[jermaustin1]

a better approach is dynamically generated css, absolute positions and randomized html output. In my SEO days, I wrote a tool to do this exact thing for a different reason.

We had a network of sites, and they all looked the exact same to the user, but to google, each site had a completely different structure, and it kept the network safe for years before a google employee (or we assumed google employee - @google.com email) signed up for the service without us knowing, and discovered the entire network by placing a large order which gave him links across the entire network. Within 1 week of them signing up, our entire network of 10k domains was dead, and everything they linked to was delisted from google. We had to shut down the network, and refund all unused credits from our customers.

[nickelpro]

Is rule 1 of trying to game PageRank not to avoid Google email addresses?

[jermaustin1]

I didn't say I was smart. Also if you block @google emails you will just get them signing up with another email address, so why even try to block them. And once they pay for a service, you cant not deliver, because that would constitute fraud.

We tried to just fly under their radar, and avoid any automated trigger that would arouse their suspicion.

[jfk13]

And your conscience still allowed you to sleep at night?

All this seems like a nice illustration of how the web ecosystem encourages parasitic behavior on so many fronts. It's sad.

[jermaustin1]

What do you mean? We sold links on websites filled with unique content we paid for...

We were masking those domains from google because google penalizes selling backlinks to justify paying for their ads. My conscience is quite clear. When google delisted our network, we refunded our customers and moved on to a smaller invite only network that ran well for years. I left that company 6 or 7 years ago, but I'm sure they are still making some money off hosting and managing private blog networks.

[konjin]

> And your conscience still allowed you to sleep at night?

The average American endorses slavery in their clothes, Christmas decorations and electronics. By comparison creating some bad links in a search engine is so low on my list of moral failings it doesn't even register.

[RandoHolmes]

endorses is too strong a word here. I get your intent, but as an American I don't endorse anyone having slavery in their supply line.

[ilovetux]

I agree, perhaps "facilitates" might be a better fit

[ValentineC]

> And once they pay for a service, you cant not deliver, because that would constitute fraud.

Underperform, and then offer them a goodwill refund if they ask for it?

[jermaustin1]

SEO is already to snake-oily to do something like that. We had principals, we did our best for our customers and our clients. If we did fail in trying our best at least we could sleep knowing we weren't actively trying to screw over our paying customers.

[spicybright]

That's so awesome lol