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Hats Off to BlackHat360
August 5, 2008 by Erik Cunningham
I stumbled across a new SEO site today that made me laugh out loud. The site is called BlackHat360 and it’s just what it sounds like. The first post on their homepage dated August 2, 2008 states,
“BlackHat360 is a site dedicated to all things BlackHat. For those joining us that don’t know, blackhat is a type of SEO or Search Engine Optimization that is often misunderstood.”
I laughed at this statement because it reminded me of a scene from Star Wars Episode III when Emperor Palpatine described the dark side of the Force to Anakin Skywalker.
“If one is to understand the great mystery, one must study all its aspects, not just the domestic narrow view of the Jedi. If you wish to become a complete and wise leader, you must breath a larger view of the Force.”
I often joke with SEO colleagues about black hat SEO being the Dark Side - warning them, “Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny”. With categories like, “Google spamming techniques and discussions” and “Promotional methods, link spamming, you name it”, the dark path definitely dominates BlackHat360’s forums.
One thing that does not dominate the site’s forums however, is intelligence. By posting all of their BlackHat strategies in a public forum, they’re giving away their hand to the search engines. If I were Matt Cutts, I’d be on the site every day taking detailed notes to help improve Google’s anti-spam algorithms.
Or maybe, just maybe, Matt Cutts is already there… Maybe Google built the site for that very purpose. BlackHat SEOs beware!
All conspiracy theories aside, I titled this post, “Hats Off to BlackHat360″ not because I honor their intelligence or approve of their content, but because I find their brazen and open defiance of the search engines comical. And while I admire their fearlessness, the one message I’ll take away from their site is, “don’t try this at home”.
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