"The ambatchdotcom world SEO contest is being dominated by keyword stuffing content scrapers. The #2 person is running a Google Blogger blog, ironically. All his post titles include the words "ambatchdotcom seocontest". The posts themselves are mostly thin material covering new participants in the contest.

Other participants aren't any better of course."

Read the full post on the ambatchdotcom SEO contest's lessons concerning SEO.

I'd paste the whole thing, but my blog isn't being crawled frequently enough yet (once every week-10 days), so I want to make sure the original content is found there first.

Very interesting.

However, you seem to be down on the use of Bold and Italics on Keywords. I do not see that as blackhat. I've always been told that is a good thing to do for SEO.

Whitehat / Blackhat whatever. I personally don't see a problem with either. The act of doing SEO in general means your trying to influence to engines. And since their are no laws against either side I would say it's fair game, some will get caught some won't and some will be caught doing nothing.

To each his own.

black hat works... short term.
long term, you're only hurting your self.

for a contest that ends so soon, i would be balck hatting it up too

I've heard about this contest, though I won't be participating. Good luck.

I'm not down on bold and italics. I'm down on their use out of context. They're usually used to put emphasis in a sentence, or for titles... when you're writing gibberish though, it's sketchy to use bold/italics because you may as well bold/italicize anything.

On a related note, I'll be discussing this contest and analyzing what's going on in the first issue of my newsletter, due out August 1st. sign up at cityseo.blogspot.com (click my sig link)

You do what you have to do to win, I think the contest is all in good fun. Blackhat or not, the top 3 still are good.

I agree people are doing what they gotta to win ... my problem is with the impression it gives newbs.

Originally Posted by Bookworm-SEO

I agree people are doing what they gotta to win ... my problem is with the impression it gives newbs.

There problem not yours - unless you consider yourself a newb.

Originally Posted by Lpspider

There problem not yours - unless you consider yourself a newb.

I consider myself willing to help newbs lol :P

I just entered this contest you don't need much content to list for google just a good domain name I got ambatchdotcomseocontest.co.uk
google loves it when the domain matches the keyword search check it out it will soon be page 1 for ambatchdotcom seocontest

seo contests are all held within short periods of time, the terms are not recognized as really hard terms by Google. So yeah, black hats have a major advantage. But if the contests were held over a 1-2 year period, things would be looking very differently IMO.

547,000

http://www.google.com/search?q=ambat...en-US:official

iam already into this contest and won #3 last month

I have just entered, my first try at any of these seo contests. $100 would be very very nice . Im aiming for a top 10 ranking.

Anyway on topic: i dont see the problem with blackhat for this. I mean they are not trying to attract visitors, they are trying to win a competiton. I mean who is going to search for ambatchdotcom seocontest for any other reason than checking the SERPs for the contest. People wont search the term for information

I got 50$ lol
After 2 hours of me announncing the 3rd winner i was at #2.
Missed the extra 50$ lol

lol, way to go amit