Comments on: White hat SEO link building campaign is impossible

By: Samuel Symes

Samuel Symes — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 06:00:03 +0000

Unless its natural, all link building is Blackhat!

I often read many posts where SEO experts frown upon Blackhat strategies but then openly promote link building. According to Google’s TOS, natural links are links others point back to your site without the need to pay for it, ask for it, comment for it or insert a link in your article to gain it.

So, if all link building strategies are in effect manipulating search engine results, doesn’t it stand to reason that all link building is Blackhat and the majority of off-page SEO practiced by SEO firms is in effect, Blackhat?

Isn’t having an online business all about rankings, traffic and conversions in the first place and search engine optimization should essentially be a technical, and possibly not a moral or ethical issue?

By: Davor

Davor — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 10:29:10 +0000

Thsi days is really hard to have good backlinks. People buying, selling … backlinks, and it is really hard to have good backlinks for free

By: zeljko

zeljko — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 07:39:29 +0000

Well, sometimes it is pretty hard to distinguish a white hat SEO from black hat. And it is hard when you need to balance between. When clients approach and want to promote their web site they don’t care what method to use. In that case you could stick to a white hat and lose clients or do a black hat SEO and get the money. Only thing that helps is to explain them that a black hat promotion could harm their web site. Well, you tell them if you do care about clients. But many “SEO experts” don’t. That’s why SEO is getting a bad reputation.

By: Toni Anicic

Toni Anicic — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 21:43:38 +0000

OMM: That’s not black hat. I don’t feel like explaining the line between fair and unfair advantage over your competitors, it’s just something people don’t usually understand and I don’t blame you.

By: Online Marketing Minneapolis

Online Marketing Minneapolis — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 19:26:52 +0000

Nice try, but this is reaching too far. Active link building is a “natural” way to promote your site.

What about Public Relations? PR is trying to get reporters to write about your company. Is pitching a story idea to a reporter black-hat? Is writing much of a story for a reporter black-hat? Should PR people never reach out, only wait for a reporter to find their great content naturally?

By: Toni Anicic

Toni Anicic — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 13:52:22 +0000

@Julian:

Good point, but, “everyone does it” doesn’t mean it’s acceptable or that you should also do it.

By: Julian

Julian — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 13:44:16 +0000

Good post, but the problem is that it seems that everyone is embarking on link building campaigns to their websites. It’s become an entire industry. With so many sites being so active in trying to improve their SEO the ones that rely on 100% natural methods get left behind. The only thing that will ever change this is google using a different method to rank sites, which begs the question…. what other ranking factor could take the place of inbound links?

By: seo

seo — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 01:23:05 +0000

Very interesting data here. Thanks for taking the time to put this together!

By: Zach

Zach — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 21:57:36 +0000

The main point of this post I agree with. I think it’s even more sad when I see SEO companies posting jobs on freelance sites trying to get other companies to give them xxxx amount of backlinks to xxxx site. They probably have some dumb contract with their client that guarantees a certain amount of incoming links, and unfortunately people fall for it. The fact of the matter is, a single natural incoming link for a respected website is far better than 20,000 backlinks from random sites. The only valid tactic for gaining links is making your website marketable, creating unique and high quality content, and then simply making your article easily shareable or presenting it to other reputable sites.

Your overall statement is correct, however, the very name ‘link building campaign’ is basically a synonym for trying to mislead search engines by abusing a well known SEO component. Not that Google and all the other search engines don’t already know about it and the campaigns are useless.

By: Noah

Noah — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 21:11:12 +0000

Eh, semantics. Kinda goes to the whole “all of SEO is blackhat” thing. Don’t particularly agree with it myself, as there are plenty of search engine approved methods for link building, which would make them whitehat, which makes some of linkbuilding SEO whitehat.

By: Victor Lonmo

Victor Lonmo — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 14:47:44 +0000

I agree with most of the article however it is often the case that someone can develop great content that simply does not get noticed. There is no shame in asking a others (who have some professional or personal interest) to review your website and provide comments. If they like it they will always have the option of linking to it. I realize that this is absolutely tedious and very, very slow but it does represent a good quality link and that is the objective.

By: Sean McVey

Sean McVey — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 14:03:57 +0000

I see your point, however it seems you are discouraging marketers from link building. Most SEO’s I talk to say that the process of link building is a necessary step in gaining traffic. Although it is not completely ‘white hat,’ do you think marketers should do away with it?