Yo Fat Girl Look At Me, I’m Skinny. It Never Stopped Me From Gettin’ Busy
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If you’re offended…STFU already. That’s shut the fuck up already for you idiots who have been living in a cave. It’s an analogy. Or metaphor. Or something, I skipped English a lot. Maybe I should say “Yea, I do a little blackhat, but I can whitehat circles around your ass.” There’s been a week of useless banter about SMX advanced last week. In reality, this sums up my position but I digress. We’ve got there’s no such thing as advanced white hat SEO, advanced SEO doesn’t mean spamming, to blackhat SEO isn’t advanced blah blah yadda yadda.
Here’s the deal yo…advanced can mean anything. Most “SEO’s” that I know come from a marketing background. What that basically means is most blackhat is going to be advanced. As soon as you start spouting auto generated content via arrays, PHP scrapers or whatever then it’s advanced for them. On the other hand “SEO’s” that come from a developer background (or marketing type SEO’s who have a solid grasp of what developers can do and have some minions) find the majority of “blackhat” things mentioned at SMX pretty basic shit. Then you’ve got the guy who’s never been to a conference. PR sculpting, bot herding, advanced analytics is all going to be advanced for them.
Rob (evilgreenmonkey) in particular got pointed at several times about his presentation in the “Give It Up” session. I know I’m not supposed to blog about it for a month, but since when do I listen. Basically he said that the coyote keeps getting screwed by ACME and their crappy dynamite. Yea, did you really think I was going to piss off Danny Sullivan and bring the Hammer of Injustice down on me? Again. But really what he said wasn’t anything even remotely new to anyone that does any blackhat already so get over it people. There were a few things that you usually hear in the corner of the bar, and in my opinion, that’s great. Knowledge is power, or didn’t you forget to read Meditations? Was some of it blackhat? Sure. Was any of it bad? No. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to listen. If you listen, you’re at a supposedly “advanced” conference so you should know the risks.
Now, on to the ever controversial post from Bruce Clay because apparently I get under Lisa’s skin. That’s okay Lisa, I like you anyway. Here’s the part that got under my skin:
Black hats get under my skin because (a) they’re not SEOs (b) they very often provide a bad experience for users and (c) they make the rest of us look bad by association.
Right. (a) Whatever. I don’t need an SEO label. Call me a Search Engine Humpty Dancer for all I care, I’m still really good at it whatever color the hat it is. (b) we often provide a better experience for users than all you holier than thou (Shari Thurow) whitehats. For example, say I’m delivering targeted content to my return users based on their browsing history. This gives them far more targeted content and a better user experience, but it is considered blackhat cloaking to Google without question. There are plenty of examples of better user experiences that break Google guidelines. (c) If you look bad by associating with me and the rest of “my kind”…well you’re probably right about that one but I don’t think it’s because we do SEO in a certain way. I think it’s more because we call out things as we see it.
From a client perspective I’d rather hire someone who is well versed in blackhat to control my website than a whitehat. The majority of us conduct business with full disclosure about the risks of everything we do. I know some idiot whitehats that make us all look bad too…one’s been living in a cave. Come on Doug, go ahead and comment so I can ignore you some more.
Moving on…SMX Advanced was a good time. If you weren’t hanging out with us a lot then you’ll be confused. But here is a little something for Rhea, who is one of the coolest people around and always willing to share knowledge and battle the douchebags. (And she worked her ass off for that press pass Loren, you should give her one for PubCon too).
And for Brian, who seems to have brain malfunctions around Rhea…but he really does know his shit. It’s a Mute Lion. Blind Cheetah. Impotent Cat.
Next up is Think Tank in Sunny San Diego (Discovered by the Germans in 1904, they named it San Diago, which of course in German means a whale’s vagina.) in September (invite only, email me if you’d like to come and I’ll make introductions) and then on to PubCon for some debauchery.
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18 Comments »
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“im a freak, i like the girls with the boom - i once got busy in a burger king bathroom”
god i love that song.
anyways…
the industry as a whole at times needs to drink a glass of shut the fuck up. i stopped reading the politics (or attempting to join in on them) a long time ago and realized that as long as my sites are where I need them to be that I am alright.
next time you’re in NY or the NYC area let me know - i would be more then happy to work on enlarging my liver with ya.
Comment by streko — June 12, 2008 @ 9:30 am
Exactly. People complaining about getting more information…
I’ll look you up next time I’m in NYC, I’m up every now and then and always looking for friends with liver problems.
Comment by TheMadHat — June 12, 2008 @ 9:35 am
“Discovered by the Germans in 1904, they named it San Diago, which of course in German means a whale’s vagina.”
I LOLed.
I love the way you write. You’re so blunt about things, and your sense of humor cracks me up. I’m totally new to SEO, so it’s nice to find a writer who has good info AND makes it entertaining to read about!
Comment by 2012ad — June 12, 2008 @ 10:27 am
Well thank you very much! I don’t know about the good info
but I try to entertain at least.
Comment by TheMadHat — June 12, 2008 @ 10:54 am
Personally I think that most people without some form of developer background (meaning programming, not web design) find many seo concepts advanced, regardless of “hat color”.
Comment by Michael VanDeMar — June 12, 2008 @ 1:29 pm
You’re probably right, but it just emphasizes the point that there are varying degrees of “advanced” depending on who you’re talking to.
Comment by TheMadHat — June 12, 2008 @ 3:26 pm
Working on that Pubcon Press Pass for Rhea
Are they handing out passes to the blackjack tables and lap dances too?
Comment by Loren — June 12, 2008 @ 4:19 pm
Free lap dance with every Pubcon registration…somebody call Brett.
Comment by TheMadHat — June 12, 2008 @ 4:22 pm
Rabbit pron FTW! HA
To many years of optimizing for those terms has turned my mind into one big mush!
Comment by Brian Chappell — June 12, 2008 @ 5:59 pm
[...] has been quite a bit of talk lately about the resurgence of gray and black-hat panel discussions at the SMX Advanced [...]
Pingback by In Defense of Hats: White, Gray, Black and Blue — June 13, 2008 @ 2:23 pm
Aaron, love the post, if the “Think Tank” gets boring give me a call and we can go beat on my Corvette.
Charles
Comment by WaveShoppe — June 14, 2008 @ 10:32 am
why does every1 have to be hatist anyway? or maybe its because everyone knows white hats hide ugly deformed heads?
who giveeeesss a crap - do what you got to do
Comment by underworld — June 14, 2008 @ 11:36 am
STFU… it’s an acronym.
But who gives a fuck in a post that references the Humpty Dance.
>>I get stoopid, I shoot an arrow like Cupid,
I use a word that don’t mean nothin’, like looptid
Comment by Brian Clark — June 14, 2008 @ 10:49 pm
Go you, fuck them all!
Comment by Esrun — June 15, 2008 @ 11:49 pm
@copyblogger, I was actually talking about the post title but what the hell, half of this post was incoherent anyway. Looptid.
Comment by TheMadHat — June 16, 2008 @ 10:52 am
Just forget about those fuckers
Comment by Henning — July 2, 2008 @ 8:51 am
I’m excited about ThinkTank! I’ll be on the beach having a fruity cocktail, you’ll know where to find me!!
Comment by singergirljen — July 7, 2008 @ 2:31 pm
“Search Engine Humpty Dancer” - hahahahahaha. I think I found my new favorite blog.
Comment by Webkinz — August 2, 2008 @ 11:09 am