If you recall, earlier this month, we reported on a blogger who sold his Bankaholic blog to Bankrate for $15 million.
Now, it seems that our friends over at Black Hat World have uncovered a story indicating that this blogger may have been using some black hat tactics to generate backlinks to his site.
As we analyze the backlinks to Bankaholic, pay special attention to the following link:
Let’s take a look at this website, specifically, take note of the footer:
Notice, when you visit the actual website, what happens when you hover over the words “Interest Rates”.
Hello! What’s this? It appears that perhaps our blogging friend also designed blog templates in his spare time. As an added bonus, he managed to hide a backlink to his Bankaholic website, along with appropriate anchor text, to the footer of his templates. Everyone who downloaded and installed these templates then automatically gave him a backlink to his site.
Interestingly enough, I experienced something similar with one of my other financial blogs lately. I decided to change the WordPress template, but the one that I installed had a hidden link at the bottom pointing to a “faxless payday loans” website. I, therefore, ditched that template.
So, it appears that, in this case anyway, a few black hat strategies paid off in a big way. I am not encouraging or discouraging these types of link-building strategies. I am merely opening up your mind to the creative possibilities of the internet. Is this truly black hat…or just “thinking outside the box”?
One thing we know for sure…it was extremely profitable.
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