They’ve got an algorithm that provides relevant content to users, it’s not very objective, and it needs some help. You don’t own their search results, and they don’t own your’ site. If you wanna take some shortcuts that they don’t like, that’s their problem. If you get caught, that’s your’ problem.

At the end of the day, I like to feel like I provided value to my searchers, I haven’t done business dishonestly, and that I’ve created good in the world. This is a personal belief system, and therefore, I don’t judge what other people do, even if I hate it or feel it’s wrong.

It’s nice to hear from another “black hat” guy, that black hat doesn’t mean “unethical”.

For me, black hat is not sabotaging someone’s else’s site, but in finding ways to stay under the radar while accelerating my position in the search engines.

And in doing BH, one does not always need a website per say, to make money.
The really smart BH’ters, don’t waste their time in sabotaging other peoples websites, they keep their methods to themselves and just make money – lots of it.

However, it’s pretty much accepted that Google can still “see” you – so you aren’t really hiding anything from them. It is a good way to minimize spam and hide yourself from the casual searcher.

I’ve got a number of sites I wouldn’t want to show my mother or don’t fit in with my seo company that I hide that way.

Of course then the question is , Who decides where the line is?

As mentioned, outright spam, theft and sabotage is not.

I was reading another blog mentioning that it’s “standard practice” to sabotage your competitor to outrank them in the SE’s.

If this is true, perhaps we should start by taking money out of *their* pockets first – if it’s such an OK thing to do…

This has been a pet peeve for decades, and it is nice to know that you are conscious of the small things. Yeah for the good Folks!!

While I agree the domain name will give a competitive advantage if it contains keywords, however the sports product site should develop some synergy, or I would expect it to.

Good food for thought. I’ll keep my eye out for such an example.

Your guides always show me a SMART way.

This is something we cover in the “30 day” posts as well. But it’s really as simple as having your mother, sister, wife, brother, etc… be the registrar on some of your domains.

You should care about it – but not be obsessive or anything if you aren’t doing anything wrong (by wrong I mean illegal, or scrapping content).

but those foundationsites have the same domainowner as the “make money site”, wouldn’t google discount these links because the domains are owned by the same person? Or shouldn’t I care about it?

cya

Dennis