BlackHat SEO News & Reviews

Here’s a shot of my BlogRush stats:

Let’s analyze the BlogRush widget, now about one year after its initial release.

Here’s what BlogRush claims:

“a free service that was created to help bloggers solve their #1 need: More Readers For Their Blog.”

This has proven true. I have gotten free traffic and more readers for my blog from BlogRush.

“By adding the BlogRush Widget to a blog, a blogger can get instant distribution for their latest blog post titles across a network of related blogs.”

This is true as well, but since the quality control is tight, your feeds don’t get syndicated across as many blogs as you would hope for. I applied with a few very good white hat blogs that the BlogRush team turned down. In their efforts to control quality for the syndication, they err on the side of refusing too many blogs instead of wasting their members’ credits syndicating on spam blogs.

“Users can automatically refer others to BlogRush via special links on the widget, as well as through the promotion of a special referral URL they are given.”

This is good, since you can build your syndication credits through the roof with a lot of referrals. This is a good alternative to trying to set up a spam blog to build you more credits. Play the game right, just get tons of referrals.

Overall, BlogRush is a good free option to content network advertising. Since it is free, it’s nowhere nearly as sophisticated as Google Adwords or anything like that, but it works and it’s free. It also makes you part of a “club” of respected bloggers since BlogRush’s quality control is so strict.

BlogRush gets an 8/10 from me, since good free tools are hard to find these days.

Demonoid is one of those super controversial websites that the DMCA is always trying to shut down. Demonoid went down several months back but it’s really pointless to try and shut down these types of sites because new ones will always just spring up in its place. Demonoid is right up there with sites like The Pirate Bay that specialize in file-sharing.

NOT ALL FILE-SHARING IS ILLEGAL

Although people share things they really don’t have the right to do. We all remember the court case of Metallica against Napster that set a precedent against file-sharing…supposedly. It hasn’t done anything because with huge networks like Emule, WinMX, Limewire, etc, it’s like the war on terrorism. Yeah they engage in bad behavior and you can stop the program but not the principles.

Here’s a video interview about some of the developments in file-sharing on the internet:

Here’s a diagram that illustrates my opinion:

It’s not congruent with definitions to call file-sharing stealing, so I disagree with some of the courts. Canada permits downloads and as the man interviewed in the video above said, the market is ready to quit buying media and just download it. Itunes is a great example, and their files are pretty secure from sharing and copying. There’s always a way for the determined ones but most people respect the security measures built into the files.

Demonoid is a good place to hangout for this kind of thing because entrance is by invitation only, like a club or a secret society…ooo..ahh.. The owners also crack down on anything that pisses people off and they ban whoever invites the dweebs that screw around in there too so it’s definitely a trust-based membership.

What’s a torrent file? Check Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent

Out of all the file-sharing networks I’ve seen, Demonoid gets my best rating: 10/10

Here’s Michael Moore sharing his thoughts on file-sharing: (he thinks it’s cool!)

I’m already not much of a fan of ebooks, but I get really mad when some “guru” makes a super hyped up sales letter to sell an ebook that doesn’t really teach anything interesting or innovative. The Top Secret Magic Code is totally going on the shit list.

What’s the big secret? Apparently it’s the site Etology.com

Wait, so the author doesn’t actually have an interesting, original, piece of web code? Nope.

When I first saw this I thought “he sounds like he’s talking about cookie stuffing, but Clickbank would never approve that” so I was curious. What a waste. The “secret” is to sell 125×125 banners on your blog? WTF? That’s the secret? That is NO secret. What a scam.

Just to top off the sleaziness, the author says he bought a big fancy expensive car, and include a photo of the car, FROM THE WEB. Wow, genius! Now I can claim to have any car by snatching a picture of it off Google Images and pasting it into my ebook full of commonly-known marketing methods.

BIG THUMBS DOWN

The Top Secret Magic Code gets a whopping 0/10. That’s right. NO POINTS.

I usually find some redeeming qualities in products but this one had none. Totally inconsistent with the sales letter and scummy claims.

The Top Secret Magic Code is NOT RECOMMENDED!!!