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Dilbert on Black Hat Techniques

by Presto Smith
4 replies
I came across this comic today and wanted to the the WF's take on it. Is Dilbert right? Are "Black Hat" techniques unethical?

http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2011-06-23/
#black #dilbert #hat #techniques
  • Profile picture of the author travlinguy
    It depends on the definition of black hat, but overall, I'd answer yes. Black hat techniques are unethical. My definition of unethical is, anything I wouldn't want done to me.
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  • Profile picture of the author Johnny Optimo
    It's not necessarily unethical, because it really depends on your own personal ethics. A lot of people believe that marketing in general is intrinsically unethical, I disagree. A lot of black hat methods are pretty shady, but that again depends on your definition of 'black hat' - it varies

    On the near certainty of getting caught, he's right and wrong. Eventually, a lot of the black hat methods will be made ineffective by improvements in search engine technology.. but that's not to say you can't get some benefits from it right now

    I think it's more of a commentary on those uneducated in IM, they think spam and 'black hat' methods are necessarily more profitable... cause... they wouldn't be called 'black hat' if they didn't work... right... right? lol
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    • Profile picture of the author Wakunahum
      I think it depends on what black hat techniques are being used.

      For example, hacking someone's website to drop links seems unethical.

      On the other hand, submitting content and getting links at sites that allow you to place links there seems perfectly ethical to me since the webmasters wants it allowing you and encouraging you to do so.

      I believe that as long as you have voluntary associations with various webmasters to get links whether that's an article directory or some other form of submission or trade, it's all fine. This could be a form of mass submissions across the web by using tools, but it's still a voluntary association between myself and the webmaster. Consistently breaking terms of service would not be ethical since this isn't a mutual act.

      Some of these techniques are considered black hat by Google, but that's just their company's point of view. If Google doesn't like a technique, this doesn't mean it's immoral. I'm not a huge fan of the millions of sites that Google links to with illegal and immoral content but they are linking to these whether I like it or not because it's their site.

      It's Google's job to adjust rankings based on the practices they deem as fair. It's not the obligation of a site owner to get backlinks in accordance to what Google says is fine because we can do whatever we want with our own sites and suffer the penalties if Google or any other search engines applies one.
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      • Profile picture of the author DebbieD
        I agree with Wakunahum. Scamming and fooling people is unethical and wrong. Telling people one thing and delivering something else is wrong. Hacking people's sites is also wrong and unethical.

        But giving people what they're actually searching for, i.e. honestly selling them stuff they want to buy - I don't see that as being unethical at all.

        By doing SEO, you might not follow all of Google's rules, but that's not unethical. You're not fooling or scamming anyone.

        Heck, (almost) all of the sites that rank highly do the same thing - just some do it better!
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