Confessions of a Retired Black Hat SEO: 5 Crazy Tactics That Yielded Big Gains

When I commenced my profession in search engine optimization, I turned into sixteen years antique. And, just like maximum sixteen-yr-olds, I didn’t worry lots about search engine “effects.” In my fairytale world, they didn’t certainly exist.

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We all discover ways to understand higher as we age, however you need to remember that I became naive. When I started out my adventure into the arena of search engine optimization method, I didn’t worry approximately the quest engine policies … I simply did something I desired.

If you rapid forward to today, I don’t leverage or exercise black hat SEO or other terrible search engine optimization techniques on the subject of internet advertising. After all, there are masses of above-board search engine marketing tactics to turn to.

So, what is black hat search engine optimization, exactly?

Black hat strategies contain the whole lot from keyword stuffing and private weblog networks (PBNs) to content material automation and tiered hyperlink constructing.

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Most of these techniques get a awful rap for an amazing motive.

But there may be one element you have to hold in thoughts.

Black hat search engine optimization is without a doubt a terrific approach long past incorrect.

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If I may want to do all of it once more, I wouldn’t have dabbled in the artwork of the darkish facet. Why? Because if I had spent all that time and electricity on legitimate seo techniques, I might have created a miles large long-term commercial enterprise.
I gained’t bore you with the motives you ought to keep away from black hat search engine optimization while seeking to get higher search results, as them. Instead, I’m going to share with you seven crazy procedures (with information) that I leveraged as a child.You’ll
Crazy Tactic #1: TwitThismakemoneywithptc.info
What’s one factor that every blog has? Well, of course, each weblog has content material and a content material advertising campaign … however they also have social media sharing buttons.

Facebook. Instagram. Twitter. Even LinkedIn. You see these social sharingfirstchoicefm.com buttons anywhere. But that wasn’t usually the case.

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When Twitter first came out, it didn’t have “tweet” buttons. Heck, humans weren’t even calling them “tweets.”

So, my net advertising group and I created our very own Twitter social media sharing buttons that people should embed into their websites. We referred to as those Twitter sharing buttons “TwitThis” (you may see what the original site looked like under):How did it do? Well, such a lot of people started embedding TwitThis buttons on their sites that the website once had a Google PageRank of 8 and over 54 million back links.cigarcityrealtor.com
Just have a look at the image above. You’ll see that the site had 27 .Gov and 123 .Edu one way links.

That’s no longer too shabby in terms of link-building effects—all from just developing a loose device that allowed human beings to region “tweet” buttons on their site.brandileath.com
The way that I unfold the word about it become certainly interesting. I just went on Twitter, determined all of the popular websites leveraging it, and emailed the site owners something like this:

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Hey John,

I noticed that CNN has been leveraging Twitter lately. Have you idea approximately asking your users to proportion your content on Twitter so that you can get even greater site visitors and enhance your click-thru price?

We absolutely created a loose tool known as TwitThis that makes this complete manner clean. We provide you with a simple code that you may paste into your HTML so that your website readers can without problems share your content at the social media site Twitter, which will assist CNN get greater visitors.

Let me recognise if you have any questions.

Neil

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Once I built up TwitThis to a excessive area authority web site, I turned into able to create subpages containing content material related to famous terms at the time. Because the website had so much area authority, they’d clearly rank excessive.

Crazy Tactic #2: Battlefield Bypass
I recognize what you are wondering. “What the heck is battlefield pass?”

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You’re probable already acquainted with the hunt engine tactic involving buying expired domain names. I took a piece of a distinctive method after I turned into younger. I might purchase handiest expired domains related to global history, because it multiplied the likelihood of .Edu and .Gov one-way links.

One of the domains I received changed into referred to as battlefieldbypass.Com. It become a website that was related to the Civil War.

When I received it, it had masses of hyperlink building ops, and a lot of them were from government-run websites.

I quickly obtained the web site and turned it into an online casino website online. Within some months, the web page ranked No. 2 on Google for the term “online casino,” which remains a relatively competitive time period on the search engines like google and yahoo.

On the website, I listed out the pinnacle 10 on-line casinos that someone could sign on for. Whenever a consumer signed up due to my site, I got paid an affiliate fee. The site became averaging $40,000 to $60,000 a month. Apparently, I didn’t do a incredible activity at excellent-tuning the web site for associate income, because the person ranking above me changed into making over $a hundred,000 each month.

A lot of SEOs nevertheless leverage expired domain names … but only a few consciousness on ones that comprise .Gov and .Edu links, even though they tend to be the maximum powerful. You also have to pay greater for those expired domains, however I by no means understood why someone could try and save a couple of bucks when the distinction may want to mean ranking No. 1 on the search engine versus now not.

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Crazy Tactic #3: I Can Has Poker?
Do you consider a loopy cat website known as I Can Has Cheezburger? I don’t realize how popular the site is within the search consequences in the interim, however it used to generate around 500 million page perspectives a month. Not too shabby for a site full of cat memes.

The target market was so unswerving that I partnered with them to run a competition. The contest was a poker giveaway wherein one person might win a two-night time journey to Las Vegas with $500 in spending cash and loose airfare for 2 people to and from Las Vegas.

I can’t find the web page on I Can Has Cheezburger that discusses the competition (guessing they removed it), but here is a snapshot:

Create a funny cat meme related to poker (they’ve a meme author on their website online).
Embed the cat meme to your website to enter (the embed code connected returned to my poker site).Within a be counted of days, I got over 2,000 hyperlink-constructing possibilities containing the phrases “poker” and “on line poker” within the anchor textual content. I even had I Can Has Cheezburger rotate up the embed codes so that I should make the anchor textual content more natural.

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Within a few days, my search engine scores shot up to page 7 of the serps for the search term “on line poker.” Within per week, I turned into ranking on page 2, and within weeks, I turned into rating on page 1. I probably could have hit the No. 1 spot at the search engines like google, however I fast got caught and Google pulled my rating.

My overall price for the entire contest was underneath $10,000. Fifty percent of that become what I paid I Can Has Cheezburger for strolling the contest.

Crazy Tactic #4: WordPress Themes
What’s one factor all WordPress topics have in not unusual? They have a footer hyperlink to the designer.What’s one thing that maximum WordPress subject matter designers have in not unusual? Most of them create issues out of ardour and rarely attempt to make cash from them, a one of a kind spin on the sector of internet marketing. These subject matters do absolutely nicely because the designers care about their work.

So, I notion it would be exciting to pay those theme proprietors $1,000 bucks to release an replace of their already famous theme. The reason I centered present issues is that when they launched an update, it would display up inside the user’s WordPress admin, and they would simply click a button to replace the topic.

On the flip facet, if I created cutting-edge topics from scratch, there could be no assure that humans would really like the layout and set up it. For this reason, I handiest centered current themes that have been popular.

Once a WordPress person brought the new theme replace, they could get some cool new functions and, of direction, a hyperlink returned to considered one of my websites became located in the subject footer.

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The web page I had the hyperlinks go to become referred to as Web Hosting Information.

At one point, the site ranked inside the top 3 search effects of Google for “internet hosting.” Eventually, the search engines like google and yahoo stuck on, the web page got slapped, and the quest outcomes rankings plummeted.

These days, I still use WordPress issues, but extra so for branding. I want more humans to recognize me as an internet marketing guru, so I pay topic businesses to encompass “advertised via Neil Patel” links within their topic and, of path, every link-building op is nofollow in order that I am not breaking Google’s regulations.

Crazy Tactic #five: Operation Google Domination
The simplest tactic I deployed became this one. Do you don’t forget Google Pages? It changed into when you may create an internet web page using Google’s domain call. That’s proper. You may want to installation a domain on “google.Com.”

Google Pages doesn’t exist anymore. The closest element I should discover is that this.

I used to set up seek engine submission pages for extraordinarily competitive phrases, like credit cards, automobile coverage, and foreign exchange. From there, I might purchase spammy blog hyperlinks from Sponsored Reviews, Blogsvertise, and Pay Per Post.

From those networks, I would obtain PageRank four and five hyperlinks for round $30 a pop and I would purchase a few hundred at a time. In overall, I spent $24,990 on paid hyperlinks.

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Within 60 to ninety days, I was on page 1 for the phrases indexed above, as well as different aggressive key phrases.

The reason this tactic labored so nicely is that I was hyperlink building to Google’s own domain, which already contained heaps of authority for search engine optimization.

Eventually, Google caught on, like they usually do, and the pages stopped ranking.

Crazy Tactic #6: My Stat Counter
Are you familiar with Statcounter? It’s the popular analytics tool that was round way before Google Analytics. And, for Statcounter to provide you stats, you have to upload a counter for your site. The counter also incorporates a back link to Statcounter.

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