In Defense of Hats: White, Gray, Black and Blue

There has been quite a bit of talk lately about the resurgence of gray and black-hat panel discussions at the SMX Advanced conference held recently in Seattle. I posted a lengthy comment at the trail end of Matt Cutts’s post regarding the matter, but I felt that it deserved a little more attention. In short, any advanced SEO conference should not shy away from the full gamut of SEO techniques, regardless of the stigma attached. Black Hat is Beating You: Regardless of your position on the ethics of black hat techniques, it does not change the simple fact that these techniques exist in the wild and they are being employed by your competitors. If the only information you gather from a discussion on these techniques is how to identify and out those activities,...