My favorite part is the paragraph, “Sorry, we’re just tired of the ridiculous oversimplification of a complicated issue. It never stops. People just can’t wait to pin easy talk-show labels on every one of these stories. But look a little closer the next time you come up for air. They don’t all fit.” Then you go read the comments section and most people miss this statement all together.

I only tend to take any notice of what Google talks about in its own Webmaster guidelines, which I’m presuming you’ve read with all the bluster being talked about SEO.

If not, here’s a link to what they have to say about linking.

My only accusation is that the linking patterns that this particular contest encouraged appear to bend or break a number of them. That’s it. I fear the big G.

As for your protestations about gaming contests……..what’s that about? Some Freudian slip?

And thank you for the head’s up on the comment subscription thing. We’ve only just moved this blog over to Wordpress and are still ironing a few kinks out. Still, better to have a slightly squiffy comments notification system than to hide behind private forum posts.

But, it’ll have to wait until Monday morning as it’s snowing and I’ve got to do a spot of Christmas shopping.

Have a lovely weekend.

Darren ran a contest on his blog. Darren does lots of those. Geoff entered. He wasn’t given any preferential treatment (no offence to geoff, but if we were going to “game” contests, we’d do it with larger and more profitable blogs. Geoff was one of the winners (decided, I believe, by a panel of judges).

For winning, he got links. from those links, he got pingbacks. As a way of saying thanks, he accepted those.

Forgive me if this sounds snarky, but I don’t get the connection from that to any kind of misdeed on b5’s, darren’s or geoff’s part. And nobody with any knowledge of seo would say this is blackhat (which is, by definition, all about exploiting vulnerabilities in a deviant manner).

Now if you have problems with network interlinking, feel free to bring that as well. But I’d encourage you to use my email first, as you’ll find we’ve been the most aggressive network on the planet in terms of creating healthy, topical interlinking programs that go well beyond what even the mainstream media does.

Again, if you have accusations, bring’em, but make sure to bring data as well.

And, since the comment notification system here is fubar’d, email me when you do so I can set you straight

It appears as though you’re quite the stranger to ProBlogger writing projects versus “black hat SEO” – I tend to think your focus is more along the lines of damning people who appear to be doing something you don’t like right off the cuff, rather than realize that it’s not just Geoff or Darren, or even the other bloggers involved in the writing project who are doing things this way. It’s the way WordPress handles trackbacks and the way Geoff chooses to give back to those who thought enough to link to him by allowing the trackbacks to appear. There’s no black hat (or even white hat) SEO involved here.

As an SEO myself, I’m all too familiar with the kinds of people who just flat out think that SEO is a scam or full of black-hatters. In this case, you’re way off base, and I think you should probably do the right thing (because you now know, and have admitted yourself that you were wrong) and post a retraction for the statement you made about Geoff.

Rather than try to defend your incorrect assumptions, that is.

Was the competition not run by Darren Rowse, a vice-president and founder of b5media?

And does Geoff not write his blog for b5media?

Also, has Darren not run more than one or two of these types of competitions?

With all the reciprocal linking (considering Darren promised two reciprocals for each entrant and one or two out of the 893 who participated linking to each other) and the odd bit of network cross-linking going on, you could possibly equate it to link building on steroids.

But I’m not sure any amount of reputation management is going to rehabilitate the images of these individuals for some time.

As far as folk pinging with the same words, the reason’s obvious if you just click around:

Every post linked just copies and pastes Darren’s list. Since that list includes Geoff’s post, each pingback will look exactly the same to WordPress.

While I’m quite biased (as Geoff’s “boss”), his approving bloggers who linked to him is totally the right call.

Now, if this happened every day or week we could question Geoff’s motives or whatnot. But making an out and out claim that another blogger is engaging in back hat tactics is not only mean, it’s uninformed. A few minutes of research would have shown what I saw: a lot of blogs copying a list of posts.

All the best with your continued blogging and success, just please feel free to click around a bit before posting something as damning as “black hat SEO”. It’s like me saying you’re obviously working withe mob because your standard of living suddenly increases, even though you do the same job you did last week – when the real reason is your uncle died and left you $$$.

Question my motives if you must, but let the record show that there is nothing underhanded going on here. I don’t know a way to prove this beyond giving you my word but there it is.

Having said that, I still argue that you are – either inadvertently or advertantly (is that a word?) – trying to game the system. In each of the 28 pingbacks, the same comment is listed each time: “Five Unforgettable Roger Clemens Moments by Geoff Young”. That makes it seem like people are in some weird linking scheme. I don’t know, maybe that’s just a byproduct of ProBlogger’s Top 5 Contest, but it sure doesn’t look like it’s on the up and up.

Also – maybe it’s something with our system, but I’m curious why the portion of this post wouldn’t show up in your pingback. Is that because I don’t have the same text?

Regardless, it’s a shame in either case, because I really enjoyed your post and think it’s a great list that stands on its own merit.