I got back from PubCon 2009 in Las Vegas late last night, but my final day at the event surely left an impression on me.

I kind of talk about it in the video, but what I am referring to is Black Hat SEO.  And I’ll be honest, I do know a few things about this (not that I actually do much of it…I personally think there is just too much to lose), but the discussion on Rogue SEO or “Alternative” SEO (a.k.a. Extreme Black Hat SEO techniques) made me extremely fearful of just being on the internet these days!

Holy Smoke!  Are people actually doing this?  I did think the presentation was incredible, though.  (I don’t think I am going to be p%ssing off Ziv any time soon, though!).

But the importance of the Black Hat presentation was not to learn tricks to do it yourself (because, personally, I think most of them are illegal), but to understand what others may do to you, how to identify it and how (if possible) to protect yourself and your website.

Here are a few tips (But really, I am almost afraid to reveal too much here…I don’t want to give my competitors to many ideas!)…

1)  Audit Your Source Code

If you don’t know what I mean, you can look at the “raw HTML” of any site (including your own) by usually clicking View->Page Source (in Firefox) or View->Source (in Internet Explorer).  Now I realize that this may seem way advanced for some, but just understanding a little bit of HTML can go a long way!  (For TruGuru Members, be sure to watch my HTML 101 video!)

The purpose here is to briefly scan your source for anything “out-of-the-ordinary”.  I was amazed at how easy it is for someone to first hack into your site and second, the ways they can add backlinks to their own sites, illegally keyword stuff keywords (which aren’t seen by humans, but web spiders would be able to see, identify and flag) or even redirect/change your affiliate links, adsense code, etc.  For most people, this is extreme, but give it a quick look just in case!

2) Audit Your Backlinks

There are tons of tools (both free and pay) to use to check the backlinks you are getting to your website (doing a quick search in Yahoo and add “links:” in front of your domain is one of the fastest ways of doing this!).

What you are looking for here are lots of links from places your links should NOT be.  The motto is usually “gets lot of links, and we don’t care from where”…that is not necessarily true.  Too many links from the wrong places can hurt your ranking substantially.  Make sure someone is not doing this to you on purpose.

3)  Beware of Malicious Widgets!

Widgets, especially those in php, can make your websites very vulnerable.  I am not saying avoid widgets, but be weary of where you get them and what they are doing.  Most of them are reputable, but some are designed specifically with malicious intent (and is one of the easiest ways for a hacker to access, change and control your site!).

4)  Monitor Your Brand

This one is generally simple to monitor using things like Google Alerts or some type of Twitter Alert (I use Tweetlater for this).  Black Hat SEO artists may attack your brand by erroneously slamming your website or brand in places like forums and social media.  Just keep an eye on the use of your brand throughout the web.

5)  Follow Up On Hostile Communication/Emails

It seems that Black Hatter’s can be as slimy as Phishers.  They can send you emails from phony lawyers, phony vendors, even “mock” Google emails demanding that you close down your page and/or site due to infringements ranging from copyrights to trade-marks.  Before you start tearing things down, follow up and get the whole story!  It may be fake.

Scare you enough?  Well, that is not my point here.  And to be honest, the likelihood of any of these things would happen to you is rather remote, especially when starting out (seo black hat artists usually only focus their time and resources on websites that can really  make them a lot of money or get them a lot of traffic).  Still, there are simple ways of just monitoring your website and brand to prevent (or least identify) a black hat SEO attack before it kills your business!

It can happen!  Here’s a recent tweet from my buddy @socialrob (on Twitter):

Hope this helps, though!

cheers…matt

P.S. I did learn more, too, which I will share with you next week!  Lots of good gems from #pubcon!  Well worth the trip to Las Vegas (then again, when is Las Vegas NOT worth going to???)