” in the submission have made the front page a whopping 554 times and mentioned Kevin Rose by name an average of once a week.

3. Appeal to the Apple fanboys. Did you hear from someone who knows someone who served a Cream Chai Latte to Steve Jobs about some Mac Rumor? Well that’s front page Digg Material all the way! Don’t know why, but if Apple lets out a fart, diggers can’t wait to comment on the rosy smell.

* Stories with “Apple” in the Submission have made the front page a mind blowing 1225 times in the past year.

4. Doom and Gloom about how Global Warming will destroy us all. Who cares if we only have real data that covers about 1/20,000,000 of the earth’s history? (unless you’re a creationist, then it’s like 1/40th). So what if there is nothing but anecdotal evidence to support almost every claim? Does it matter that world’s best meteorologists can’t even tell me if it’s going to rain tomorrow?

No!

Diggers don’t really like to DO anything about global warming, but feel guilty about it despite a lack of conclusive evidence. In that sense, I guess it’s kinda like “Religion 2.0”. Diggers will Digg Global warming Doom and Gloom stories so they can “feel” like they “did something” to “help mankind.” All while consuming more electricity, more oil and more natural resources than the 80% of the world’s population that doesn’t even have a computer.

* A junk science, doom and Gloom story about Global Warming will make the front page of Digg on average of once a week.

5. Write about how great Firefox is. When it comes to Firefox, no story is too lame, no plugin is too useless and no article can praise Firefox too much for the front page of Digg. Sure, it’s just a freaking browser. Sure, it leaks memory faster than . . . umm . . . some kind of leaky thing leaking much faster than usual. Sure no one really needs YAFFFP - but who cares?!?

* In the past year, a firefox story has made the front page on average once every day.

6. Remember: Walmart, George Bush, and Fox News have NEVER done ANYTHING right. Everything they do is because they are 100% evil to the core. This REAL Axis of Evil delights in the clear-cutting of forests just for shits and giggles, the sadistic torture of children, and is right now plotting the Next 9/11 attack on America. Here’s a link to a Jon Stewart Video that proves it’s all true!

* * actually, I’m not a fan of George Bush; but his coverage on Digg is more rigged than a Diebold voting machine. Maybe he should ask for a Digg recount?

7. Repeat after me: “Microsoft sucks, Microsoft Sucks, Microsoft Sucks.” So what if 97% of all computer users use their products? Ignore that they’ve been the most consistent winner for the last 25 years in a space littered with failures. Who cares if their founder has given more to charity than any human in the history of mankind? They suck! And they are evil! Why? Because it’s cool to say so.

Don’t believe me? Check out this screenshot of the most recent Digg front page Microsoft Stories. I was going to parody it up, but there’s no need!

* 94% of the front page articles that mentioned Microsoft in the past year cast the company in a negative light.

8. Make up outrageous statistics that you have not researched. State your opinions as fact. Sure, they might get vetted by some geek who has nothing better to do, but that probably won’t happen until you’ve already made the front page.

9. Insult as many groups as you can. Flamewars are popular for a reason. Throw out bombs that dare people to comment on your story. If you haven’t pissed off half your readers by the end of your article, it’s probably because you don’t have the balls or you’re too stupid to figure out how.

10. Include the word’s slowest loading Plugin so people can Digg your Story without leaving your site. If you manage to type 1000 words, there’s at least a chance that it will finish loading before the reader has finished reading your article. Then if you’re lucky, about 5% of your lazy-ass readers might actually click the button to digg your story:

Tagged: Funny, Link Bait, Digg, Best Posts |

The art of blog is of vital importance to the Web. It is a matter of links and bait, a road either to prosperity or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected.

1. Regard your readers as your students and they will link to your from the deepest valleys of the Net.

2. He who wishes to blog must first count the cost. When you engage in blogging, if good posts are long in coming, then reader’s attention will grow dull and their fervor will be dampened. If you blog 5 times a day in the beginning, you will exhaust your strength. Regarding post frequency, think quality over quantity. Again, as blogging is a marathon, the resources of the Blogger may not be equal to the strain. For if your mind is dulled, your ardor dampened, your strength exhausted and your mental treasure spent, other bloggers will spring up to take advantage of your extremity. . . In blogging, then, let your great objectives be links and readers, not post frequency or lengthy post.

3. If your target is interesting at all points, link to him. If he is in superior traffic, bait him. If he is unaware of you, seek to add value in his comment section. If seeking his links, select the best page. When giving feedback, do it correctly. Attack him where he is unprepared, add value where you are not expected.

4. The Blogger who wins the readers makes many calculations about his headlines before the post is written. The Blogger who loses Readers makes but few calculations beforehand and speaks constantly of himself. Thus do many calculations lead to success, and few calculations to failure: how much more so for no calculation at all! It is by attention to this point that one can foresee who is likely to win or lose Readers.

5. If you make a mistake out of haste or misjudgment, Apologize quickly and publicly. Do not simply delete the offending post. Do not entrench yourself in a losing position. Better to admit you were wrong quickly and make amends, than to dig the hole of your own grave.

6. To link and bait in all your posts is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in both winning new readers and retaining existing ones.

7. It is only one who is thoroughly acquainted with the evils of SEO that can thoroughly understand the profitable ways of carrying it on.

8. The great bloggers of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat by consistantly writing great and informative posts, and then prepares for the opportunity to gain search traffic with SEO.

9. Bestow links without regard to page rank, direct readers without regard to previous value but on the value of the post you are referencing. Send readers away to other great posts liberally and they will return more fervently and more frequently than if you try to hoard them. In blogging, the tightest grasp is with an open fist.

10. Send your troops to Digg Great Posts, To Vote on Netscape, to Comment on Reddit and to bookmark on Delicious that they may recruit more readers to your following. Ask that they link to your posts of value so that you may return the favor when the opportunity arises.

Tagged: Best Posts, Design, Link Bait, blogging |

I remember hearing once that you can get at least something of value out of most books. Whoever said that clearly never had his hard drive infected by the “e-book” Google Adsense Handbook - Building your own Adsense Empire.

Reading Adsense Empire is like taking a long bus ride sitting next to someone who bathed in sh¡t - it’s not just bad, it’s repugnant and offensive. Even the most devout masochist would undoubtedly find the torture of reading this ebook unbearable.

**** Warning ****

The following quoted passages on search engine optimization may cause nausea, vomiting, your eyes to bleed or your head to assplode:

Spiders Like:

• Neat code: less lines of code than lines of text (or more lines of text than lines of codes.)
• Normal keyword densities of 3-7%.
• Lots of backlinks on pages that link back to your home page.  (Top sites have an average of 300 backlinks.)
• Original content not found anywhere else.

Spiders do not like:

• More lines of code than text.
• “Doorway pages” that act as a portal and which just happen to have super-high keyword densities.
• Too many backlinks to your home page from within your domain.
• Lots of dynamic URLs that cause a site to take forever to download

 

Yup, that about covers everything one needs to know about Search Engine Optimization. In fact, I think you’re just about ready to make $200k a year running the SEO Scam.

The rest of the book is almost entirely affiliate links and poorly worded product-sell pages. The “Making Money with Adsense” tips at the end include such gems as:

“Tip #2: Make content pages for your site — and put AdWords on them”

 

and

“Tip #4: You want to make new pages with higher paying keywords (while keeping it real and releveant(sic)) “

 

This book cost me a lot. I don’t mean by buying it - I didn’t buy it. I don’t mean the hour of my life that I will never get back; the one that is gone forever and will scar my psyche like a Catholic Priest does a 9-year old boy. I mean it cost me money because I had to take action against the Adsense Empire file that resided on my hard drive and against the laptop that did not know better than to expose me to it.

It was not enough to just delete the Adsense Empire file, reformat and scrub my hard drive 7 times. Such trivial precautions are reserved for less malicious files like the Chernobyl or Melissa Virus. Further action was required:

If this book succeeds on one front it is through omission. The one wise thing the author did was neglect to sign his name - we’ll give him points for that: 2 points. As for the other 16,287 words, well . . .they at least serve to reinforce the axiom that “it is better to keep quiet and have people think you’re stupid than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.”

Ebooks like Adsense Empire that pose as a Google Adsense Handbook spread misinformation by uninformed, self-proclaimed-experts while devaluing people’s willingness to pay for worthwile ebooks and consulting services. Blights like this must be vetted to protect the integrity of the legitimate information marketplace.

Would I recommend the Adsense Empire ebook? I would sooner send a friend a Ebola coated CD that executes root delete on boot and post Sh¡zer videos of his grandmother than willingly expose him to this abomination.

Tagged: Funny, Best Posts, Link Bait |

Let’s face it. Most SEO is scam. Is it fair to say that 80% of the people selling Search Engine Optimization services have neither the knowledge nor ability to deliver good value to their customers? I think so.

If someone could take your crappy site and rank it for Viagra, Poker or Mortgages, why the hell would they do it for you? Why wouldn’t they just do it themselves and keep all the money?

So, while you’re trying to figure out how to get up to $100 a day in adsense, these SEO Scam shysters are raking in more than $200K per year.

In this post I’m going to lay out the Anatomy of the SEO Scam and how to identify an SEO scam when you see it in the form of a beginners guide to becoming an SEO scammer.

Step 1. Don’t let the fact that you know nothing about SEO hold you back. Sure you could at least get a primer by reading some of the newbie blogs. Or if you’re really interested you could buy Aaron’s SEO book, read the Search engine forums and all the important blogs of SEO experts daily and (God forbid!) actually go out and rank for something in the search engines. But all that’s really overkill for running the SEO scam. All you really need are some buzzwords like “meta tags,” “crawler pages,” “doorway pages,” and “premium placement.”

Step 2. Buy a domain with the word SEO in it and fake a page rank 7. Alternatively, you can purchase a link to your domain from a page rank 8 that transfers page rank for about $400 a month. Copy some other SEO firm’s site (that doesn’t have a blog) almost verbatim – make sure you change the colors and the contact information. You will of course show this site to your prospective clients and point out your Google page rank. Don’t worry about the fact that you don’t actually rank for anything in any of the search engines, or the fact that no legitimate SEO has ever quoted or linked to anything you have written - you can double talk your way around that.

Step 3. Get the word out that you are an SEO. Make business cards and tell everyone you know. Once you have business cards, you are by definition a “Professional SEO.” I don’t have any business cards so I am NOT a professional SEO. Remember, almost all of your business will have to come from your offline hustling – because no one is going to find you online.

Step 4. Go to non SEO trade shows. Steer clear of Adult, Gambling, Pharma and Technology Related Shows– they are, on the whole, too savvy to pitch. I would throw Mortgages in their too, but you can definitely find some mortgage brokers who
a) don’t have a clue and
b) have money to waste.
A fool and his money are soon parted. - Thomas Tusser
Tell everyone you meet at these shows that you can get them a top 10 placement in Google and the other search engines. Get their cards and call them until they agree to meet with you. Your prime targets are people with decent sized business who know nothing about Search except that they heard about “Google or Something like that on the news”.

Step 5. If you have to, whip out the yellow pages and start dialing for dollars.
“Hi this is Mike Jones, I’m trying to find it . . . what is your companies web site address?”
Then pull their site.
“Oh, it looks like the Search Engines are having problems finding your site. Who should I talk there about fixing that problem – the President right? What’s his name? [pause] Joe? Great - Transfer me over to him. Thanks!” And so on. I could write the script, but that’s all just sales 101. Once you get rolling, you’ll be able to hire telemarketing appointment setters.

Step 6. You guarantee a top ten placement in Google, Yahoo, and MSN. How do you deliver this? If need be “with long phrases in quotes”. Do not guarantee that you will rank for any important search phrases that people actually search for or that have any traffic. Do not do pay for performance or ever agree to work for a piece of the increase in revenue.

Step 7. You tell them that because you know people at Google, you can get them premium placement at the top of Google Searches. This is of course doublespeak for selling them Google Adsense.

Step 8. You charge $1500 per month with a 12 month contract + 25% of PPC spend and a 50% markup if they want analytics software like clicktracks (basically for installation). If you think you can get more, then get more. But never work for less than this. If you need a contract or two, just contact some of the big SEO chop shops who don’t have anyone you’ve heard of working there. Tell them that you are interested in their services and want a proposal (you may need to purchase an extra domain and throw up some crappy web site for this). After you get the proposal, do a find and replace. If there is anything about link bait, viral marketing, natural links, buyouts and 301s, footprints, content generation or delivery, affiliate programs, building communities, blogging, networks, interlinking, building a site that someone might actually want to find, or any legitimate SEO strategies that you don’t understand, just take it out. Don’t worry, odds are the SEO you contacted won’t have mentioned any of these.

Step 9. When you meet with the customer, don’t be afraid to lie and over promise to close the deal. As long as your contract does not lie or over promise, you are covered.

Step 10. After the Contract is signed, make sure you get that first check. Do some on page optimization (if you know how – if not just guess), sign up for PPC programs, do a few press releases and buy them a few links – but not all at once. Stall this process over of a 16-20 week period. If they ask about results, just tell them that these things take time. If they persist, show them how they rank for a certain “search term with their company name in quotes” and talk about the next Google update.

Step 11. Send them some keyword reports, traffic graphs and their Adsense reports and ASK FOR REFFERRALS! Ask early. Ask Often.

Just close one of these deals a month and you’ll be making over $200k per year after expenses. You will have to close slightly more once you have hired your telemarketing appointment setters.

Hopefully this guide will be used more to help people avoid being ripped off by an SEO Scam, but of course I know better. As PT Barnum said (or didn’t):

There’s a sucker born every minute.

Digg this Story.

Tagged: Link Bait, Best Posts |