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Okay Google, You Win: When Grey Turns To White

By King Douche | January 16, 2012

Okay Google, You Win: When Grey Turns To White

So, the time has come.  Sleepless nights.  The wondering.  The fear.  Your grey campaign is milking years off of your life. (I just HAD to reuse that image on the left. It’s more appropriate than ever for this piece.)

You’ve weighed the negatives, the positives.  You wanted to stand tough.  But there was one factor that tipped the scales.   The domain.

THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE
You see, Google basically gives you one ‘get out of jail free’ card in regards to paid links.  Yes, you can ride the grey, get caught, and beg for forgiveness promising never to do it again and thou shall be saved.  But, you only really get one bail out.  Even if you tried it again on another domain, and got nailed, I doubt that the Google gods would be as forgiving on your 2nd and subsequent requests.  So, throughout your whole life, you get one and only one pardon.

When will you use it?  How long do you plan on being an SEO?  5 years?  20 years?  40 years?  Perhaps time refills the guff.

But getting a pardon for paid links requires one important fact:  You’ll need to own the domain, or have full access to it in order to authenticate through Google Webmaster Tools in order to file the reinclusion request.   Meta tag, DNS, file upload, or Google Analytics authentication.  You’ll need access.

THE COMPANY-OWNED DOMAIN TIPPED MY SCALES
“So,” you say.  ”What’s the significance of that domain ownership fact, King Douche?”

Well, what if your money-maker was on an affiliate corporate-owned domain where you had no access to the site?  What if you couldn’t file a reinclusion request if you ever got nailed?  Would you then have to scrap the subdomain and start over?  Is there a better way?  Are you really better off riding the grey and just facing the penalty if it ever comes?  What if would have never came?

Well, therein lies the question.  What if you would have never got caught?  What if you raked in the dough throughout the product’s lifecycle and by the time the algorithm caught up with you the product’s life cycle was on its way out?  Which path would you choose?  Turning the grey into white?  Or riding the grey?

I’D RATHER CLAW MY WAY BACK THAN TRY AND BREAKOUT OF THE DOG-HOUSE
Even if I did have access to the domain, this solid realization remains:  I’d rather experience a drop in rankings switching to white hat, then work my ass off to get it back, rather than ride the grey until (if) it breaks then work my way out of the dog house.

You see, a good SEO isn’t afraid to work hard.  Yeah, yeah we work smart, too, but a solid campaign is almost never ending.  The fact that a good SEO has a strong work ethic plays is his/her favor.  Many simply won’t work that hard.  99% want to take a shortcut somehow.  If you vow to keep cranking away on your campaign, you’ll end up right back at the top.  That’s my logic anyway.

THE PRICE IS RIGHT
Go as far as possible without going over.  This is the strategy for running a grey campaign.  But when Google penalizes one of their own products, and even their own search engine in Japan for violating their quality guidelines, it’s time to chainsaw the main beams in your link strategy and try and go white hat.  (Go ahead, Google “Google Chrome”...GONE is the download page, completely.)

WE SAW IT COMING
From SearchEngineLand:

“Paid links drew much attention last year, after Google penalized JC Penney, as well as Forbes and Overstock for using them. Google even banned BeatThatQuote, one of its own companies last year, BeatTheQuote, over the issue.”

THE DECIDING FACTOR:  GOOGLE CHROME RESULT GOT NUKED, GOOGLE’S NOT MESSING AROUND ANY MORE
It used to be somewhat easy to jack-up rankings.  A few paid reviews, a few paid links, a handful of this and that, good relevant content, good page architecture and you were pretty much at the top of the SERPS and assuming your site was well designed, it converted.  Now, with even more intense algorithmic changes, at best you’ll just not realize any gain from paid links.  At worst, demotion or at ultra-worst, total nuke.  Hell, Google demoted GOOGLE JAPAN for 11 fucking months from a PR9 to a pR5 and then they came back a PR8.   If they’ll do that to one of their own companies, imagine what they’ll do to me.   They’ll feed me to the lions without blinking an eye.

With Google Chrome getting nuked, I’m not doing grey hat anymore. No way.  Not any more.  It’s a new year.  It’s time to take the hit, recover, and sleep easy as a white hat.  Before it’s too late.  Me?  I’m out.

In a few months, I’ll let you know the repercussions of going white hat from grey.  Hopefully, it’ll just be a few hiccups and not a total loss of lifestyle.  I’ll keep you posted.

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  • Okay Google, You Win: When Grey Turns To White

Topics: Other Stuff | 18 Comments »

Posted on 16 January 2012 by King Douche

Preferred Marketing Destination Manager. (Thanks to MM for that title).

has written 16 articles for SEO Bullshit

  • Darren

    Hi King Douche,

    Excuse me for my newbieness. I came across this blog and have read a number of articles that are great and half the time over my head. I started my making money online venture about 2 and half years ago after realizing that I wanted to work from my own home (and not for a boss) and typed “work from home” and the similar into google. I had no idea how that would look. Tried some of the survey crap, that didn’t work, and then I moved onto building my own sites. Fortunately I had a fervent will to work from home, and I now make 3 times as much money a month as any job that I previously had (given that they were all low-paying jobs). Part luck in original niche selection, and part hard work.

    Anyhows, I have never used paid links, but have got myself a handful of lucrative #1 positions in google purely from seeking out 3 way link exchanges, writing huge amounts of unique content for Postrunner and BMR (backlinking them with spun content to boost their strength, AMR and others), and getting natural links since I write mostly about things that I know first hand.

    I am wondering how grey you think that kind of link building is? And is it less risky than paid links? Anything else. 

    Darren

  • http://seobullshit.com King Douche

    Hi Darren
    Thanks for your comment.  In short, yes, link “exchanges” are definitely grey hat and frowned upon.  So are “Link Wheels.”  However, you’re in luck.  Randfish just posted up a nice, very nice piece from a Mozzer which addresses your needs. http://www.seomoz.org/blog/linkbuilder-gmail-productivity-setup-and-outreach-examples 

    You’ll want to scroll down to the part where it references “Exchange For A Link (but not a Link Exchange).”

    Here is a nice quote:  ” Linkbuilding used to be all about link exchanges. I give you a link, you give me a link, everyone’s happy. Those days are over, so we either have to create content for people to link to, or you offer someone something in return (but not a link).”

    Ask yourself this question:  You’re at a conference.  You see Matt Cutts.  You get a few minutes to chat with him.  Would you say “I’m doing multiple 3-way link exchanges?”  No way.  Because you know that’s not what he wants to hear, right?  That tells you you’re running grey right there.

    Regarding “Penalties.”  In my opinion, and based on what I’ve read from a variety of sources, the penalties are far less severe.   I’ve never heard of anyone getting nuked for 11 months by doing link exchanges (either 2 or 3 way).  However, it’s quite common for sites to get thermo-nuclear-vacuum-Tsar-bombed for getting nabbed for paid links.  Likely, if the algorithm caught your “mini-networks” of sorts, you’ll just likely experience a repairable drop in your rankings for those anchored keywords.  Keyword:  repairable.  

    Hope this helps.

  • Darren

    Thanks for a great responce! 

    Indeed, any SEO practice that I would not consider telling Matt Cutts about, would certainly be gray at least. That is the simple truth of it!

    Thanks for the link too, there was some very useful info on there. 

    Also, the term “thermo-nuclear-vacuum-Tsar-bombed” as been added to my personal vocabulary, for making me laugh out loud.

    CheersDarren

  • http://www.facebook.com/chakazulu352 Jacob Chak

    Speaking from experience, link-building for eCommerce is brutal without incorporating paid links. I’ve found the best way to get strong links is banner adds on forums. I’ve paid $25.00 a month for a PR6 front page link with anchor text. 

    I’m taking your advice and shelving my article link campaigns until the details of google’s new changes are finalized. 

    Great article!

  • http://twitter.com/SeoLair Seo Lair

    Make sure your buying links that are contextual and relevant and you shouldn’t be dinged. :)

  • King Douche

    Thanks for your comment.
    Remember, though, the whole purpose of this activity is to be able to sleep like a baby at night…knowing that I can wake up the next day to find my SERPS very, very similar to before I went to bed.  It’s not so much that I don’t ‘want to get caught’ it’s more of an issue where I don’t want to break the rules anymore.  Trust me man, it eats at you like flesh-eating bacteria.  Sure you can take a few months, even a year, but 5 years now?  I just can’t do it anymore.  I’m out…doesn’t matter if I would have never got caught.  Check out this post which makes my heart beat fast:http://www.seobook.com/beatthatquote-buythoselinks 

  • Mark

    Hey King Douche, would you consider going through LinkWorth for linkbuilding gray hat??? and thank you for the bullshit !!!

  • http://seobullshit.com King Douche

    Hi Mark
    Thanks for your comment.  

    In short, yes LinkWorth is dark-grey.  It’s the exact scenario that Cutts’ has been saying *not* to do.  I don’t have a good white-hat solution though that is realistic but I can tell you that if staying away from grey is your goal, TLA, RM, LW, and LV are all areas to avoid.  Now, if you don’t have an established campaign and have nothing to lose, literally speaking, then I say go for it.  The SERPS almost always feature grey-hats at the top…it’s just the nature of the business however if you’ve got a money makey and don’t want to lose it, then start out grey, flip to white, then hold onto your ass for the fallout.

  • Allanp73

    Hi King,

    I would be really surprised if paid link could cause a ban or penalization. Google itself has said on multiple occasions that it will not penalize site’s for their inbound links. It would be too easy for companies to sabotage each other if all they had to do was get a few paid links for their competitor then watch their competitor suffer some nuke-age. More likely is Google would just ignore these links. The reason JC Penny suffered was not that were penalized but the links that made them #1 were no longer being counted and as a result they could no longer maintain their rankings. Do a search on Google for “google penalize for inbound links” and you’ll find hundreds of articles confirming what I’m saying. Paid links at worst give no benefit.

  • John P. Ragmatism

    And then it dawns on you. Black hat and gray hat is like playing David vs. Goliath. And white hat is essentially just web development done properly, to the point where what you are doing no longer needs a special title (“SEO expert”).

    In other words, SEO *is* bullshit after all.

    Running marketing and promotion campaigns to increase you search standing isn’t some mysterious discipline that requires years of domain-specific knowledge and experience. It just boils down to that fact that if you want the #1 spot in the results, you have to be the #1 offering in the market. Google are only going to get better and smarter at ensuring that, not worse.

    The real lucrative profession here is web/software development. This is a genuine service that can’t be bluffed or turned into a get rich quick scheme. Some 13 year old can’t read a few posts on a shady forum and declare himself an expert at it. You put in the time learning it and you are rewarded with real, in-demand skills –assuming you have some talent and dedication.

    99% of the people who are publicising their wealth and riches as an SEO expert are doing so purely to draw you in and sell you the same bullshit that *supposedly* made them rich. Much the same as snake oil salesmen attributed their good health and cured diseases to their own product.

    I don’t need to highlight any examples of people who made it in the software industry. Just look at the top of any rich list. Where are these SEOs at on that list? Oh, wait, they’re probably still trying to blackhat the #1 spot.

  • John P. Ragmatism

    Cool pseudo-science bro.

  • Clive Anderson

    If you actually read between the lines, SEO Emperor Cutts is basically telling you this.

    There is no magic, no shortCutts, no secret sauce or get-rich-quick schemes about ranking on Google. Google’s aim is to offer the highest quality results for people who are searching for genuine  products and services.

    If and when a real market demand forms for pretentious, poorly-written, low-quality scraped content, I’m sure you’ll rank really well for it. In the meantime, while there is zero demand for such crap, you will continue to have your livelyhood flattened by Google each and every time they catch you trying to cheat the system.

    Anyone who has found a genuine way to cheat the system isn’t going to broadcast it on Yet-Another-Pseudoscience-and-Magic-Buy-Now-For-Only-Ninety-Nine-Dollars SEO Blog.

  • http://seobullshit.com King Douche

    It’s interesting that you immediately gravitated towards “anyone trying to SEO their site must have crap content” theory.  What if your site was premium?  The UI, perfect? I wouldn’t be so quick to put webmasters who try and get their site to rank in a Panda category.  In my case, you’re dead wrong.

    Thanks for your comment.

  • http://twitter.com/joseuonline Jose Uzcategui

    @f7277c6308064bc310eafd16b2c7bce1:disqus  (et all) – I’m giving a webinar on link building on a couple of weeks. All white stuff – but may give you a couple of good ideas if you still have the “working hard” bug in you. 

    http://www.cardinalpath.com/webinar-linking-out/

    @gegan:disqus – Thanks for getting on the white boat and spreading the word. For those of us that deal with businesses that need to survive for more than a year, white’s the way to go! And the more people on this boat, the easier better for all.

  • http://twitter.com/RegDCP Reg Charie

    “SEO is BS!”
    If you think that, you need to get real.
    Give yourself a shake.

    What is BS is >LINK BUILDING>

    Google has said they will not penalize for inbound links. They don’t. They get you on link building PATTERNS.

    An example. ( I had an associate come to me with this exact problem.
    He was new webby for a small hotel. After watching the stats for a few weeks he did a 50 link campaign as below. None of the sites were travel related.)

    You frequent a link building forum and someone posts a 100 link list, all “follow” and a min of PR6.
    You go and build 50 new links.
    The next time Google does a PR look, your site drops in the SERPs.
    By building the links, you established an unnatural pattern. One that does not occur in truly organic links.

    Google IS PISSED!
    The SEO industry’s obsession with link building has all but rendered their use as a valid metric black hat.

    The influence of PageRank has been demoted, and its metrics declared “a non-actionable metric”.

    From what I see in results from some testing, a 2 month series of building mixed straight links with keywords, some with Anchor text, and some dynamic and root only linking, my SERPs did not deviate with about 70 links.

    The basic formula for PageRank has changed.
    This was done at the time of the Mayday update and the change was the inclusion of relevance into the core, which was previously a mathematical process. This is of major importance.

    The ones that are suffering the biggest drops have built themselves an unnatural linking pattern.
    One of the processes in just about every panda update has been to sites with “less than organic” patterns.
    If you had a lot of links on non relevant domains/pages then this is factored against you.

    The same with JCPenney.
    All the questionable links were on non-relevant pages.
    Manual penalties were applied.

    Panda is the recalculation of a site’s linking patterns with the new relevance factors and other on page factors. (Amount of ads, over SEO, thin/scraped content.) 

    Best
    Reg

  • http://twitter.com/zach1987johnson Zach Johnson

    Great Article! Pretty funny too

  • http://www.vacationrentalnet.com/cabin-rental.asp Cabin Rental

    I agree that link-building for eCommerce is hard task without incorporating paid links.
    I’ve found that one of the best ways to get strong links is banner adds on forums or popular blogs.

  • King Douche

    Agreed.  Matter of fact, Cutts JUST posted a video that pretty much paves the *only* way to get legal juice.  Images pass juice.  It’s not a text link so it won’t directly help targeted keyphrases but it will build domain authority.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTKzlhWeaDw