Page 2 - My boss is obsessed with Black Hat SEO

Hidden text will kill your SERPS. It will lower your trust ranking quite a bit. Here's a link to google stating this:
http://www.google.com/support/webma...py?answer=66353

Hehe, I thought about that. It's not my problem, and I'm leaving in a month anyway...

EDIT: Then again, I'd like to list my boss as a reference for future job applications.

EDIT 2: How do you do that comment-within-a-reply thing?

You can still use him as a reference...he is the one who wants black hat. Heck you are liable to learn some cool stuff. Earl Grey is one sharp dude. As for the comments...look in the upper right hand corner of the post for the little scales of justice.

Cheers!

Europa

I'm happy for you... I'm retired and do whatever I want.



...and I'm sure if you could "rank" quicker than the corporate average you could write your own ticket. You can choose to waste time spouting corporate SEO bunk here but your time is limited -- so learn ways to be quicker, faster, better, and all-round best.



If you take a closer look at my posts and posting styles you'll see I spend much more time here aiding those that "disagree" not for their own sake but for those that read the thread much later... mis-information has a way of becoming "fact" just because people read it somewhere -- I'll keep plugging at the info until someone proves I'm wrong... so I'm not really interested in you... it's the 10s of thousands of people that will read your posts long after you're retired, been fired, or laidoff.



... ya but you clearly don't believe that your approach is the best way to go... because we'd be debating that rather than dancing around off-topic comments.

General SEO has changed 10,000% in the last decade... not only do you have fewer sources that provided viable revenue potential but there isn't any real differences between them (Google, Yahoo, MSN -- and all their affiliates).

SEO as today is about get links early and then get better ones that will sustain ranks long into the future. (the latter is related to content creation).

While the nuances of Page Titles are important and navigational paths are important... more links & better links solves even these issues (real quick)... and the amount of time you and your firm waste on Meta Tags generation means less time spent on links... thus much lower productivity.

I'm right... you & your bosses are wrong... if not, prove it.

Not really but they do need a better strategy.

One thing that most SEOs today and their clients don't focus on is "new money"... and your latter comment hints on that...



Why can't websites ultimately targeting terms that are extremely competitive terms start where these nich sites start?

Surely if a "niche site" can generate "nich money" only on "niche terms"... this is the way to go to make "new money" so "IF" you do need hundreds of thousands of links/cash for the more competitive terms... it isn't on the client's dime (since they didn't have that money without the niche targets this new money was never going to be the client's dime).

Why? How many times have you 'wasted you money of them'?

I can say without a doubt "NONE" or you wouldn't have said that.

That list is a good place to start -- the better ones are not "general topic directories"... niche directories are 10 X more powerful (or more).

Not really... you "CAN'T" game the system... you can get away with it for a while but the greatest reason your boss does not want to go "REAL BLACK HAT" is: 6 month or maybe a year his domain MUST be disposable... it will be useless for ranks... therefore for proper implementation you are best to have a new domain started every 2 weeks so you don't have a boom than bust strategy for quite a while.

What the thread spawn was debates from "other threads" which shoulds have stayed in other threads.



You can call it keyword stuffing but what it really is, is an attempt to increase "keyowrd density" and that will not help... the only thing that will have a major impact is links... and the cheapest way is PPI directories as noted in StrongestLinks... these are not the "best way" to have an impact - they are the quickest and cheapest way to have an impact... linkbait (linkbaiting) is far superior but the associated costs are enormous in comparison.

Yes,This is somewhat a negotiation problem between your boss and yourself. This stems i think from lack of supporting evidence that what you did is right. I suggest to give him real examples of good SEO and ask for his honest feedback.Be ready to accept questions and be ready to undestand your good examples.

Give him as many evidences as you found, there is a chance he will believe.Communicate successfully with your boss,this is your best way to have productive relationship with him.

I know tricks, but I don't share them, mostly because, believe it or not, I stand for fair game and white hat SEO (thanks to my experience of working in public company who was caring for its reputation very much). I could use them if I feel that my competition is using black hat techniques to keep me at the bottom of SERPs. Meta tag abuse is not most sophisticated way these days anyway.

I read the code of my competition websites when I can and analyze what other SEOs are doing to get higher ranking, and sometimes I make some good discoveries.

Well, I am happy for you too. I am still too young to think about it. So don't expect me to have too many posts here



That's what I do here - keep learning. Until my brain dies.



But don't forget to keep your mind open for other opinions, OK?



Since I see different reaction from these SEs for the same SEO actions - I would disagree with you on this one.



Pretty much agree with this statement. But I also deal with other SEO issues which are mostly related to big dynamic sites, WEB 2.0, user friendliness problems, conversions, etc. and rarely discussed on these forums.



I am not wasting any of my time on meta tags games since I don't believe in them, and I don't advocate for them here. But I implement them for the reasons we have discussed before in another thread, and I am not going to keep discussion going (I am not retired yet, remember?). So enough about metas, OK?



Don't have time and desire to waste my time on this. Since there is nothing to prove.

No, I don't think so at all.

We simply had discussion with fathom about safety of using meta tags, check it at http://forums.seochat.com/showthrea...0507#post510507 and make your conclusion on what I think.



I am quite good to do that too, believe me.



100% agree.