
Hey Google, isn't this black-hat SEO? - throw93
https://serendipz.marketing/hey-google-isnt-this-black-hat-seo/
======
jawns
The majority of these tactics strike me as sleazy, but they almost exclusively
work because search engines don't realize they're being gamed. And as search
engines get better at recognizing these tactics (e.g. font size of 0), they
stop working. The big search engines in 2019 are generally smart enough to
ignore this stuff.

What concerns me more is when the search engines themselves are complicit in
anti-user tactics.

One example is the loosening of restrictions, particularly by Google, around
cloaking.

Google used to come down very hard on cloaking, where you show different
content to a search engine's bot than you do to a visitor who arrives from a
search engine.

The reason it used to disallow cloaking is because users hate it. Nobody wants
to see a search result that appears to answer their query, only to find out
when they arrive on the page that the content is inaccessible unless they pay
for an expensive membership to the site.

But now Google indexes subscription and paywalled content
[https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-
types/paywall...](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-
types/paywalled-content) and tries to make it seem like this isn't cloaking,
but from a user's perspective, it totally is.

~~~
muttled
One little happy loophole this creates, however, is if you set your browser
agent to be the GoogleBot's ID, it will immediately bypass most paywalls
because it thinks its letting the crawler in.

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martin-adams
One thing I noticed not mentioned is whether it is possible for there to be a
negative SEO attack on these agencies to try and get them blacklisted. I work
for an e-commerce company and we've seen comment spam and all sorts linking
back to us which we certainly didn't initiate. So black-hat SEO isn't always
black and white.

~~~
dsleno
Who knows. If you are concerned you could always "disavow" thru Google. Or
just go to Fiverr and for $5 spam your competitors with bad links to level the
playing field. It's all such a freaking joke these days

------
emerongi
There's a bunch of SEO tricks out there. Here's a simple one: donate to a
bunch of well-known organizations and have them link to your website.

[https://www.pcmag.com/news/367640/how-a-vpn-review-site-
domi...](https://www.pcmag.com/news/367640/how-a-vpn-review-site-dominated-
google-search-with-a-scam)

~~~
CM30
Just like the lifeboat example in the article.

But yeah, there are definitely a few ways to get free links from large
sites/organisations and influencers via tricks like this. Seen quite a few SEO
companies sponsoring scholarships for much the same reason.

Expert roundups are another good example of that too. Ask a bunch of popular
people about something on Twitter or what not, put the quotes into an article
and then get them to link back to it/share it with their followers.

------
huhtenberg
Not just "agencies".

[https://www.google.com/search?hl=en-
us&q=3d+engine](https://www.google.com/search?hl=en-us&q=3d+engine)

Top hit is a half-assed Unity clone called "Falco 3D Engine", produced by the
same company (person?) that churns out mounds of banner- and malware-stuffed
free "games" of similar quality. It would appear that they somehow leverage
their massive installation base from these games to force Google into ranking
pages of their choice higher than they would naturally.

------
tracker1
I'm a moderator/admin on echojs. What's funny is that all the links are
rel="nofollow" and still I delete 2-5 posts a day that are anything from
outright spam to blogspam that is all unrelated and/or useless. The comment
spam is even worse on most sites, and I'm not sure what the real solution
might be.

With new legislation all over the world, particularly in the EU, it's going to
be harder and harder to create content or let users interact. Which is moving
ever away from the core of the internet's creation which is letting people
make stuff. Sites want to be both publishers and platforms and are starting to
actively censor. Even if I disagree with the content it's a really slippery
slope and already starting to see a lot of unintended consequences.

It really feels like we're heading into the internet dark age.

~~~
dsleno
Long live Gopher:// space.

------
josefresco
Relevant links:

[https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/93713?hl=en](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/93713?hl=en)

[https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/spamreport](https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/spamreport)

Obviously a top post on HN gets you more attention, and shames Google but for
others, Googles does have a process in place.

Note: I have never used the process, an cannot vouch for it's legitimacy.

~~~
luckylion
I've used it multiple times, never got a reply or saw a change. I believe it's
mostly like the thumbs-down for comments on YouTube: the user feels like they
did something but it has no actual meaning.

~~~
josefresco
My theory? You can't automate the analysis of these reports (if they could,
why didn't they catch it in the first place) so it basically goes into a
"black hole" never to be addressed. I only base this wacky, baseless theory on
Google's overall obsession with automation, which of course keeps staff low
and profits high.

~~~
luckylion
Yeah, it certainly seems that way. It feels like you'll have a better chance
"reporting" to Google by going viral on Twitter, HN etc, than by actually
reporting it to Google.

------
hluska
There are some odd things about this article:

1.) A .marketing tld is an odd choice for someone who claims to run an SEO (or
any kind of ad) agency.

2.) The writer has gone to great lengths to hide most references to the names
of some offending competitors...yet, they left full meta descriptions. In
other cases, the author seemed to mock company names.

3.) The article is poorly written and rife with grammatical errors. English is
tough and we didn’t all grow up writing so, so it’s in poor taste to point out
another’s writing issues. But, speaking as someone who is pretty good at SEO,
at this point, the only ‘trick’ that works is to release and promote well
written articles.

4.) Nothing in this is particularly black hat. Does anyone believe that
setting a link’s height to 0 actually works in 2019? And the rest of the
tactics are par for the course in a sketchy industry.

Between those four things, I just can’t trust the author. This article was
hard to read, uninformative and ultimately serves as a horrible branding
device. If an SEO is this poor at marketing him or herself, why??

~~~
paulcole
> 1.) A .marketing tld is an odd choice for someone who claims to run an SEO
> (or any kind of ad) agency.

One of the biggest SEO myths is that Google penalizes for these unusual TLDs.
What’s really going on is that a .com/.net/.org is likely to simply be older
and more trusted than a .marketing, resulting in higher rankings.

All else equal there is _no_ difference to Google when it comes to the TLD.

~~~
hluska
Let’s look at this particular domain. Serendipz.marketing. Serendipz.net and
.org are both currently available.

Which would you trust more?

I have never seen any research that suggests that a vanity tld like .marketing
is as trusted as a generic tld like .net or .org. I have, however, read troves
of research that suggest the opposite - that vanity tlds are less trusted.

~~~
paulcole
I think we’re confusing 2 kinds of trust: personal trust in a business and
Google’s trust in a domain for SEO purposes.

For SEO purposes there is no downside to TLD:

> Overall, [Google’s] systems treat new gTLDs like other gTLDs (like .com and
> .org). Keywords in a TLD do not give any advantage or disadvantage in
> search.

[https://searchengineland.com/google-explains-how-they-
handle...](https://searchengineland.com/google-explains-how-they-handle-the-
new-top-level-domains-tlds-225671)

As far as personal trust goes, I remember that I am not the audience. Yes,
.marketing seems weird to me, but I am not the owner of a small business
looking for SEO services. Maybe it is impressive to them? Maybe they never
notice the domain because they find the site by Googling and never type it
themselves?

~~~
hluska
I’m sorry, but I’m not talking about whether Google trusts vanity tlds. I’m
talking about consumers. I’ll rephrase my last paragraph, though I don’t know
how to make it more clear.

I have never read one single piece of remotely credible research that suggests
that consumers trust vanity tlds as much as a generic tld. However, I have
read a lot of research that suggests the opposite - consumers trust generic
tlds more than vanity.

Can you show me some credible research that says that small business owners
are impressed by .marketing? Preferably research released by people who don’t
sell vanity tlds.

~~~
paulcole
I have no research. But we're not exactly swimming in your research that
there's a negative to a .marketing TLD either.

------
dsleno
This is old news. This is old blackhat from 2005. Get with the new evil
programs, writer. I'm up against what I can only describe as "company spam."
Software company creates multiple llc's to market the same software product
with slightly different names or names similar to legit companies. It works
like a charm to clog up Google results. And if one gets dinged by Google, just
crank up another company with a "headquarters" in Nevada.

------
bsparker
SEO is dead. Nothing matters anymore except personalized SERP.

------
uddoe
SEO is like ad-tech, a net negative to our society. There's no white-hat SEO,
in the same way that there's no unintrusive ad tech.

~~~
amelius
Advertising is like hacking the free market and should be illegal. Not the
best product wins, but the one with the largest advertising budget.

~~~
coherentpony
> Advertising is like hacking the free market and should be illegal. Not the
> best product wins, but the one with the largest advertising budget.

Who decides what is the 'best' product? If advertising were illegal then how
do people find out about products? Seems to me if advertising were illegal
there would be no free market.

~~~
ahoka
The same way I find out about non-advertised yogurt. I go to the grocery shop
and choose one based on information displayed on the packaging (which you can
count as advertisement if you are pedantic) and my needs. If it was good then
I keep buying it and tell my friends and family about it. "Good wine needs no
bush."

~~~
tikkabhuna
How do I then find out about new products? New ideas that myself or my friends
don't know about? Do I rely on the creator's friends spreading the word until
I see it? Word of mouth only works so well.

Also, the supermarket analogy falls short when the number of "products" is
extremely large and you rely on search. Seems more like the equivalent of
going to a very large supermarket in the dark with a flashlight.

~~~
Kaiyou
Word of mouth. The same way you learn about all those other things you didn't
want to know, like who dies in the newest Avenger flick.

------
55555
snitches get stitches

