I received an review copy of Professional Search Engine Optimization with PHP: A Developers Guide to SEO by Jaimie Sirovich (AKA SEO Egghead) and Christian Darie the other day and it has been sitting on my desk waiting to be opened ever since. Having recently started a few new contracts, I don’t get much time for reading books these days. Or eating, or sleeping… I digress. But I do seem to have time to read blogs, and one of the not-so-prolific-but-often-insightful blackhat blogs I read did a post today about the book. All white, gray and black-hat SEOs should be reading blackhat blogs and forums for their own knowledge.

By the way Quadzilla, I hope you don’t mind that I’m using your cover. I liked it better than the original and think it would win in an A:B split test. Might as well go multivariant and introduce a new title: SEO - How THIS Guy Got to Hook Up With THESE Girls! Now YOU Can Do It TOO! Peppering pictures of Shoemoney and friends throughout the book couldn’t hurt either.

To make a long story short, the SEO Blackhat blog post inspired me to start reading at least one chapter from the book right away so I could post about it. I did, after-all, receive a free book. Is that the same as buying a link? Quick, someone call the Google Police!

In a fitting tribute to the inspiration, I decided to read Chapter 8: Black Hat SEO and title this blog entry “SEO with PHP Book Helps Protect You From Evil Blackhats“.
Yes, that’s right. SEO with PHP helps protect you from evil blackhats like… the New York Times, which, as you probably already know, is cloaking. They show Google, MSN and Yahoo the full article, but only show you and I a log-in page, unless we’ve already been logged in. Other websites cloak to show different users from different parts of the world a geo-targeted message, such as a fitness center chain based in California saying “We Now Have Two Centers in Ohio - Click here for locations!” on their home page when the user’s IP address is from Ohio. From a user’s standpoint, this is great. And it would no doubt increase the site’s conversion rate from Ohio visitors. Everyone wins! Except Google, who’s guidelines leave no room for ambiguation - Cloaking is Bad… unless you’re the New York Times.

Knowing, however, that Blackhats really CAN be evil little bastards - having just had one of my forums hacked and hardcore porn pictures plastered all over the site (never use PHPbb!) - I was glad to see the book also talked about the more nefarious uses of blackhat tactics, such as HTML insertion: Ever see a link to a Phentermine or Porn site from a respected .edu domain? That’s usually HTML insertion. I was also glad to see straightforward, easy to understand instructions on how to protect your site from this sort of attack with exactly six short lines of php code (see page 178-179).

One thing I didn’t see, however, is how to know if you have already been a victim of a successful HTML or SQL injection attack. Google supplies some of this info IF you create a webmaster tools account, upload a verification file, and check back a few days later. Lucky for you, MSN makes it super easy: Go to search.msn.com, and do a search for linkfromdomain:yourdomain.com . Now you can see all of the link coming out of your domain. If any go to PPC (Pills, Porn and Casino) sites there might be a problem.

Although PHP is not my usual forte and I have only had time to read this one chapter so far, I do recommend the book to anyone who calls his/herself an “SEO,” anyone who is in charge of maintaining a PHP-based website, and PHP developers who want to greatly increase their marketability to, and understanding of, SEOs.

Lastly, anyone who still thinks SEO is all about Titles, meta tags and content - unless your goal is to rank a used furniture store on the south side of a small city, you’re in for a rude awakening. That is why I advise anyone and everyone, regardless of the color of your hat, to read blackhat blogs and join blackhat forums, not because you should use these tactics, but so you’re not totally in the dark when they are used by your competition, or to exploit your website. Furthermore it, like the book above, will give you a greater appreciation of the technical complexity involved in competitive webmastering.