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Comment by mattezell | Hacker News Reader

"...hop on Fiverr and buy tons of terrible links all pointing at your site and your rankings all the sudden drastically drop because your site is now viewed as spam..."

I saw this very thing happen in real life, actually... though it wasn't a competitor...

A well meaning team member on a project which I was previously affiliated with decided "Hey, I know how we can get this project some exposure! FIVERR!"...

Yes, I know that there are better, less shady, approaches to generating traction, but we will just blame inexperience and a temporary lapse in judgement for the expensive lesson in negative SEO...

Long story short, weeks of organic link building and organic service/site promotion were completely obliterated within 72hrs of $20 worth of Fiverr backlink purchases...

Needless to say, so far as I know, the team only uses 100% whitehat approaches for site and product promotions now...

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I know plenty of people who know just enough to be dangerous like that -- they know that links are the one of the main factors in rankings and then get tunnel vision in increasing linking domains.

"Boy that 1000 links for $5 sure seems a lot more efficient than the slow, organic process of building up a resourceful, industry-relevant blog!"

> weeks of organic link building

There is no such thing as organic link building. It is either organic or you're building links.

Orly? Thanks for the "correction"?

I guess that I, along with countless others (http://goo.gl/W1P69), have just been ignorantly using a fictional term that nicely summarizes the concept that we are trying to convey - i.e. "the building up of back-links via non-automated, traditional routes - such as those stemming from legitimate interations with other businesses and clients"...

Thanks, pal.

I don't particularly care what you call it. Back-links that were placed at your behest are spam to me.

Ah, I got you... So you were stating your personal opinion on back-links, rather than stating a factual observation about organic back-links being similar to unicorns...

You're stance definitely makes more sense as an opinion - unlike factual statements, opinions afford space for both fact and fallacy (i.e. "it is either organic or you're building links.")...

When stating things in a matter of fact manner ("...There is no such thing as organic link building..."), it tends to lead people to believe that you are debating the legitimacy of some point they've made...

Thanks for clearing up the confusion...

The confusion is in your head, but I doubt I'm going to dispel it. Google managed to improve over altavista because it used something that wasn't abused by spammers yet: links. As soon as spammers (like you) realized that they could game the system once again and reduce search to a game of who most effectively manages to spoil the soup by introducing untold billions of meaningless backlinks into the game page-rank's days were numbered. So now we're more or less back where we started.

I personally don't think there is a metric that you could come up with that can't be gamed but it saddens me that the quality of the web is spoiled in such a crass way. Props to google for trying to combat it. I wish you much good luck at breaking some more windows.

Pardon me, Jacques, but why is that you are now resorting to baseless and unfounded personal attacks against me (aside from the obvious: "When your argument is shown to be invalid: 1)resort to name calling in order to confuse the topic 2) _____ 3)PROFIT!!!")?

"Spammers like me"? I've never used this tactic nor ANY other 'blackhat' SEO tactic - please check your facts (I know, I know... I've gathered thus far that this task may prove to be a difficult exercise for you - flying off the cuff and making unfounded accusations is far easier)...

I did however provide an anecdotal account of someone that I knew that had used this tactic - which I characterized as 'inexperienced' and as a 'lapse in judgement'... Furthermore, not that it really matters in the court of Jacques, I did voice concerns to the team when I learned this approach was being considered by a team lead.

I do believe that this practice is bad for the web and that any site proven to have used it should be hit in their SEO ranking.

This said, I am not confused on any of the points that you or I have made... I do however believe that you are correct on one point - you are likely incapable of dispelling anything currently present in my head on this topic... From our interaction here, I have gathered that your intent isn't to further discussion, to clarify a confused point or to factually correct an incorrectly stated claim - in short, your intent would merely appear to be 'trolling'. So... Congratulations on your success! You win the trolling Internets!

Let us recall this failed attempt at rational discourse - I provided a cautionary tale which related to the original post. You decided that it was your job as keeper of the interwebs to correct a statement that I had made - a statement which was already correct and so did not merit correction. When confronted with the reality that no correction was needed, instead of conceding or clarifying any confused points, you decided to continue to argue against a point which was never made ("derp. I don't care what you call it, even if you do use the common and widely accepted vernacular, I am right and you are a stoopidhead spamming me!") - moving away from the corrective form of your first comment to an opinion-based prose in your 2nd (using the correct conversational form finally, though still largely failing to make any valid or related points)... And finally, when all else failed, you resorted to a personal and baseless attack against me in calling me a spammer...

Jacques, I really do hope that you have a wonderful day... and I do hope that you are able to find that bug - just a hint, I don't think it's in your code... it's possible that it's of the posterior variety...

Anecdotes about spammers abound, nobody actually spams, go figure. But lots of people talk about their spammer friends and accidents and defend spamming practices but of course they'd never think of spamming themselves.

Let me know which company would let a junior team member spend any money at all, let alone on buying link spam in the name of the company without some higher up ok'ing it.

" I, along with countless others (http://goo.gl/W1P69), have just been ignorantly using a fictional term that nicely summarizes the concept that we are trying to convey - i.e. "the building up of back-links via non-automated, traditional routes - such as those stemming from legitimate interations with other businesses and clients""

Strongly suggests you do more than just talk about it, it sounds like typical SEO marketing drivel.

Wow... Just wow... Clearly you, my friend, are a very special individual...

Let us just go ahead and reiterate this for the readers: Jacques incorrectly attempted to correct the usage of a commonly used phase and when confronted with this reality, he/she/it has derailed the discussion in an effort to assert it is about something that it was never intended to be about... Bad form and not constructive, mate.

So, now on to your dribble...

1) "People always say they didn't do something when they did - so clearly you're a spammer"... Man, your logic is so watertight you should patent it as "The Holey Bucket"(I'll give you that gem for free!) - with idiots clearly abound, you'll be rich in no time!!! Or perhaps you should go into business as a legal prosecutor - surely, every judge and legal expert will agree with your line of reasoning... (facepalm)

2) "would let a junior team..." - I've already indicated that this was a 'team lead', though I am not terribly surprised by your inability to read and comprehend...

3) A google link to the results page showing widespread usage of the term that you've been arguing doesn't exist ("organic link building") and a summary of the concept, derived from the common sense interpretation of the words that were strung together, somehow shows that I am in reality an expert spammer??? (mind blown)... Wow... Just wow... Thanks for the tip, man - You're full of gems! I think I may quit dev and just start talking about being rich all the time as all one clearly needs to do, according to you, is provide commonly known, widely documented and highly accessible details in order to be an expert on something... EFFFFFF YEAHHHHHH!!!! http://goo.gl/6nKaZ - lemme go check my back account!!! WOOT!!!! IMMA BILLIONAIRE!!!!

As a backend banking software developer (who's previously dabbled in custom banking, medical and legal document web applications... who's SEO experience could be summarized with 'pretty urls', 'h1' and using page titles), I can definitively say with complete honesty and integrity that you are about as far off the reservation as one can get with your continued assertions - i.e again, and for the final time, you are wrong... completely, 100%, without a grain of correctness, flat out wrong... and I stand by my original hypothesis that you are a blowhard who really cares less about being correct and more about 'winning'... Which, in my opinion, is a worse person than most spammers (WHO DO SUCK) - someone hell bent on ignoring simple truths and reality to just try and 'win'... Lame..

Again, best of luck with your bug...

Interesting. Look, if you're not into spamming stop using terms like 'organic link building' as though they are somehow normal use of the words. To me organic link building is a thing only an SEO 'expert' would use as though those things have a normal meaning. People that are just focusing on the content of their website and that are being run into the ground by the SEO crowd with joe jobs and other nasties are definitely not busy with 'organic link building', but the SEO crowd is. There was a time when links were organic in the sense that the whole web was held together by those links because that's what the web was, a set of pages held together by links.

Then google came along, the SEOs spoiled it for the rest of us with their 'organic link building' campaigns and that was that. "Oganic" in this context means nothing more than 'unpaid', and even that is a quite a stretch judging by the number of requests I get to place such links (obviously, they're very organic and the payment is just a token compensation for my time, even if it is recurring and the amounts offered suggest there is more to it than that.).

The better meaning for that set of words - which you apparently don't subscribe to - is that 'organic' means 'natural', in other words, links that you, the site owner, have nothing to do with, and that therefore you can not be building.

If you're not into spamming and if your SEO experience is as limited as you say it is then get off your high horse, stop using typical spammer terminology that creatively redefines words that had a perfectly good usage before the SEO crowd came along and call it a day.

Lest you get into this territory:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_lady_doth_protest_too_much,...

> The better meaning for that set of words - which you apparently don't subscribe to - is that 'organic' means 'natural', in other words, links that you, the site owner, have nothing to do with, and that therefore you can not be building.

Not quite nothing to do with: crafting content with the intent that people encountering it would be prone to link to it, so that site owners (and SEO firms working on their behalf) wouldn't need to engage in out-of-band link promotion to get the links, would seem to be organic link building, in that it proceeds naturally from the content rather than via separate efforts.

True, you could construe that as such. But I think that the real distinguishing factor should be that the links themselves are there to establish proximity between nodes in the graph of the web, not the secondary effects on page rank in a search engine.

Ohhhh, ok.. I got you.. So, 'organic farmers' just happen across natural fields of tomatoes and lettuce that animals have just been politely saving their poo for?!!!? Damn, dude - I never knew!!! That's so awesome!!! Heck, I think I want to be an organic farmer now that I know they don't actually have to do anything - it being 'natural' and all... That's so awesome - I never knew that's what 'organic' and 'natural' really meant... You're just so awesome - I am serious about patenting your logic... You clearly have it all figured out, with your accusations against strangers on the Internet and all, and I'm telling you, man, "The Holey Bucket" is GOLD! Just remember us little guys...

"...stop using terms like 'organic link building'..."

Na, I think I am just going to keep on trucking and just start ignoring argumentative, condescending know-it-alls a bit better... starting with you...

Lest you get into this territory: http://goo.gl/j7f1v

Links that represent real-world relationships are not meaningless, because a human being decided to create them. Those are exactly the sort of real-world "votes" that Page Rank is supposed to key off of.

I agree fully with this sentiment - this is the very concept that was intended to be encapsulated by the phase "organic link building"...

It's valid and valuable to have these sorts of links and they are very relevant when factoring SEO weight.

If a developer writes a web application for a client, links to the client's application from his portfolio page and then the client, so happy with his product, links back to the developer.. Well, this is exactly how the world should operate... and a large part of how SEO should be factored, imho. This didn't just magically happen - the developer and the client both had a role in the creation of these links, which will factor into their ranking... And while people 'had their hand in this creation' and despite the fact that this 'benefits' both parties, I consider this 'organic link building'...

But then again, it would appear that I am clearly spammer as has been demonstrated by the indisputable evidence presented in this thread and so am likely not to be trusted...

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