I mentioned this method on Jon’s affiliate forum around a year ago and some of the responses I got were fairly colourful:

“I disagree with blackhat SEO myself, in that you’re doing a bait and switch…”

“…switching the content of a site to get inbound links so that people are linking to something they didn’t want to link to.”

“…but BH techniques such as this are reasons why the internet is becoming more and more of a cesspool.”

However, this approach is more effective now than ever before because of the rise in popularity of social bookmarking sites, so I’ll discuss it again.

Let’s say you want to enter the very competitive pills market to promote Viagra and related drugs. For traffic, you’ll rely on SEO. But, as you can guess, almost no one is going to link to your pills’ site. So it’s unlikely you’ll get much organic traffic!

But try this method…

Register an ambiguous domain name including the desired keyword – something like viagraaletinfo.com. Create a blog about the adverse effects of Viagra (and related drugs). Include studies about the side effects from using the drugs. (Visit PubMed and search for Sildenafil - aka Viagra.)

Create/include videos, relevant podcasts, cartoons and any content that will get backlinks. After creating and populating the blog, promote as much as possible. Write interesting and witty Viagra-related articles and submit to Digg and the usual places. Commission a cheap artist to create funny cartoons, eg.:

Because of the blog’s non-commercial nature and content, it should be fairly easy to get backlinks.

Now, after getting the desired amount of links, transition the blog into a site that promotes Viagra and related drugs: modify and delete articles, remove the cartoons and videos, etc. Add filler articles that target long-tail drug keywords. With the trust from all the backlinks, the filler articles should rank reasonably well to bring in decent amounts of targeted traffic.

The above is an example of using the BH Chameleon Method. A future post, Get and Abuse Google’s Trust, takes the idea to an entirely new level. Perhaps one day I’ll do a  case study on one of my chameleon sites.

What’s article marketing? Here’s Wiki’s definition:

In its simplest form, article marketing is a type of advertising through which a business writes short articles related to its respective industry. Once written, the business makes these articles freely available for distribution and publication in the marketplace.

Each article contains a ‘bio box’ and ‘by-line’ which include references and contact information for the author’s business. Well written content articles released for free distribution have the potential of gaining the author business credibility within his or her market, as well as new clients.

So, basically it’s about submitting articles to sites like ezinearticles.com, goarticles, etc, for extra backlinks and traffic.

I was thinking a few months ago about how dated those article marketing sites look (certainly Web 1.0) and wondering how they will evolve over the next few years (I’ve done this before)… then I came up with a novel twist: Blog for a Link

Here’s the idea. Instead of using dated article marketing scripts, use Wordpress. Create a network of blogs, one per niche, and allow webmasters to promote their sites by posting on the blogs which obviously includes backlinks to their sites – but only one link per unique post. So, effectively, I would have a network of user-generated content blogs.

I even built a prototype: it comprised several plug-ins and modification to the core code. So, alas, I can’t release it yet. However, I’ve since realised most of the code can be bundled into a single plug-in, which I’ll release sometime soon. Here’s some screenshots - submit-a-post & my-posts.

The business model behind this idea was build-to-sell. Build and promote the network, and after becoming established sell it to the highest bidder. However, I just don’t have the time so I’m sharing the idea with you guys just in case some-one is interested in pursuing it. Let me know if you do, I’ll feature your network on this blog.

Link bait definition: http://www.lunametrics.com/emarketing/search-engine-optimization/what-is-link-bait.php

Andy Hagan: http://tropicalseo.com/2007/andy-hagans-ultimate-guide-to-link-baiting-and-social-media-marketing/ 

Link bait vs Digg bait: http://www.toprankblog.com/2007/04/link-bait-vs-digg-bait/

Art of link baiting: http://performancing.com/promotion/links/the-art-of-linkbaiting

Best kind of link bait: http://www.toprankblog.com/2006/01/whats-the-best-kind-of-link-bait/

Buzz marketing: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/01_31/b3743001.htm

21 keys to link bait success: http://www.famousagents.com/link-bait-success

Buzz marketing: http://deanhunt.com/

Seth: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2005/09/what_makes_an_i.html

Viral web tricks: http://www.baekdal.com/articles/Branding/viral-marketing-tricks/

Wiki viral marketing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viral_marketing

Link baiting for fun and profit: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/linkbaiting-for-fun-profit/2541/

Buzz marketing with blogs: http://www.buzzmarketingwithblogs.com/

Viral principles: http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt5/viral-principles.htm

Why all the links about viral/buzz marketing and link bait? Imagine, you create a brand new blog and employ viral, buzz and link-bait techniques/tactics to get several thousand quality backlinks in a few months or so… now you can abuse the trust that comes with those links!

A while ago, I had an idea for a WP plug-in that allows specified people access to a private WP blog that contains details of stories to be dugg.

As I’m a member of numerous internet marketing forums, the idea was to network with a number of other forum members so we could digg our stories collectively. Because sometimes, an initial 20 or 30 votes may be just enough for an article to experience the snowball-effect and get on the front page if it’s creative, informative, and interesting.

It’s been noted many times that monetization of Digg traffic is extremely difficult. But, what’s important to me is the backlinks - the more the merrier. Front page stories can pick up a lot of links. And once you’ve got a site with a ton of links, you can easily abuse the trust that comes with those links – but that’s a future post!

So with this in mind I’m going to develop a WP plug-in/strategy that can be employed by webmasters to form Digg rings in order to get their stories dugg! You can share your thoughts about this idea by either commenting below or contacting me privately.

For most webmasters, the term ‘link cloaking’ means concealing affiliate links to prevent theft or loss of affiliate income. But this post has nothing to do with hiding affiliate links. In fact, it’s much more sinister: it’s about manipulating the SE spiders and channelling link juice to any site(s) at any time.

So, you’re looking at a PR 6 ‘do follow’ blog, and you see a comment from some one looking for help with a script for a mortgage/loan site.

You click the link and see this page… hmm seems like an innocent girlie blog, with useful articles, and no advertisements or anything like that. In fact most webmasters would have no problem linking to such a blog… but what you don’t realize is that the blog is the ‘virtual devil in disguise’! While humans see the blog, the SE spiders are redirected to the murky world of porn, pills or credit and the link-juice too… an example of stealth, BH link building!

Beni (of mybeni websecurity) has just revealed to me a serious XSS link-injection vulnerability with digg.com. Check out the screenshot below.

If Beni decides to release the digg XSS, you’ll see it here first! (But check back in a week’s time after we’ve abused it )

So, instead of Digg gaming its own system…

In this post, I discussed a way to avoid duplicate content penalties with Ezine Articles. Here’s the plug-in.

As mentioned in the previous post:

…the plug-in is just a proof-of-concept. You’ll need to extensively test and fine-tune the function that creates the additional text so that the articles don’t go into Google’s supplemental index. Once you’ve achieved this and they generate traffic, create a large network of sites!

The plug-in simply appends text to posts on-the-fly for the SE spiders only. To view the appended text, install the Firefox User Agent Switcher, switch to ‘crawler’ or ‘bot’ and refresh your blog page.

Again, the plug-in can be downloaded here.

The plugin uses the Markov module from YACG, so credit to the author(s).

In an earlier post I mentioned the concept of virtual link cloning. But, I ‘accidentally’ omitted the most important part of the process: the Blackbox.

So, what’s in that blackbox? Well, that’s for part 3 of virtual link cloning!

This has nothing to do with my previous post about BH link building.

If you’ve read my post about stealth forum spamming with Xrumer, you are aware of my covert tactic for getting large amounts of links from forums. Over the recent months, I’ve built up over 2 million dormant posts in tens of thousands of forums. And, at will, I can get many links to any of my sites very quickly without blatant link spamming. However, I estimate I could easily give away one millions links without affecting my business.

So, if you want some forum links, contact me privately and provide the URL, anchor text, and number of links required. Only one URL per person, and first come, first served!

What is stealth, BH link-building? Here are the definitions: 

Stealth: doing something quietly and covertly, in order to avoid detection.
Blackhat SEO: legal but deceptive and unethical means to manipulate the search engine results pages.
Link Building: obtaining links to websites in order to increase traffic levels and bolster their positions in the SERPs.
Stealth BH Link Building: the action of using quiet and covert means to legally but deceptively and unethically obtain links to websites in order to  increase traffic levels and bolster their positions in the SERPs!

Soon, I’ll be commercially releasing two of the most controversial, deceptive and devastatingly effective, hardcore, BH link-building/management tools. These tools represent the essence of stealth link building. And, after using these tools for a few days, you’ll probably never trust a link again! (Try clicking the link below 4 or five times.)

link

Instead of you being redirected, imagine it’s the SE spiders. With these tools you can take the spiders anywhere you like: porn, pills, mortgage, loans, credit, dating, insurance sites, etc - absolutely anywhere and the link juice too! And, most importantly, virtually no-one will know or able to stop you. Welcome to Stealth BH Link Building!

Watch out for the forthcoming competition.