Comments on: $15 Million Blogger Used Black Hat Tactics

By: getrichdominatinggoogle

getrichdominatinggoogle — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 18:58:09 +0000

http://blackhatuniverse.myfreeforum.org/

By: getrichdominatinggoogle

getrichdominatinggoogle — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 18:57:21 +0000

Time to make some real money.

By: Tjene Penger på Nett

Tjene Penger på Nett — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 13:24:32 +0000

That is not always true. If you write good enough content, you will naturally get the links you need to rank for just about any term you want. But you will have to write content that not only is unique, it has to be well written and probably something that is revolutionary.

By: Fotballsko

Fotballsko — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 13:36:44 +0000

@sharon:

I totally agree. If one should sit around and wait for the links to come in naturally, you would never get your site on any index. This is however in the dark grey area. If everyone who used his template did get info about the link being there, i guess it would be alright, but i doubt that has happened. It is a very sneaky method to use. Fortunately it requires some work that most people are not willing to do.

By: Sharon

Sharon — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 01:05:08 +0000

Footer links, I think are more grey than black...I think of black hat as uing markov engines, tools like blogger generator, and stuff like that. Trading links, footer links are sort of grey. I think Googles only accepted ways for linking are directory, articles, and organically from people liking to you...I think that if you use only those methods you'd probably starve! :) Sharon Sharons last blog post..Best Types Of Aerobic Exercise For Fat Loss

By: Tjen penger

Tjen penger — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 14:01:18 +0000

I think the point is that he has not been open about the link being there. He was clearly trying to hide it and that qualifies for some questionable link building in my book. It is a pretty known black hat method, and it really works. I wonder what Google thinks of this kind of link building, they will have huge problems dealing with this problem at least..

By: Woman Sells Blog for $95,000 in Time of Crisis | Monty's Mega Marketing

Woman Sells Blog for $95,000 in Time of Crisis | Monty's Mega Marketing — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 19:16:47 +0000

[...] we had the story of a blogger that sold his financial blog for $15 million. Some of his marketing tactics may have been a bit questionable, but hey, he did it and cashed [...]

By: movie fan

movie fan — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 01:57:59 +0000

yeah, if people are using his blog template theme, it’s hard to argue with him customizing it with a backlink built in… sort of like google putting a link to google on a custom search box

By: Insider

Insider — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 18:44:20 +0000

I work in the same competitive niche as Bankaholic and have been for the past 2 years. My site ranks well for many of the terms he’s targetting. If you look hard enough, you may know who I am.

His links did come from DigitalPoint. His backlinks were purchased, almost 95% of them. If you look at DP, his username was “thebulltrader” now banned.

Just look at some of his Itrader –

Theme purchases – http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=279752

66 blog links — http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?p=2835305#post2835305

The list goes on. You be the judge if it’s a good backlink strategy.

By: Kris

Kris — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 14:08:47 +0000

Maybe he didn’t design the themes. On DigitalPoint Forums, they have theme designers who let people bid/buy links in the theme footer for SEO purposes (yeah, go figure, DigitalPoint, the home of everything cesspool).

The thing that bothered me about Bankaholic was that the owner was spamming every blog he could find in the financial niche. He spammed several of my financial blog’s comment forms.

By: Chris

Chris — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 11:44:24 +0000

Actually, I guess one could argue, “Well, did he ‘rip off’ the company that paid $15 million (Bankrate.com)?” I don’t THINK so, because that site IS getting a ton of traffic so they should get what they paid for. Although, as I read on another forum, I suppose Google could ‘flip off the switch’ any time they wanted to.

By: Chris

Chris — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 11:42:49 +0000

@Ruck – Hey, Ruck. Good to hear from you. I totally agree. Like I said, I was just trying to open up everyone’s minds to the possibilities here. Personally, I don’t see anything wrong with a little black-hat activity as long as you’re not ripping anyone off or causing harm in any way. I personally haven’t been able to stop thinking about this since I wrote it…lol.

@Black – Bingo. Again, you hit it on the head.

By: Blake Stone

Blake Stone — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 11:40:08 +0000

Blackhat, whitehat. Doesn’t really matter. He made an ass ton of money off of it, didn’t he?

By: Ruck

Ruck — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 06:40:24 +0000

Honestly could care less what some people think is blackhat or not. However, I think the little research you did here was pretty good man. I knew about the site because we’ve been reading it for awhile and then caught the news on the sale. Whether people think it’s blackhat or not there is a damn good lesson taught here to the serious entrepreneurs.