Preface:
The following set of posts was made by me in the Jr VIP section, on the issue of SEO services. I am posting in the Black Hat SEO section with the kind permission of BigBuddy, because I am tired of newbies (as I once was) getting sold the false dream of SEO and losing all their money to SEO services. I know how it feels to be new and lost in SEO, and if I hadn't got some merciful guidance from some talented BH SEO dudes who opened my eyes, I would probably be making $0 today. Still, I was in two minds as to whether to post, even though I had permission, because I did not want to cause trouble (in particular SEO service providers will not like the post). However I saw Ranko Jones' recent thread about "losing the will to live" and it reminds me of the PMs I receive from newbies asking me what they should do in SEO now, saying that they paid X person to do Y service and person G for H service and now they are broke. For every post describing success in IM as a result of selling SEO services, there are 100 newbies left broke. This is not "blackhat SEO", which is gaming Google (= morally sound). In my eyes, black hat doesn't equal unethical. The unethical part comes from deceiving eachother and making newbies broke. If that continues, Google will forever win and the community will crumble into a place like other forums whose main purpose is to separate gullible newbies from their cash. SEO service providers realise that they cannot successfully (read: profitably) game Google, so they turn on their fellow members, the newbies who come here hoping to learn how to do SEO properly and be successful. This is wrong and must stop.
I must also make it clear I am NOT entirely opposed to people buying products and tools (for example Xrumer, hrefer, SpinChimp and hostamus VPS have been great for me) but this post applies to cases where services are so expensive that it will be impossible for you to make a profit. Capitalizing on the lack of knowledge of newbies is wrong and causes posts
If you don't like what I have to say, please keep it respectful. This was the condition imposed by BigBuddy (i.e. no flaming). This thread is NOT intended to flame anyone, it is meant to help newbies, not to flame any particular SEO service provider. This is supposed to be BHW where people with no knowledge of SEO come to learn and become successful with it, not as a place to make them even more broke than they already are. I would like to see this restored, and it personally gives me a great satisfaction when I read posts (albeit rare nowadays) about black hat SEO practitioners who have successfully gamed G's algorithms through their own hard work and ingenuity, and profited greatly from it. That's what this forum should make out of its members, it should not make people broke and depressed like Ranko with whom I've had a lot of correspondence since the time when I was quite new to SEO as well.
The posts were not made consecutively so they may look quite disjointed. But together they form the truth of SEO, so stick in there throughout the wall of text and if you're a newbie, you will save yourself thousands.
The following set of posts was made by me in the Jr VIP section, on the issue of SEO services. I am posting in the Black Hat SEO section with the kind permission of BigBuddy, because I am tired of newbies (as I once was) getting sold the false dream of SEO and losing all their money to SEO services. I know how it feels to be new and lost in SEO, and if I hadn't got some merciful guidance from some talented BH SEO dudes who opened my eyes, I would probably be making $0 today. Still, I was in two minds as to whether to post, even though I had permission, because I did not want to cause trouble (in particular SEO service providers will not like the post). However I saw Ranko Jones' recent thread about "losing the will to live" and it reminds me of the PMs I receive from newbies asking me what they should do in SEO now, saying that they paid X person to do Y service and person G for H service and now they are broke. For every post describing success in IM as a result of selling SEO services, there are 100 newbies left broke. This is not "blackhat SEO", which is gaming Google (= morally sound). In my eyes, black hat doesn't equal unethical. The unethical part comes from deceiving eachother and making newbies broke. If that continues, Google will forever win and the community will crumble into a place like other forums whose main purpose is to separate gullible newbies from their cash. SEO service providers realise that they cannot successfully (read: profitably) game Google, so they turn on their fellow members, the newbies who come here hoping to learn how to do SEO properly and be successful. This is wrong and must stop.
I must also make it clear I am NOT entirely opposed to people buying products and tools (for example Xrumer, hrefer, SpinChimp and hostamus VPS have been great for me) but this post applies to cases where services are so expensive that it will be impossible for you to make a profit. Capitalizing on the lack of knowledge of newbies is wrong and causes posts
If you don't like what I have to say, please keep it respectful. This was the condition imposed by BigBuddy (i.e. no flaming). This thread is NOT intended to flame anyone, it is meant to help newbies, not to flame any particular SEO service provider. This is supposed to be BHW where people with no knowledge of SEO come to learn and become successful with it, not as a place to make them even more broke than they already are. I would like to see this restored, and it personally gives me a great satisfaction when I read posts (albeit rare nowadays) about black hat SEO practitioners who have successfully gamed G's algorithms through their own hard work and ingenuity, and profited greatly from it. That's what this forum should make out of its members, it should not make people broke and depressed like Ranko with whom I've had a lot of correspondence since the time when I was quite new to SEO as well.
The posts were not made consecutively so they may look quite disjointed. But together they form the truth of SEO, so stick in there throughout the wall of text and if you're a newbie, you will save yourself thousands.