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Is MetaWebs
White Hat or Black Hat?
 A
software release from SEO "expert" Nathan Anderson, claiming to offer "The First
White Hat Software Tool" has been met with some contempt. The program is supposedly
able to "(generate) non-foot-printable, traffic-generating-websites the search
engines absolutely love…"
Can products that generate web pages be considered white hat SEO? Discuss at
WebProWorld. |
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While this sounds like a doorway page generator, Anderson believes his product
is different because unlike doorway pages, "MetaWebs are likely to be bookmarked
and revisited because of their valuable content." Meaning his product creates
pages with actual content (for $249 a month, plus a $200 setup fee), while doorway
page generators just produce pages designed to trick search engines.
Doorway pages, as defined by About.com,
are "pages designed to be visible only by search engine spiders, and usually just
have blobs of keywords all over them." MetaWebs, on the other hand, "creates websites
that are highly optimized, formatted in php templates, and filled with live, active
content from my Meta search engine." Since people use the product to create pages
using Anderson's content, it seems like Anderson is the beneficiary, financially
and otherwise (a doorway for Anderson's sites?).
Reaction to the release of MetaWebs, especially its connotation as a White Hat
software tool, was met with disbelief and disdain in some circles. The criticism
revolves around the concept of spam ruining search engine results. Many feel that
SERPs have become overcrowded with spam sites and doorway pages. Furthermore,
some feel that page generators such as MetaWebs are to blame for the increase
in search engine spam.
 On
the IHelpYou
forums, Doug Heil initiated a post discussing the launch of MetaWebs and voiced
his displeasure. The first response to Doug's post was by Bernard, an IHY moderator,
who said, "How long will it be before Google's AdSense team starts cracking down
on AdSense accounts that are used on pages generated from keyword tools like this?"
While Doug feels that programs like MetaWebs "will be used for is spam. It will
leave the tracks necessary for Google to eventually detect the machine generation,
and then those pages or sites will be dropped." The point of those against MetaWebs
has to do with the software being called "white hat" because its an automation
tool and because of the misuse, software generated pages are not considered a
decidedly black hat technique. However, Anderson was present during this discussion
and defended his product throughout.
According to him, MetaWebs does have the potential to produce spam pages, but
that's not his fault. It's the fault of those that use his product to do so. This
point is made clearly by Anderson when he said, "…Especially if people don't customize
the pages that MetaWebs spits out. But if they think of MW as a site-building
tool, instead of a spam page machine, they should never have a problem.
It's up to the user as to how they use the software. You could churn out pages
using the advanced tools in Dreamweaver. Doesn't mean that Dreamweaver is bad
software." Anderson feels that he is "empowering the masses with something that
circumvents the SEO."
 This
point is quickly countered by Quadrille, who says, "no - you are helping spammers.
Small difference, I know - but when it comes to epitaphs, I know which I'd rather
have. You must do what you think is right; but please don't kid yourself you are
doing something good, because it stinks." Another point was made by a poster named
Mcanerin, who said, "It's a totally different thing altogether to market (MetaWebs)
as 'risk-free' and 'white hat' to people who don't know better. That's false advertising
at best and fraud at worst."
IHelpYou was not the only place discussing Anderson's new product. On Jill Whalen's
HighRankings.com
forum, they also had a topic devoted to MetaWebs. During this conversation,
Dan Thies also had issues with MetaWebs claiming to create sites that are "non-footprintable".
"I think he's going to have to change his sales letter to stop claiming that these
pages can't be footprinted. That's one claim that is definitely false. It took
me about 15 minutes to write a Google API script in PHP to fish these out of the
SERPs, starting with a very small list of seed terms (20 words). I stopped it
at 25 results, but it's like shooting fish in a barrel to find these "unfootprintable"
pages."
The question remains, is MetaWebs a benevolent tool for site construction and
promotion, or is it a black hat spam machine? What
do you think?
Comment on this
article in WebProWorld.
Chris Richardson
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Contributing
Authors: 2,310 |
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Are
You Utilizing All The Features Of Google Adsense?
 By
Merle
Many website owners know that Google's Adsense program is a great way to show
targeted ads on your site and make money at the same time.
Google offers many features that you may not know about. Let's take a look at
a few of them.
Colors: With built in color palettes, you can use Google's or create up to 100
of your own. You can pick up to four palettes that randomly rotate on your site.
Channels: If you use Adsense on multiple sites, it's nice to know which page and
domains are generating the most click thrus. Channels offer detailed reporting
so you can assign separate channels to each of your domains, track different ad
formats to see which sites/ads are pulling better.
 Read
the Full Article
About the Author:
Download Your Free Ebook or register for our E-course and learn how to market
and promote your site."50 Easy Ways to Promote Your Website" http://WebSiteTrafficPlan.com
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Thanksgiving is almost here!
Today's post comes from Joelt.
They have a few questions
that I'm hopping you can answer. It seems that they are going through all the
free directories and getting
links back to their site. While doing this they want to know if it's worth
the effort. Think you can help Joelt out? Tell us your
thoughts at WebProWorld.
|| Rafael||
How
many Directory Links Do You Need?
By Joelt
I just spent the day adding one of my sites to free directories with a decent
Page Rank. Does each directory link add value to your link campaign? Do search
engines count directories as quality links? Is it necessary to get as many links
to directories as you can?
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"Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success."
- Christopher Lasch
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Do search engines penalize you if you have multiple domains
all redirecting to a single URL?
-jeannemalherbe
Comment
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Profile
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Inc. 880 Corporate Drive, Lexington, KY 40503
