Mikkel deMib Svendsen, a well known SEO who is also known for his famous red suits at conferences, wrote a very interesting post. The post is named Confessions of a Black Hat SEO: There is a limit to what I will do!
In this post he explains that he is a black hat SEO, he will cloak, he will buy links, he will push the envelop as far as possible for him to "win the battle" and get the rankings, but he won't go as far as to destroy other's web sites. By that he means, he won't comment spam, he won't hack web sites, he won't destroy your web site in order to gain from your destruction.
Mikkel said that when you start to impact other people's web sites by injecting them with spam and ultimately leaving their web site unusable by real users, then it is "just not fair! it's not right!," he said. Many of these sites are run by people with "very limited technical skills and resources," and this makes the web a great place. Destroying them is not right.
Mikkel goes on to say that "hacking is not the same as Black Hat SEO." He said although black hat SEOs don't always respect the search engine guidelines, they do respect the law and that is what separates black hat SEOs from hackers.
Now, some may have a different definition of what black hat SEO is. Some may say it is criminal to cloak. Some may say there is no difference between taking advantage of Google or taking advantage of someone else's web site. But this message comes from a true and respected black hat SEO. He is proud to be a black hat SEO and he is upset that hackers are coming in and ruining his and his niche's name.
Forum discussion at Sphinn.
