Agree and will finish by addressing this;

“That’s not personally what I advise anyone to do, and I’ve written about that time and time again. You also fail to understand that SEW is far more than our forums and always has been. Our visitors get more education than just reading forum posts.

While I don’t encourage people to spam, I ultimately think it’s a choice each person has to make. What exactly is spam can also vary from your own viewpoit”

It really depends on which posts they read at SEW. As I said, by giving spammers a platform, a voice in your forums and even allowing them to tout their wares (e.g spam page generator) in your forum you ARE condoning it.

I don’t buy into “What exactly is spam can also vary from your own viewpoit” either. It matters not what you, or I consider spam. One only has to read the guidlines to know what is considered spam.

BTW, I don’t agree with the way Doug H goes about the cause, but I DO agree with the cause.

My very long post explaining to Doug why he was premoderated and answering many of the usual accusations against me was deleted at IHY and remains so, Dave. You know this. I won’t rehash it further.

Yep, we delete posts at SEW when appropriate, usually for case of failing to follow our guidelines, such as not being rude to other members. It doesn’t matter what color your hat is. Such disruptive behavior isn’t allowed.

It’s insulting as always to be informed that I don’t care about the SEO industry. I do, and I think that’s self-evident. Neither have I ever encouraged people to spam. That’s not personally what I advise anyone to do, and I’ve written about that time and time again. You also fail to understand that SEW is far more than our forums and always has been. Our visitors get more education than just reading forum posts.

While I don’t encourage people to spam, I ultimately think it’s a choice each person has to make. What exactly is spam can also vary from your own viewpoint. BMW was actually pretty ticked that their hidden text was viewed as somehow misleading Google. You want a used BMW in Germany? Why do you care how you got to a page from BMW itself? That’s a strong argument. Weaker for someone who isn’t BMW, and that further illustrates the grayness of spam.

As for excusing Google for needing to keep spammers close, please. If you are a serious white hat, you’d better understand what the black hats are doing, if only to ensure you are protecting yourself and your clients from things you might not want to stumble into. In addition, black hats often have a very good understanding of when search engines are not working in the way they advertise. You can bury your head in the sand; I want people to be informed.

Basically, the search engines don’t deserve some type of free pass from the accusations you want to level at me. They take money from black hats who advertise. They give money to black hats that run their contextual program. They provide a forum of their own by listing things like black hat blogs. Matt’s personal blog will have black hat comments. Yahoo and MSN’s official blogs allow comments where black hats have taken part. Google’s blog will take trackbacks from black hat.

Allowing people to take part in a conversation is not the same as condoning a particular action. I’m sorry this simple but important point is lost on you. By this argument, we shouldn’t allow anyone to speak out against laws they think should be changed.

If you want to suggest that I’m like running a race hate forum by allowing black hats to speak, I’ll point a similarly overcharged analogy back at you. You not wanting to allow all parts of the SEO community to at least be able to participate in a discussion where some think the laws against them should be changed is like saying you’d prefer a segregated society where those of color shouldn’t speak against those laws. In short, to mirror your own words, by denying a platform you ARE condoning segregation.

Finally, my best argument has never been “well Google do it.” My best argument is what I’ve said time and again. Help educate people, be inclusive and trust that people can make their own decision.

I won’t keep getting it into you here on Matt’s blog, since it’s not really fair to him and his comments system. And I won’t keep getting into it with you and Doug at IHY because I’ve done that and done that and done that. I’ve expressed everything I can say time and again. You’ve got your views; I have mine. Enough said.

If others want to read more on the entire white hat/black hat debate, I’ll follow Joe’s lead and do a link drop:

http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/050706-074713

That summarizes plenty of heated but also well argued debate on white hat black hat issues on our forums over the years.

You don’t seem to care that many who attend, have little to no knowledge of SEO and see those speaking at these conferences as credible. Nothing could be further from the truth in reality in some cases! Could you imagine a medical conference where deregistered Doctors could speak. Imagine a building conference where deregistered builders are given a voice.

Google NEEDS to keep spammers close. As the saying goes, “keep your friends close and your enemies closer.” (notice the word enemies Danny?). However, forums (like yours danny) frequently allow spammers to give short-term black hat advice and even advertise their spam generating software. Heck, many of your moderators are even well known black hats.

This, to me, is like someone running a race hate forum but tries to maintain that he himself does not engage in race hate. The FACT is though, by supplying a platform and a forum you ARE condoning it.

Personally danny, it looks very much like you are a puppet to your advertisers. If your best argument is “well Google do it” I feel you are totally lost Danny.

http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=9912

Joe

Hi Matt, I’m really looking forward to meeting you and the rest of the search world that is able to make it to SES NYC. See you on Tuesday at the Pundits of Search session.

Brian M

I think you’ll find Matt has explained well why Google itself talks with spammers, has them around and so on over here:
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/christmas-truce-of-1914/

So it’s OK for Google but not OK for SES. Got it. Seriously, since the search engines have no problem continuing to interact with spammers (they don’t get booted from things like AdSense, for example), why pick on the conferences? You got a gripe, ask Google to ban Big Mouth from being an AdWords certified partner.

As for why SES might have black hats speak, I’ve explained that again and again to the good folks over at ihelpyou forums, where you are coming from. Just find my profile, and you’ll get all the ample explanations as to why I see a difference between involving different viewpoints and advocating spam. That’s assuming Doug hasn’t deleted my posts. That’s happened in the past.

Overall, if you’re doing search marketing, I think you should be well educated in the space. That can including knowing what the black hats are seeing and think. You might not like them, but the are a part of the search ecology and even sometimes a helpful part, as with the alarms they sounded over hijacking issues.

I’m bummed, I’ll be in AZ that entire week on business, and will miss all of SES. Enjoy the conference…that is, if you can wade through the Google-watchers to make it to any of the booths/sessions!

Later,

Mike