Before I begin to pose my thoughts and questions, I'd like to clarify the type of hacking I'm reffering to. The official definition of a hacker, as defined by the Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker) is "a term used to describe different types of computer experts". The hacking I'm referring to is the latter definition the Wikipedia offers. The definition used by the general populace and media: "Computer Criminal" or "Clever Programmer", especially one who has particularly detailed knowledge or cleverly circumvents limits.

The verb hacking is often followed by the preposition into. Querying the terms "hack into" and "hacking into" on Google will yield over 1 million results in aggregate.

Thus most computer criminals hack into a PC, network, server or any other extenal platform in an effort to achieve desired results. But Search engines are very unique in nature. They send out spiders to collect data and cache the web, which defines where sites rank within the results pages. When one wants to manipulate the results to his or her advantage, the likely path is NOT via internal entry. Rather, the deceiptful webmaster or marketer plants manipulative devices on the outside. Some examples include: heavy off-topic linking, cloaking, keyword stuffing, falsfying domain ownership information, and a myriad of unnatural techniques.

Successful "computer criminals" manipulate the engines to their favor, yielding high results in the SERPS - funneling traffic not deserved. White hatters suffer and are at loss. Search engines lose relevancy, and are victims as well.

Just because you are not breaking and entering - if you practice black hat SEO - are you a "computer criminal"? Something to think about...

Successful "computer criminals" manipulate the engines to their favor, yielding high results in the SERPSSo aren't white hats also manipulating the engines to yield high results? Or do white hats who rank well get there by accident?

- funneling traffic not deserved. Why would the color of the hat determine whether or not the traffic is deserved? That is supposed to be the function of properly functioning search engine algorithms.

White hatters suffer and are at loss. No, only the ones who aren't ranking are suffering, the white hats who are ranking aren't suffering at all.

Search engines lose relevancy, and are victims as well.The search engines are the ones who design the algorithms that determine which sites are relevant and rank well. How can the perpetrators be their own victims?

Mind you, I'm not accusing or defending anyone, just looking at the reality of the thing.

Excellent points from a very realist perspective, Marcia. Thanks for sharing. I, too have wondered about the "evil" of spamming the search engines. In a way, it is improving relevancy over the long term by forcing the SEs to get smarter faster. It's also more akin to using a legal tax loophole than it is to stealing or doing something totally unethical.

Depends on your definition of what constitutes white hat and black hat, but I would consider any form of deception a little more unethical than exploting a legal loophole.

If anything, "white hat" is more analogous to exploiting tax loopholes and "black hat" is more like setting up temporary, fake companies to avoid paying tax altogether.

So aren't white hats also manipulating the engines to yield high results?

There's trying to put the pitcher off when he's about to pitch to you, and there's framing him for a crime so he can't play at all.

Or do white hats who rank well get there by accident?

Sometimes. ;)

Why would the color of the hat determine whether or not the traffic is deserved? That is supposed to be the function of properly functioning search engine algorithms.

White hat optimisation is generally relevant (haha, well OK maybe not). Diffusing the responsibility back to search engines for actions that we as a profession take (black hat or white hat) is kidding ourselves. The industry is the way it is because so many people pushed the limits too far and forced change on the search engines.

Rand suggests this change is good, and sometimes it is. But I'm sure all the people who were sandboxed for months because some people took the piss with throw away, overnight success spam sites wont agree with that assessment.

The search engines are the ones who design the algorithms that determine which sites are relevant and rank well. How can the perpetrators be their own victims?

I run my own forums. If someone spams them is that my fault for setting up the mechanism to allow them do so? Even if I've taken reasonable measures to prevent it?

Just playing devil's advocate. ;)

Personally I don't think "black hats" are nearly as evil as they are made out, and in the same respect "white hats" are nowhere near as angelic as they consider themselves.

The reality of the business is that we're all in this big grey area and try to justify the methods we each use (blah blah it's just business, blah blah it's the ethical approach, blah blah...).

Google et al don't view the industry in the same way - yeh they embrace some of those who champion "white hat-ism", but that's in their best interests to do so - believe me, they'd rather none of us were doing what we do, because we all manipulate their work in one way or another.

This whole white hat vs black hat nonsense has just proliferated from the newbie generation who come into SEO, read a few posts on some random forums and think they are experts and think they need to be in one camp or another. :rolleyes:

My one beef with white hat vs black hat stereotypes is that they offer different services but all wear the "SEO" label, which I think is extremely bad for the industry.

MG

There are idiots on both sites. Yes you have blackhat Traffic Powers out there that use crappy javacloaks to feed traffic to their clients and burn their clients because to get the cloaks to rank the core sites have to rank to the doorways.

BUT

You also have your wacko white hats whose white hat probably has a point on it and they wouldn't hesistate to burn a wooden G in a blackhat's lawn. They embarass themselves by blabbing their crap in moderate forums like this and are even rude to the point where they are uninvited and are so socially derelict they are bearly taken seriously.

Then you have spammers the ones that talk get mislabled as blackhat but are the majority of our industry. The ones that don't talk just making money under the guise of white hat. Their core sites are clean as anything. Their clients sites are clean. but when you look further they have a network of artificial verticals, directories, BLOGS and mini webs that they use to bake pagerank and push it to their clients.

So aren't white hats also manipulating the engines to yield high results? Or do white hats who rank well get there by accident?

IMHO white hats are not "manipulating", rather they are achieving desired results because they give the engines what they want. The engines want quality content, and natural IBL's. They want ontopic links. Whitehats don't spread off topic links across many Class C's with the intent of fooling the engines. White hats don't buy PageRank.

Why would the color of the hat determine whether or not the traffic is deserved? That is supposed to be the function of properly functioning search engine algorithms..

The finest algorithms will still yield irrelevant results on many queries - commercial in particular. Black hat SEO practices (such as off topic linking or cloaking) are partially responsible. IMHO, the engines will always be vulnerable to tampering, even as they become more sophisticated by the day.


No, only the ones who aren't ranking are suffering, the white hats who are ranking aren't suffering at all.

A white hat may be VERY happy with the number 3 spot for his or her prized keyword. But if a black hatter is occupying spot #2, the black hatter is in fact "stealing" traffic from the white hatter. And when one steals traffic, he or she also steals the conversions that come along with it.

>I run my own forums. If someone spams them is that my fault for setting up the mechanism to allow them do so?

So let me get this straight...

You buy a domain name, you set a site up, you promote it, you invite people to comment on the forums, you keep any money you make. Now whose responsibilty do you think it is to ensure that site remains a quality resource?

"There is nothing new under the sun."
Eccl. 1:9

Many hackers would be very angry at you for calling them criminals.

To quote wikipedia a little bit more:
Hacker is a term used to describe different types of computer experts. The media and the general populace typically use the term to mean "computer criminal"; however, in many computer subcultures it simply means "clever programmer", with no connotation of computer security skill. It is also sometimes extended to mean any kind of expert, especially one who has particularly detailed knowledge or cleverly circumvents limits.


Very few SEO types are actually skilled hackers, and very few hackers are criminals. Often to joe-webmaster the line where white becomes black is right past his ability.

But, the most frustrating thing about reading posts from folks who call some SEO strategies criminal is the completely BS dichotomy of good and evil, virtue and sin.

The search engines broker information to earn money, those who practise the arts of SEO want a say in how that information is divvied.

You buy a domain name, you set a site up, you promote it, you invite people to comment on the forums, you keep any money you make. Now whose responsibilty do you think it is to ensure that site remains a quality resource?

BOTH. The users, who, btw, agree not to spam the site as part of the signup process and, in the case of spammers, promptly violate said contract; and the site owner, who has the responsibility to minimize damage to and protect his/her property.

I've never liked the whole "blaming the victim" excuse.

"I stole their stuff because the door was unlocked", I raped her because she was dressed sexy", "I hit the kid because she was jaywalking", "I stole office supplies because I'm underpaid", "I was speeding because I didn't see the cop" - All of these excuses were used by real people, and every single one of them testified in court that they felt they were right to do what they did because the victim did or did not do something that would have prevented them. Blaming the victim. There is an implicit belief that they are entitled to do harm unless forced not to.

Spamming isn't on the same level as catagory one offences, of course, but the thinking is exactly the same. "It's the forum owners fault for letting me sign up and post", "its the search engines fault for trusting webmasters" "it's the email recipients fault for telling someone their email address".

How come it's never the SPAMMERS fault!? There is an implicit belief here that you are entited to spam unless forced not to.

The problem with that strategy is that it invites force as a response. Force is messy and tends to cause innocent casualties. The force could be physical, legal, social, programatic or mechanical, but it's still force.

It is the property owners responsibility to protect themselves from attack. But that doesn't leave the attackers off the hook for responsibility for their own actions. And it sure as heck doesn't make them the "good guys".


Ian

Whilst this thread is straying a little to far into the old and tired ethics thing for my liking....

>How come it's never the SPAMMERS fault

I don't think the focus should be on fault, its on responsilbilty. Its down to me what happens on my websites, if I get it wrong and/or don't committ the effort and resources it needs thats down to me and me alone. When the kids are all teary eyed looking at the empty dinner table they don't look at Joe Spammer, they look at ME.

To look at it another way: I think that operating a website is a much more challenging thing to do than it has ever been in the past. Webmasters need to get with the program and realise that they need to up their game.

It seems that nowdays we have a new breed of webmasters, they seem to have been born of a different time. I get the impression that as the midwife lifted them from the bed she pulled them tight to her warm bossum and whispered gently "don't worry, life is fair". My midwife on the other hand dangled me by my legs and smacked my backside until I screamed.

Littleman: I'm not refering to most "hackers", as we both know the common hacker is nor evil or a theif.

However, there are those who use illegal methods to steal traffic to their site. 302 hijacking and copyright infringement are 2 perfectly good examples.
While link spamming may not be a criminal act now, it is certainly a civil wrong, or a tort. The traffic and consumers visit these black hat sites instead of those who deserve it.

A good example. Searching Google US for the query "cell phones" should bring the user to the top few cell phone companies in the US. The only ones on page 1 of this SERP are Verizon and Cingular. What happened to T-mobile, Sprint, Nextel, etc? Where's Motorola, Nokia, LG, etc? Instead, the page is occupied by sites that you've never heard of. A backlink analysis will reveal that those on top "may" have used artificial link building and other black techniques to raise themselves on the SERPs (as many of their IBL's look fishy and spammy).

When you hijack a position, you are in fact taking the revenues that belong with it. And that my friends is called stealing. Just because there are no laws on the books, does not mean it's OK!

How come it's never the SPAMMERS fault!? There is an implicit belief here that you are entited to spam unless forced not to.
I think the bigger issue is that if you make it easy for people to wrong you they will. Complaining usually does little to change the situation. So complain, sure, but if you have ways to control it then try to keep it under control.

The problem with that strategy is that it invites force as a response. Force is messy and tends to cause innocent casualties. The force could be physical, legal, social, programatic or mechanical, but it's still force.
use the force. hehehe.

It is the property owners responsibility to protect themselves from attack. But that doesn't leave the attackers off the hook for responsibility for their own actions. And it sure as heck doesn't make them the "good guys".
yes, but many people complaining about the "bad guys" are not as "good" as they pretend to be.

many people complaining about the "bad guys" are not as "good" as they pretend to be.That's exactly why I get really contrary about this issue.

When people call themselves an SEO: if they add meta tags, they are doing it to influence the search engine rankings - because users can't see them, and neither can clients unless they look at the source code. If they conduct a link acquisition campaign for their clients, it is being done for link popularity (or PR) - to influence the search engine rankings. Has anyone submitted to Yahoo lately for $299 per annum for the ton of traffic they get?

Any techniques whatsoever that are used specifically to improve search engine rankings are done to influence those results to rank a site higher, and not calling it "manipulation" is playing games with semantics. That's what EVERY person or company that does SEO gets PAID to do - to *influence" the search engines to rank the site as high as they can get it.

OK - websites are people's property. If they are hijacked and the hijacker is aware of it, then that is deliberate theft of someone else's property. If you see one site/URL in the SERPs and are redirected to another site, there is a degee of deception in that, unless there is a darn good reason.

And please don't anyone say "SEO copywriting" because by the very nature of what it's called, it's copy that's being written to "optimize" aka "influence" aka "manipulate" the rankings of a site higher than it would have if *normal* copy were used -which generally uses a heck of a lot less artificial keyword_stuffing than SEO copywriting usually does.

If anyone is doing SEO and *not* doing things that will "influence" the search engines to rank a site higher than it would have ranked had those things *not* be done - I'd like to hear what those things are.

yes, but many people complaining about the "bad guys" are not as "good" as they pretend to be.

Completely irrelevant to the issue. If you are a bad guy pretending to be good - you are not a corrupt "good" guy, you're a bad guy. There is no such thing as a corrupt "good" guy, or a bad guy who "does good". These statements imply that the person themselves are "bad" or "good", and don't address the ACTIONS.

With the exception of a few individuals with severe mental disturbances, people themselves are not usually "good" or "bad", their actions are. People who routinely do good are "good" in that context - not due to some intrinsic "goodness" (at least, and for the record, that's how *I* use the term). Same with the "bad" guys. It's not intrinsic, it's actions. Actions speak louder than words (or hats).

You are what you do. Everything else is image.

If the Pope spams, he's a spammer. Period. If a known "black hat" makes a clean website, then as far as that site is concerned, it's a clean site. It's not "kinda clean". It's not "tainted", it's either compliant or it's not.

It seems that nowdays we have a new breed of webmasters, they seem to have been born of a different time. I get the impression that as the midwife lifted them from the bed she pulled them tight to her warm bossum and whispered gently "don't worry, life is fair". My midwife on the other hand dangled me by my legs and smacked my backside until I screamed.

ROFL! I'll agree there.

I think the bigger issue is that if you make it easy for people to wrong you they will. Complaining usually does little to change the situation. So complain, sure, but if you have ways to control it then try to keep it under control.

Actually, I would hold that if you allow people to wrong you without consequence then they will continue to do so. Did you know that in Russia a lot of people talk about the "good old days" of the KGB because there was a lot less crime (at least, crime being visited upon the common people). Force works. Really well. Most totalitarian regimes have low crime rates.

This isn't really the direction the web should go. There are a lot of countries that are free, the people are happy ,and crime is low. The reason is that there is a culture of being law abiding. Been to New York city recently? Take a look at the crime rate over the last few years. It's been dropping rapidly. These are the very same people as before, the culture has changed.

I don't think the focus should be on fault, its on responsilbilty. Its down to me what happens on my websites, if I get it wrong and/or don't committ the effort and resources it needs thats down to me and me alone. When the kids are all teary eyed looking at the empty dinner table they don't look at Joe Spammer, they look at ME.

I agree on the responsibility vs fault, though in the case of predictable negative consequences stemming from deliberate behavior, fault is an accurate sub-category of responsibility.

But with all due respect NFFC, based on your reputation I have a hard time believing that you are incapable of making a good living by optimizing sites within guidelines. Unless I'm wrong about that, this is a red herring argument.

You don't have to starve. There are other food groups besides spam, you know. Personally, I like beer, pizza, and donuts - hold the spam. ;)

Ian

But with all due respect NFFC, based on your reputation I have a hard time believing that you are incapable of making a good living by optimizing sites within guidelines.He can do just fine and he does. I know some of his sites; he is brilliant, does gorgeous work and his sites are brilliant. And that is not a biased opinion, it's based on pragmatic, realistic, unbiased observation.

>How come it's never the SPAMMERS faultSometimes it is and sometimes it isn't the SPAMMERS fault. Sometimes it's just incompetent or newbie SEO's whining and looking for a scapegoat to blame for their own deficiencies and shortcomings.

I love it how a single question about SEO evolves into a philosophical discussion about Good and Evil!

In response to marcia, (and getting back to the original discussion) i do agree that all webmasters should take a proactive approach to shift the engines in their favor. whether you call this influence or manipulation i think is all about intent and the methods used.

if my goal is to rank high, and my methodology is via quality content, ontopic linking, directories - that's great. in fact, thats what one should be doing. It is influencing the engines, but it's the "right way". It's competing fairly in the marketplace.

If I intend on taking the top spots by spamming, irrelavant link building, and i have not put in the true effort to merit those positions, than that's simply cheating. It's the intent to get high rankings without following the rules (the engine TOS) that creates an unfair sphere of competition. so its not the act of altering ones rankings thats evil, its the methodology one choses to take. The straight way - is white, and the shortcut - is black.

The original question remains: Is black hat SEO an acceptable form of competing in the marketplace?

Is black hat SEO an acceptable form of competing in the marketplace?

Acceptable to whom?

Search Engine: No
A site that wants to be #1 no matter what: Yes
A site that has to compete against 9 other sites that are all BH: Probably
Someone who is not skilled in SEO and hopes that stopping BH tactics will bring everyone down to their level of incompetence: No
A site that is very image concious: Probably not
A skilled WH with the #1 site: Who cares?
A client who is not fully aware of the risks: No

There are probably other times, but as you can see, this isn't a yes/no question.

I've always felt that it was taking the easy way out. I *do* like to study BH techniques and re-work them into equivilent WH ones - you would be surprised how often that's possible.

But that's just my opinion.

Ian

I've always felt that it was taking the easy way out. I *do* like to study BH techniques and re-work them into equivilent WH ones - you would be surprised how often that's possible.

But that's just my opinion.Touche! And more than likely, that's why the engines leave some of them out there, so they can monitor them and see what they're up to next, after the smoke and mirrors pass away. We have that same opportunity, when we find them. They're very educational. :)

But likewise, that's just my opinion.

>> i think is all about intent

I think I'm going to scream if I hear that one more time.

The intent is to get the website highly ranked. Other than that and whatever previous knowledge of an individual SEO's methods you have you cannot divine intent by looking at the site.

Uninformed newbies spam horribly with the best of intent. People buy advertising with the best of intent. WH evangalists can justify links I don't find slightly natural by explaining their intent and I could find a 'good intent explanation' for almost any link you show me given 5 minutes and someone prepared to listen.

The intent argument is all in the eye of the beholder. Like Glengara asked in another thread yesterday, how exactly do SE's calculate intent? Seemingly, by the comments from the meet the engineers thing, by looking at previous similar actions and saying whether that intent was 'good' or 'bad' for the SERPS.

In which case we're right back to it's not about intent it's about pursuading the SE's you're being good. Totally different issue imho.

it's not about intent it's about pursuading the SE's you're being good. Totally different issue imho.Right. And the SEO newbies who couldn't get their site listed on their refrigerator door if they had a magnet are always quick to blame "SPAMMERS" rather than take responsibility for their own shortcomings, deficiencies and incapabilities.

THAT is *exactly* what gets some people's dander up and on the defensive whenever these black hat/white hat diatribes start in.

>> But the rest of of us can.

no, I don't think you can. I think you can interpret my action in a way that suits your perception of me, but that's not the same thing at all.

Besides which, and with all the respect in the world, what you, anyone here, or the hounds of hell themselves know or don't know about why I obtained a link is absolutely totally irrelevant unless the search engine algo can determine my intent.

It cant. Which was my original point.

Sorry this is now way off topic. :rolleyes:

I god I don't want to but I can feel myself being sucked into this.

No.

I'm saying that if SE's cannot tell my intent, by your argument they cannot tell if I'm spamming. I'm attaching no rights or wrongs to that it's simply a statement.

When an entire moral highground is based upon a perception of something which at best can be decided on a balance of probability as to what someone intended thats a dangerous argument.

> The engines want quality content, and natural IBL's. They want ontopic links.<

This is the all-time, absolute, bottom-of-it-all, complete crux of this particular never-ending, circular debate. This is the common perception and it is WRONG.

Conventional wisdom would seem to dictate that the engines, due to their lofty goals of making the entire world a better place becuase they just want quality content with little regard to their own financial well-being, have taken the seat of God by default. The general internet marketing community seems content to give the engines the right to judge and execute without benefit of due process because what they want is quality content and on topic links. I say again, that is WRONG.

What does a search enigne really, REALLY want? What is it's primary motivation? What is it's objective?
TO MAKE MORE MONEY !!!!

All this stuff we all keep going over and over again and again has very little to do with links or content. It has to do with selling crap!! Period. If you believe Google or Yahoo is good because they want quality content and that by you considering yourself "on their side" makes you good by association, I believe you are extremely mistaken. Because with either company, the objective of striving for quality content, (think about that for a minute, how do you define quality?), is for the sole purpose of attracting eyeballs so that the company can sell more crap. Trust me, if crappy content sold more crap, they would be working just as hard trying to provide crappy content. If I need to support my position, just do a search at the hot engine du jour for just about any commercial term and try to convince yourself that is quality according to YOUR definition.

Search engines, (at least successful ones), are not quality content displaying machines. They are ad delivering, MONEY MAKING, machines. If the day ever comes that everyone can accept that, then the perception will change and we can all agree that it is about advertising, marketing and sales and NOT about relevancy, quality content or links of any kind. Those things are all secondary and are merely a means to an end and that end is making a profit.

Do it for the user is a very common catch phrase we all hear and even I agree it sounds pretty good. BUT, think about it, that is not a procedure or a standard or a measuring stick of how dark your hat is. We as marketers, (assuming that most people in this forum consider themselves as such), don't have users, or if we do they are merely incidental. To me, those are not users, (I'm not even sure what the definition of that would be by the very people who choose to use that term), they are potential customers. They are prospects, they are a target market. Publically calling them users and promoting that term is simply a public relations strategy.

I'd like to pose a question based on Basic SEO concept #4.
*******************
SEO'S, (whatever that is), do NOT manipulate search engines. Thinking you are forcing the search engine to do anything is a mistake. Thinking you are hiding anything from a search engine is a mistake. The only answer to top placement is recognizing what a search engine does, accepting that, assessing the potential rewards and risks and working within those confines.

The only person or persons who can manipulate a search engine, are the persons who have access to the admin panel and/or source code of that specific search engine. If you can't get to the admin panel, you can have no effect whatsoever on what that search engines does. All you can do is construct data that you feel is most likely to fall within the parameters of the algorithm. That is NOT manipulating search engines, that is learning how search engines work and then manipulating your page. No matter how vehemently some so-called SEO's, (whatever that is), disagree, that is a fact! No one can "help" a search engine find what they are looking for anymore than anyone can "make" a search engine do what they want. Search engines just do what they do. They are only a machine!
***********************

The question is, "would you agree with the above"?






If you answered yes, then would you also consider Basic SEO Concept #5?
*********************
There is no such thing as search engine spam and why.
if you can agree that you or I can not manipulate search engine results without having access to the source code or at least an admin panel, then there can be no other conclusion but that search engines can not be spammed, tricked, mislead, bribed or coerced. All that can be done is build data that you believe best complies with what it is a specific program does with specific data and then give it that data. You can submit that data to a search service but from there, what that search engine program does with that data is beyond your control. You can control the data you provide but you can not control what the search engine does with that data once it has it. That alone eliminates the entire premise of spamming a search engine.
***************

If you can agree with the possibilty that any of that may just be true, then how is it we are so hell-bent in dividing ourselves into two camps that have never even existed in the first place? That is the thing that amazes me the most.

This debate is old and cliche.

Whitehats do their thing and make money, spammer do their thing and make money.

Whitehats you take the people that want squiky clean core sites to rank

spammers you take the people that just care about traffic and know the risks.

In either case if spammers own your white hat sites, you suck move on to another industry. spammers if white hats kick your butt all day, you suck, do something else better with your time than being a loser.

if my goal is to rank high, and my methodology is via quality content, ontopic linking, directories - that's great. in fact, thats what one should be doing. It is influencing the engines, but it's the "right way". It's competing fairly in the marketplace.

Sorry but that is still trying to manipulate the search engine results, and you basically said manipulating is bad. What if there is another site that is better than yours, and you knock it down, is that fair to them? Why is it better than yours? Because I say so. Just like you say your site is better than the site that was able to get a lot more links than you.



A good example. Searching Google US for the query "cell phones" should bring the user to the top few cell phone companies in the US. The only ones on page 1 of this SERP are Verizon and Cingular. What happened to T-mobile, Sprint, Nextel, etc? Where's Motorola, Nokia, LG, etc? Instead, the page is occupied by sites that you've never heard of. A backlink analysis will reveal that those on top "may" have used artificial link building and other black techniques to raise themselves on the SERPs (as many of their IBL's look fishy and spammy).

Why should they be all of those companies? Because YOU say so? You're assuming that everyone who searches for cell phones should be given those sites. Just like you are saying that your site deserves to be #1 because in your mind it is the best and deserves it.

What if they are searching for a company that sells phones at a cheaper price but isn't tied to a provider? What if they are looking for reviews. Maybe someone wants to see a site that talks about how cell phones work. There are still a lot of people who don't fully understand how a search engine works and search using vague terms expecting to find what they want. They don't type in reviews, disount, etc.


[sigh] Always the same with these threads: "My site is the best and I deserve to be #1.

When an entire moral highground is based upon a perception of something which at best can be decided on a balance of probability as to what someone intended thats a dangerous argument.I'm not talking probabilities, I'm talking facts.

Forget, for one moment, the borderline cases - yes, they exist, but they are few.

If a site has used sophisticated methods to deceive the SEs and gain better position, it's spam. Let's not argue about that, please!

Now, whether the SE spots it and penalizes the site or not, it's STILL spam. And someone who engages in that activity (or authorizes another so to do) is a spammer. Now we can split hairs until the cows come home about who knew what and who actually did the dirty deed.

But when I see a site like that, I'm not guessing a probable intention, I'm seeing a deliberate spammer and that's not the same league as someone with a MomnPop Homepage who read this kind of thread and put a bit of white text on a white background, because one of the Mods said that was no different to White Hat.

If you cannot see that distinction, well, I'm sorry for you. I wear my hat with pride. It's white. Strange how few black hatters do the same ;)

>If a site has used sophisticated methods to deceive the SEs and gain better position, it's spam. <

Again, another completely false assumption. No one is using sophisticated methods to decieve a search engine. They may be using methods to attract potential customers but that is EXACTLY the same thing search engines use sophisticated methods for. And that is as it should. Sophisticated methods is what is driving the entire premise of the world wide web. You would not have the job you have now were it not for sophisticated methods.Surely no one actually believes that only search engines should be free to use sophisticated methods?

A search engine can not be deceived. It is not a person it is a machine. It is only going to do what it is programmed to do. You can't lie to a search engine, you can't trick a search engine. You can only do those things to something capable of making a decision based on an emotional response. Search engines can not do that becasuse they can only make dcecisions based on mathmatical responses.

If you could use sophisticated methods to make a hammer drive your nail faster than my nail and then get a group to agree with you that you are spamming the hammer, THEN I could see the remote possibility that you may have a valid point.

If you lose your keys and use a screwdriver to jimmy the lock and get into your house, did you spam the door, the screwdriver or the keys.

Silly comparisions huh?


PS:
>we're both aiming the help the Little Man<

If that is really what you are wanting to do, (I'm taking the liberty to assume you meant you are aiming TO help the little man instead of what you actually said), then stop referring to him as "the Little Man".

Just because you believe you know more about a specific topic than another, does not make the other smaller. Calling any man little is not going to help him. Do you think the man you are trying to help, (even though he has not sought out your help), appreciates being referred to as "little". If you really want to help that man, start by showing him respect.

Calling someone else little, does not make you appear larger. In fact the opposite is closer to the truth.

Semantics. You know what I mean, as do all the readers of this thread.

spam is spam; no amount of renaming or linguistic gymnastics will change that.

But if blocking a discussion turns you on, you are welcome. I'd expect no less for daring to call spam spam.

>we're both aiming the help the Little Man<

Never said otherwise. Or meant otherwise.

I used the the term 'little man' because the the poster was 'littleman'. And he asked about helping him.

It was a joke. Sheesh; how sensitive are you? :D

If a site has used sophisticated methods to deceive the SEs and gain better position, it's spam. Let's not argue about that, please!And if a site has used sophisticated methods to better their positions in the search engines with NO intent to deceive, then they are not spammers, they are well qualified SEO's.

Believe it or not, there are some VERY sophisticated white hats, many of whom are regular, loyal, valued members of SEW Forums.

And there are also some very sophisticated black hats out there who also do some VERY sophisticated white hat SEO work, very successfully and without a shred of deception. They wear both hats, and wear both with pride - because of their ABILITY to serve their clients' needs adequately.

Contrary to the opinions of some of the bible-thumping so-called white hat evangelists out there - some of whom are quite deceptive, BTW - there really are white hats - more accurately grey hats, there is no "pure white" - who are NOT spammers but who are realistic enough to know the difference without the kind of dogmatism or fanaticism that clouds judgement and actually ends up doing far more harm than good for their "cause".

Getting back to the ORIGINAL TOPIC which is whether black hat seo is a form of hacking, it isn't - not even the evil hacking that invades websites without permission. Search engines are not invaded by anyone, the search engines crawl pages through links and fetch pages WITHOUT PERMISSION and not only that, but they save a copy of copyrighted works and store them on their own servers - without written permission to do so.

How about let's get off the morality kick and get back to a realistic assessment of the issue raised in the first post.

Actually, it's a long holiday weekend for a lot of our moderators, and watching over a thread like this that typically can get heated isn't fun. So I'm just closing it down, and we'll open it on Tuesday if anyone feels they need to continue.

In the meantime, we've had this discussion many, many times. I'd encourage everyone to take a look at these past ones. Much of what's been said above has already been said before, debated, countered and so on. I've noted threads I thought particularly relevant or with lots of replies to them.

Spamming Versus Creative / Real World SEO Tactics
http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=79

Spam - How Do We Fix The Problem?
http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=134

The Great Doorway Debate
http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=515

Improving The Reputation Of The SEM Industry
http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=566

An SEM Code Of Conduct?
http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=596

SEMPO & The SEM Reputation Problem
http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=1052

whitehat vs. blackhat, it is all BS (ESPECIALLY SEE THIS)
http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=1081

Low, Medium, High Risk SEO tactics
http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=1380

when is a page "spam" (ESPECIALLY SEE THIS)
http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=1384

Guerilla Marketing & Underhand Tactics - All Fair in Love and War?
http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=2045

Cloaking 101 - Questions and Answers
http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=2224

Ethical Standards and The Search Engine Marketing Industry
http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=2254

Confessions of a White Hat Content Spammer: What I've Learned by Ignoring Google
http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=3099

Black Hat, White Hat & Lots of Gray (ESPECIALLY SEE THIS)
http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=3302

Ethical Search Engine optimisation Explained (ESPECIALLY SEE THIS)
http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=4246

What is Spam? - SES NYC 05 (ESPECIALLY SEE THIS)
http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=4436

SEM Industry Biggest Growing Pains
http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=5680

Cloaking, load of BS? (ESPECIALLY SEE THIS)
http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=5771

Thank you Danny for reopening this thread.

I was thrilled to see that the great Rustybrick of the SEO Roundtable (http://www.seoroundtable.com) expressed his interest in joining the conversation.

Let the debate continue...

Is Black Hat SEO a form of "malicious" hacking? By this I mean using techniques that violate search engine TOS. For example - cloaking, link spamming, and off topic link purchases - to name a few. Are those that engage in this type of activity stealing traffic and conversions from those who play by the rules?

Share your thoughts here.

Share my thoughts. Ok I say shut this thread again. A search engines TOS is between the search engines and sites that SUBMITs to be included.

If a bot follows a link and crawls a site in it's greed for content and deems a cloak, spam or crapppy affiliate job rankable don't you think that's an internal problem for the SE? That's not a hack that's called crappy spam thresholds.

It's like eating those mystery jelly beans. It's white, you don't know what the flavor is, you put it in your mouth, bite down and gag because it's the most horrible crap you ever tasted so you spit it out.

But you see the SEs sugar coat some of those yucky jelly beans with flavors like Adsense and Paid inclusion :D

I'm not much of a "me too" poster but...

A search engines TOS is between the search engines and sites that SUBMITs to be included.

Wow. I did not realize there was so much animosity aimed against the search engines. Of course I agree it's a problem for the SE when they inappropriately rank sites. Does that mean it's alright to exploit their known weaknesses?

Does that mean it's alright to exploit their known weaknesses?

I can put any crappy junk on my own webser (as long as it's legal). If you call that exploiting the algo, then yes, I am perfectly entitled to do so - just as well as the engines are entitled not to include or rank my crap if they don't like it.

Very well said! Thank you for that quality piece of advice.