Is Black-Hat SEO Illegal? [ANSWER HERE]

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WizIMS

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So I saw that this question appears a lot in many forums that I usually visit, therefore I decided to give my thought about ti.


Black-Hat SEO is usually legal.

For example, in real life, picking flowers isn?t illegal, however, if you pick a lot of flowers from someone?s yard, that can make him mad, and he can actually sue you.

So when a webmaster participate in Black-Hat activities, he is usually just not following the other website?s Terms of Use, and that isn?t necessarily illegal. But if the other website decided to file a complaint against him, he can actually do that (Civil Complaint).
 
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Blackhat isn't 'illegal' unless it involved theft. Blackhat SEO would involve using loopholes, tricks, secrets, code, etc. to get the Search Engines (the SE in SEO) to rank your domain/page/whatever highly.

What was considered 'blackhat' 4-6 years ago is commonplace now. Most of the stuff from back then doesn't work anymore, which is why the scam artist BS WSO sellers are now selling it, of course. :D
 
You're not taking anything from them, you're giving them a comment on their site for free.

You should be able to sue them.
 
I'm not an expert in SEO but isn't it more like planting another plant, sometimes a sunflower between roses, in others' gardens?

I think it depends on what a specific website is saying about breaking their TOS.
 
mark27 said:
You're not taking anything from them, you're giving them a comment on their site for free.

You should be able to sue them.
Click to expand...

Haha. I'll prepare a list of sites who I can sue for removing my comment.
 
It's like saying driving is illegal...

It's how you drive that keeps you inside the law or not. 'Black hat' is NOT a definition; it's an idea that means different things to different people. For the majority of us, it just means aggressive SEO with some level of spamming and working around the big boys TOS.

It's not about shafting each other or hurting the little guy; we're all trying to make a living.

To some though, BH means hacking, fraud, illegal activity etc.

For me, I'd rather be able to sleep at night and know that my day was about building my business, rather than trying to burn someone else's down or hurt anyone in the process.
 
Agreed. Blackhat seo may be unethical at times perhaps, but there is a clear cut line that distinctively separates it from being illegal at all, unless we're talking about all the awesome "illegal" downloads shared here :D
 
its not illegal u only use tools and tactics
i dont see nothing ellegal on that really
 
Google states in its TOS that placing backlinks in order to rank higher in the search results artificially (on purpose) is a breaking of its TOS, and thus blackhat. By this definition, All SEO is blackhat. Blackhat is kind of like the word Thuggish. You can stand on the corner looking thuggish, and be a part of an even larger group of thuggish individuals that by sheer magnitude of persona, get respect and play on that respect from within the community around you, even getting away with not playing nice by societies rules and benefiting from it. However, if you or your buddies carry it too far, and start to violate the local, state, national, or International legislation through intimidation or deceit (non FTC compliant websites), selling drugs(pharma), or racketeering (yes, I am thinking of you MegaUL inc), then your blackhat activities then become illegal, and the authorities will then consider those that associate with you "gang members".

You can play the game, but if you are doing illegal activity, being behind a VPS is just like havin the btCH hold the dopE.

Breaking the rules of the city park will most likely just get you kicked out of the park, but breaking the law will get you locked up.

That being said. Offshore baby, Offshore. But they've build Predator drones for that!!
 
timothywcrane said:
Google states in its TOS that placing backlinks in order to rank higher in the search results artificially (on purpose) is a breaking of its TOS, and thus blackhat.
Click to expand...
If google chooses to index my site and then rank it in accordance to their
algorithms, then who the fuck are they to say I broke their TOS?
I didn't force myself on them. I might be placing backlinks because it
makes my edick bigger.
 
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Nothing wrong with it at all. Whole world needs to toughen up a bit.
 
Its manipulative,

if you manipulate something which is related to money or finance,than its illegal.

So yeah black hat is illegal.. indirectly.
 
That's interesting. This is my first time here. Hope I will learn more about Black Hat SEO.

WizIMS said:
So I saw that this question appears a lot in many forums that I usually visit, therefore I decided to give my thought about ti.


Black-Hat SEO is usually legal.

For example, in real life, picking flowers isn?t illegal, however, if you pick a lot of flowers from someone?s yard, that can make him mad, and he can actually sue you.

So when a webmaster participate in Black-Hat activities, he is usually just not following the other website?s Terms of Use, and that isn?t necessarily illegal. But if the other website decided to file a complaint against him, he can actually do that (Civil Complaint).
Click to expand...
 
Its not illegal, illegal is illegal not blackhat lol.... It's just unethical and some people will steer clear of it for that reason.
 
It's not "illegal" at all. And it's only "unethical" if you are spamming. If your approach increases the amount of good content on the web, that is a good thing not bad.
 
Stop saying it's not illegal!

Let people think that, less competition for us.
 
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