What The HELL is Spam? Email Spam Spam is an unsolicited email which markets ideas, products, or services at you. It may even be used just to waste your time. That is the essence of spam though. It is created so that the recipient bears the cost. You will eventually die. You will never get back the time you have wasted on spam. Search Engine Spam Running a search engine has costs. Just like opening your email costs you time. Each search engine has its own guideline on how you should create your site. In November of 2003 Google changed it's algorithms and I was the first person to write an article explaining what they did (Google Sells Christmas.) Suddenly I became really popular. A ton of people wanted me to help save their business. These people claimed Google ruined their business. They never appreciated all the free traffic Google was giving them in the past. You name the field and you name the country and I was contacted by them. Government agencies in South Africa, Registrars in Australia, and even Islamic teachers from Kuwait. What did the People Teach Me? People are people. I heard people who were making millions tell me they would probably go bankrupt. I got emails from people telling me they were crying. We all have our own unique faults and assets. We all want to enjoy life. The software used to run search engines is created by people. Just like us they (and their software products) have faults. Understanding these faults, and using them to your advantage is what REAL SEO is. Spam Shifts Costs MakeMeTop had a wonderful post over at cr8asite forums.
MakeMeTop is viewed as one of the best SEO firms in the world. It is the job of the search engine to find relevant resources. When crap shows up at the top, the search engine failed to do its job. A search engine using ethical definitions to make up for the shortfalls in their algorithm is like the president claiming the wars he created are causing a bad economy.
People who break things down to black and white do so for one of two reasons.
When you spam search engines you are getting free distribution. You are not covering their bills. Any type of SEO is spam. When the people were crying I knew that the search engine did not care about those particular people. The people at the search engine were worried about their own jobs, their own families, and their own lives. People are people. Google knows that they can put businesses out overnight by changing their algorithm, but they still do it. What Google Owes You Absolutely nothing. What You Owe Google Absolutely nothing. How to Succeed in Search Engines Differentiate yourself from all competitors to create value. Then extract value. OR Find how search engines think. Exploit their weaknesses. Any person who states that they are not spamming but promoting a website is placing these false ethics in front of you. Creating a great site may take you far, but accepting reality will take you further. Other companies have millions of dollars, are buying links, and exchanging other links with their friends. The web is a huge social network. There will be entry costs in time and money. If you let the ethical guidelines of another company control your actions you can be sure you will be
What I offer I do not offer a get rich quick guide. I also do not believe in Spam. Most of the sites listed in this directory do not care about search engines. That is not why they are listed. The reason they are listed is that they have sufficiently proven to me that they do not care about you. They provide bogus or fake services worth less than zero for a fee far greater. This directory is not about the issue of Spam vs Non Spam. This directory is about business ethics. Google is just a medium. You owe them nothing and they owe you nothing. Most of the sites in this directory provide bogus, fake, or worthless services for a fee. Do You Spam? Most sites do not need aggressive placement techniques to drive targeted customers. Just a small linking campaign and good page structure can drive a ton of targeted leads. Drug, casino, and adult sites require a bunch more work to promote than the average site. If you pick an expensive topic with large distribution you will need to employ aggressive advertising. Many SEO firms will not work for exceptionally competitive categories. If you need help with your site just ask me and I will see who I can refer you to. Business Ethics You need to decide what yours are. If you act based exclusively on my words or the words of a search engine then you may be misguided. I have never had a single page de indexed, and I do not believe in SPAM. I do however believe that if you are charging people money, then they should see some return. I do not use cloaking, hidden text, or redirects, but I do not look down on those who know how to do it correctly. I have used link popularity of one site to boost the rankings of another. I have also used automated tools in the past which were against the search engines terms of services. You should weigh risk vs reward. I believe everything is a balance.
Further Reading on Spam |