Speaking of Black hat SEO tricks...
Awhile back, Jason Calacanis said a number of things that need to be said about the SEO guys (and I might be less charitable than he is - I don't much care for the so-called "white hat" SEO guys, either). Recently, one of the less honorable types (is that an oxymoron?) has been putting invisible links on the UIUC VW Wiki - they look like this:
<u style="display: none"> <a href="Insert stupid SEO link here">Stupid SEO text</a> <a href="Insert stupid SEO link here">Stupid SEO text</a> <a href="Insert stupid SEO link here">Stupid SEO text</a></u>
The links went to some SEO "how high can I push these keywords" contest. Wonderful - just the stuff I want on a tech wiki discussing Smalltalk. All you guys who claim to be "white hat" SEO marketers? Grow a conscience and find honest work.
Comments
[Carl Gundel] February 14, 2007 15:02:36.072
White hat SEO is nothing more than putting real relevant content on your site in a search engine friendly way, and also trying to get other related sites to link to you. There's no trickery involved. In fact it has been said that white hat SEO isn't SEO at all. Just put together a quality site with meaningful content, and the search engines will find you and rank you accordingly.
Re: Speaking of Black hat SEO tricks...
[ Troy Brumley] February 14, 2007 15:16:12.356
Comment by Troy Brumley
I'm sorry, but I wouldn't index ANYTHING that isn't visible on the browser display. Meta tags have been abused into uselessness, and this sort of linkage is clearly bogus.
[Paul Annesley] February 14, 2007 18:28:20.882
I don't quite see what point you're trying to make.
So black-hat SEO scum are polluting a resource by posting invisible links. In what way are they claiming to be white-hat, and even if they are, in what way does that reflect on people who are genuinely white-hat.
Genuine white-hat SEO marketers are basically in the legitimate business of helping website owners follow guidelines such as those published by Google here and here.
Sounds like honest work to me... and I imagine it's pretty tough, when they not only have to compete with black hat scum, but also cop flack just for being in the same business as them.