It’s been a rough day today with a couple highlights in between.

First there was the fight with ctabuk, actually that was the only rough part of the day other than one of my affiliate accounts dropping off for some reason or another.

The fight has given me something to blog about so that makes it worthwhile and it has caused me to get off my butt and start working on my forum again.

I got complemented by an SEO I have a lot of respect for today and that meant a lot to me. And I had two other people David Leonhardt and Brian Mark (who redesigned his website without me) whom I have a lot of respect for leave comments on my blog, which also means a lot. Yet for some reason I feel depressed and am having a hard time pushing through the day and it’s actually been a good day.

With all that being said I’d like to post a couple things that are on my mind. During the fight with ctabuk he brought an old post I made and quoted me on it (for reasons that had nothing to do with anything) and I’d like to talk or rather write about that for a moment.

Here’s what I said,

Spammers Are Good For Your Blog and Forum

I’m just a girl yet I’ve been called a black hat SEO as well as a spammer no less than 3 times this week. Seems that so-called white hat SEO’s call anything that might cause them a little extra thought a black hat and or a spammer.

They’ve gone so far as to say that if you post on a blog or forum with the sole purpose of the backlinks then you’re a spammer. When I pointed out that all my posts are good they pointed out that it makes no difference. What matters is where your mind is when you’re making the post. Are you thinking about the backlinks or helping others.

Kind of like Google saying if you do anything to your site with the intentions of a higher ranking then you are a blackhat. Your intentions seem to play a big part on rather your blackhat or a white hat. I figure these must be church going folks as I remember something similar coming from the preacher when I was growing up.

I’ve got no problem with going along with being a black hat and or a spammer. It’s got to mean something good as I look back at my track record. Spammers bring good to both forums and blogs.

Let me explain

Chances are if you own a blog and or a forum and have lots and lots of people posting on them, the posters that seem the most knowledgeable and the most willing to help, are spammers. Their hope is to make a post good enough to drive both links and traffic to their site.

Before I got burned out on the whole forum thing I was getting at least 3 to 4 emails a week from people asking me to be a moderator on their forum and I was moderating on about 10 different forums already. Webproworld was one of the hottest forums online at that time and I was starting more post that got higher responses than anyone else. And at the time I knew nothing about SEO but was making a killing off the forums.

I was what most forums needed. As time went on I got really good at understanding how to get a site ranked but got burned out on the forums. Many people have accused me of being a spammer even though I rarely ever linked to my own sites. And as I left those forums I’ve noticed most of them have died down quite a bit. I like to think it’s because I’m no longer posting on them but it’s likely something totally different. Either way my point is this isn’t church and what we are thinking when we make a post or leave a comment doesn’t mean crap.

That was the comment I left that Ctabuk wanted to quote me on. It had nothing to do with the thread however he seemed to think it proved something or another. I’m about to try and get my forum going again and as I went through some recent topics, I told one of the guys to add his signature link to help him get some backlinks and traffic to his site.

I’ve got no problem with him getting something out of posting on my forum. As a matter of fact if he wants to post on it every day I’ll give him a banner ad throughout the whole forum. The forum owner gets something out of every post made on his forum, well almost every post, and I’ve got no problem returning the favor.

There is too much competition out there for people to think they can play God and from what I’ve seen people seem to be moving away from these forums in hopes of finding something were people appreciate them being a member.

Ctabuk

I find it funny that any forum would allow a moderator to be a moderator that lacks the understanding of the simplest of things. When I design a site I try to get as much input on the design as I can, it’s about conversion and what will get the best response from the end user.

I’m not afraid to ask for opinions because at the end of the day it’s about how much money a design will make for my clients. If my clients are making money off my work they’ll come back for more.

I did a design on a site back in August and asked for a review on one of the forums. I got my review made some changes and went on my way. However, in December the site was making around $160,000.00 per month and I wanted to try and get it to $200, 00.00 per month coming into the New Year. Without the client asking I did a total redesign of the site and before going to the client with the site decided to once again hit the forums and get some opinions.

I was immediately attacked by a moderator on the forum who claimed I had already asked for a site review for that same site. Common sense should have set in as he could tell they were two totally different sites by the conversations going on in the two threads.

However, I showed him from a screen shot that they were two totally different designs. To my surprise he lacked the understanding that a design could change and the URL remains the same.

He does not that I can take a website that is located at http://wristbands.geeksonsteroids.com and make the site look totally different yet the url remain http://wristbands.geeksonsteroids.com. Don’t believe me, check the thread out here Ctabuk.

The guy lacks a total understanding of how the internet works.