Welcome to Black Hat (SEO)
February 2, 2007 – 6:50 am
That was not exactly what I expected to read in the comments after blogging about unexpected redirect page rank. But I guess one of the best and fastest ways to learn is from your own mistakes. But in my mistake there may be a lesson for any one.
It started with me trying to implement .htaccess redirects for links on one of my website, which is also powered by WordPress. As a result of implementing these redirects, I ended up with few that matched exactly the permalinks that have been on the website for about four months. Here is an exampple:
www.mysite.com/widget- existed before I started to implement the redirects.
Then I have created following .htaccess redirect:
redirect /widget http://www.myaffiliatelink.com
So as you can see this created a problem, because the redirect was created after my page was indexed in Google. Visitors who found my page in Google or other search engines, were being directed straight to a merchant site as soon as .htaccess redirect was created. This also explains why a link redirect had a page rank next to it when I checked the visual page rank. But this also a practice that falls into so called “Black Hat SEO”, and should be avoided.
I guess anyone using WordPress can run into a similar problem. Just make sure when creating .htaccess redirects you do not duplicate already existing permalinks and you will be fine.
Tags: Affiliate Marketing
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Thanks for heads up on Search Gator. I am using Spam Karma plugin on this blog and sometimes spam slips through.
Thanks for stopping by. SEO for me is neither an art nor a science, it just what it is SEO.
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Agree. As with each science there is a learning curve. I am just at the very beginnig for that learning process. :)
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I still think you are looking at it incorrectly. There is so much rubbish out there when it comes to SEO -- one of those things is black hat vs. white hat. Somewhere black hat got equated with bad/evil practices and white hat as noble do-gooders. That's crap. SEO is an art with a little bit of science to it. If it was pure science then everyone would be doing it. Do what works for you and if it mucks up, then learn from that lesson and try it again.
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