Tonight I got an email from a fellow SEO asking me if I knew anything about this Secret SEO Forum. You can’t see, or do anything unless you’re a member, and you can only become a member with an invite from an existing member. (one of these members I know reads my blog 😉 )
I’ve seen this site a few times from looking at my log referals, but since I’m not a member, I can’t see what’s being said. Things like this seem "cool" in that there’s not many "publicly known" yet "private" SEO groups out there.
I know of another private group called "Webmasters in the Sun" that holds some pretty wild meetings from what I’ve heard, and again, the only way to get invited to their gatherings is to be invited by an existing member.
Are there other clubs you know of? Are you a member of a secret or private SEO club? Do you wish you were?
15 Responses
Jim,
Webmaster In The Sun isn’t really a private club. It’s more along the lines of a group of people that enjoy each others company a couple times a year in a real nice environment.
We would love to have you join us. 🙂
The “real” private forums are just that. They arent even talked about or acknowleged for the most part. secretseo doesn’t seem so secret when member nicks are plainly visible. Maybe a name change to sortasecretseo.com is in order. 🙂
Seems silly to me. Oh wait, I meant to say it is silly. Silly SEOs with their silly secret forums. While they’re having their silly secret discussions, I’ll be doing real SEO.
I know BlackSEO (in Russian). They have almost the same rules you described, Jim. Besides any new member should apply for entrance and pay $50… existing members vote with their pros and contras for him. I don’t even applied cause it’s vague for me what secrets they share there I may not know. That seems silly to me too 🙂
Excellent idea Jim! We should start our own secret, SEO Illuminati. You can be the Grand Wizard. We could have our own secret handshake and wear matching aprons and conical shaped Fez hats!
On second thought… It sounds kind of gay.
Hi Jim here is an idea. How about starting your own group of “secret seo” people who donate their time to worthwhile charities one charity at a time? But dont make it so secret 🙂
Perhaps “White hat seo angels” or “Seo angels”
This way people can still play Jill and James bond and help some people out. They can still meet party, etc.
ok I am done preaching and hope you consider this seriously.
PS Yep I have a few charities in mind.
Steve
I had someone approach me about psychedelicSEO as a possible group….but that’s a secret that never launched…..yet….so keep that a secret still 😉
I guess my IM list is kinda my “Secret SEO Club”.
I feel lucky to have some of the best minds in SEO on my IM list(mostly yahoo IM, couple aol and msn (now and then I fire up trillien and chat with those on aol or MSN, but I’m always on Yahoo IM).
I guess the Link Ninjas was a kinda private club?
PMAC – thanks for the invite! I respect several of the past attendies, and I’ve heard a few stories of past gatherings that have made me envious.
Steve, I’ve read your writings on “giving back” a few times, and I want you to know that I agree with the philosophy. What charities do you have in mind that need SEO help?
Heh. I guess I should have altered phpbb to bounce all outgoing links through a referrer cleaner. 🙂
The private forum has worked great in accomplishing a discussion arena that is not public and therefore its users feel more comfortable sharing tips that have worked for them. Lets just say we formed the private forum after becoming jaded with a certain large Webmaster SEO forum that has become too member heavy. These type of private forums have popped up a lot and you begin to run into the same crowd in all of them. 🙂
Can I peek inside Tony?
Oh, and pmac, we aren’t really trying to be secret. Its just a stupid name for private forum. Could have called it cyndk8.net for all I care. 🙂
I have a secret forum thats so secret no one even knows about it. Oh wait,, thats just me talking to myself again. NVM 😉
TY Jim
The first charity I suggest is to help cover the “Food” part of my ramblings on the Where do you want to be in five years post.
Blatant but well meaning plug comming up:
http://www.Foodforeveryone.org
One giving sincere Non Profit at a time.
With all the Black hat and White Hat BS press and downright fear from traditional Ad agencies about SEO imagine what a group of focused people could do one site at a time. I have an outline shoot me an email if you want a looksie.
It might sound crazy but if you help one person with expecting no return ten ishhhhh will help you in return somewhere down the line, thank goodness for Karma or I would be on homeless DOB
Steve
>>>I guess my IM list is kinda my “Secret SEO Clubâ€.
Mine as well. Nice to look at a buddy list and see mates with a ton of dif skill sets you can call on, very comforting.
>>>gatherings that have made me envious
Well, we do tend to have fun. 🙂 Drop me an email if you would like to come.
>>>and pmac, we aren’t really trying to be secret
yeah, I know, I was just taking the piss. 🙂
I’m all for a private, invite only forum. I too am sooo sick of Chairman T***e’s forums and the posting restrictions that parallel China. Once he started editing out dissenters I had to finally throw in the towel.
A forum which is NOT indexed for the world to see, is only frequented by knowledgable vetted people, and is not full of repeated newbie questions. One where I can make concrete examples and not get edited!
Sign me up!
Hey, the WITS club looks like it was made for me… I love spain… and being from Vienna it’ll take only 2 hours flight down there…
Hey Mike, greg & co – let me in please :-))
The best black hat forum I know for english speaking people is the Syndk8 forum:
http://www.syndk8.net/forum/
In France we have 2 black hat forums.
The first one is the DarkSEOteam forum:
http://forums.DarkSEOteam.com
(Remember http://pr10.darkseoteam.com/ and http://www.darkseoteam.com/index.php/2005/10/06/23-open-letter-to-matt-cutts)
The second one is the Taggle Team forum:
http://forum.Taggle.org
The first one is hermetic, you must be one of them to get in.
They have the best SEOs in France, not the ones who work for the SEO companies and don’t have time to explore new technics (they still use the old JS redirects on satellite pages and they get their big client’s websites, such as BMW and Ricoh blacklisted), I’m talking about SEO artists.
They gave to the black hat techniques another meaning than poor and lousy SEO tricks as Earl of Gray from Syndk8, the UK black hat, explains here:
http://www.syndk8.co.uk/2005/10/09/who-was-the-first-of-the-recent-sites-to-go-public-with-black-hat-seo-antics/
Even if the DarkSEOteam is the real first black hat team we’ve heard about, we have to give a tribute to the first famous blackhat guy, even if nobody use call him this way, I’m talking about Fantomaster.
The Taggle Team forum one is more open (there’s a kind of connection with the first one), they have a public part which is accessible to everyone and a private one which is on invitation only.
It’s the same people who are participating to the V7n contest.
We now know that black hat SEOs are pretty smart people, they do have an SEO ethic and they are far away from using old heavy spammers techniques (JS redirects, white on white colour, hidden divs, etc…) like the big SEO companies do.
In fact, they are part of the most experienced SEO group.
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