Below is live coverage of the Black Hat Tactics and Preventative Measures panel from the PubCon 2011 conference.

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Barry Schwartz:

4:25:44 pm

Starting soon, this room is going to be packed!

Barry Schwartz:

4:26:11 pm

Barry Schwartz:

4:26:29 pm

FYI, this speaker will be at SMX Israel on Jan 15th, a conference I chair. So come!

Barry Schwartz:

4:27:55 pm

He is just loading his presentation…

Barry Schwartz:

4:29:27 pm

Okay, here we go

Barry Schwartz:

4:30:38 pm

Barry Schwartz:

4:30:49 pm

People come to him when they have no where else to go

Barry Schwartz:

4:31:52 pm

he works in the most aggressive spaces

Barry Schwartz:

4:32:43 pm

Competitive Industries, each industry is a different type of animal – there are no rules. Competitive landscape has changed over the years. It is incredibly concentrated and aggresive. It is an all out war in these industries.

Barry Schwartz:

4:33:31 pm

It is dirty out there.

Barry Schwartz:

4:34:06 pm

Sometimes the best method to move forward is to “eliminate” the sites above you.

Barry Schwartz:

4:35:01 pm

This is how the space thinks

Barry Schwartz:

4:35:41 pm

First thing is to figure out what went wrong. Exposure awareness is the key to solve problems.

Barry Schwartz:

4:36:06 pm

Barry Schwartz:

4:37:01 pm

Barry Schwartz:

4:37:09 pm

Okay, now we can start…

Barry Schwartz:

4:37:38 pm

Take out the site, take it out through attacking it.

Barry Schwartz:

4:38:35 pm

Links: incomng links are important, so what do you do?

Barry Schwartz:

4:39:13 pm

– send an email to those linking to your competitor links and ask them to change the link URL and (change link requests) 35% are approved

Barry Schwartz:

4:39:42 pm

– Send link accountability emails, you are spamming Google by linking to site X.

Barry Schwartz:

4:39:48 pm

It gets links down.

Barry Schwartz:

4:40:14 pm

– If that doesn’t work, use a trademark threat – you are violating my TM by linking to it.

Barry Schwartz:

4:40:23 pm

– If that doesn;t work, fake a Google notice.

Barry Schwartz:

4:41:51 pm

Now give this competitor site some new links from link networks, banned/hacked sites, fake profiles with spam words, blog/guestbook spam, link buy requests to Google employees and push huge amount from the same site and subdomains on the same IP. This can really hurt a web site

Barry Schwartz:

4:42:22 pm

Barry Schwartz:

4:44:39 pm

Now work on outbound links from that web site:

Barry Schwartz:

4:45:15 pm

– XSS exploits – Hacking into the site – Widgets and code injection – Links in posts, comments, testimonials and other UGC content

Barry Schwartz:

4:47:32 pm

Where do you point these links? – Banned sites – Big banned link buyers – Malicious sites – Bad neighborhoods

Barry Schwartz:

4:48:46 pm

Posting content on your competitors site: – Parameters spam for duplicate content (adding parameters to the URL with keywords in it even) this leads to dup content issues

Barry Schwartz:

4:49:32 pm

– UGC sub domains : some sites allow content, some put users on a subdomain, so register 2000 new users and put some bad content there.

Barry Schwartz:

4:49:47 pm

– Lots of forums out there are not moderated, put content there

Barry Schwartz:

4:50:17 pm

FYI, people tried this on us, see http://www.rustybrick.com/free-viagra-spam.html and http://www.rustybrick.com/rustybrick-spam.html

Barry Schwartz:

4:50:27 pm

Also posts, comments, etc.

Barry Schwartz:

4:50:36 pm

– Hacks and injecting hidden content spam

Barry Schwartz:

4:51:11 pm

FYI, if anything bad happened to your site, this is your check list to look for.

Barry Schwartz:

4:51:26 pm

Now site wide internal tactics: – Cloaking & htaccess

Barry Schwartz:

4:51:32 pm

– Robots.txt to block the site

Barry Schwartz:

4:51:45 pm

– Hidden no index, nofollow

Barry Schwartz:

4:52:08 pm

– XSS for content – CSS for link injection – Many new domains with spam content and same contact info linked to target

Barry Schwartz:

4:53:51 pm

Get access to webmaster tools through social hacking and then do a location change request, geo targeting to a small area, ignore pages, do an address relocation and set up stupid reconsideration requests

Barry Schwartz:

4:56:23 pm

External methods: – DMCA takedown requests via owner, hosting, dns providers, registra and even search engine – Take untaken brand TLDs

Barry Schwartz:

4:58:46 pm

– Change IP geo targeting requests (removes the site from Google US) – Influence search engine suggestions (i.e. Google Instant, do a lot of searches via different proxies to influence them, i.e. brand name virus, brand name scam, etc)

Barry Schwartz:

5:01:18 pm

– Multiple proxy site duplication – Mobile / Email / Skype and IM Spam – Abuse freshness to position push results (starting last week Google favors freshness, submit a lot of fresh content about the brand name and can outrank the brand name)

Barry Schwartz:

5:01:47 pm

You can utilize videos, images and even maps, since they rank well. Post nice lady images, etc.

Barry Schwartz:

5:02:07 pm

Use news and press releases for your competitor

Barry Schwartz:

5:02:18 pm

Social and post bad titles on UGC forums, blogs, etc for your competitors

Barry Schwartz:

5:02:40 pm

Many of these tips are about hurting competitors, as you can tell

Barry Schwartz:

5:04:12 pm

PPC: – Click bots on other sites and on target sites – Post public freelance project request for click fraud – Use PPC advertisers ID on abused sites – Abuse adsense account score using PPV – USe 3rd party remarking tricks for scaring potential clients away (this is funny)

Barry Schwartz:

5:06:18 pm

You can retarget on your competitors web sites using PPV

Barry Schwartz:

5:06:59 pm

show ads that say this web site is a scam or visit this other site, etc.

Barry Schwartz:

5:07:50 pm

Hire people to snitch on competitors for link buying

Barry Schwartz:

5:08:00 pm

Post in forums how the site tricked the SE and got away with it

Barry Schwartz:

5:08:08 pm

Report click fraud done by your competitor

Barry Schwartz:

5:08:13 pm

Report spyway injection

Barry Schwartz:

5:08:27 pm

Annoy search engine stuff with spam from that site.

Barry Schwartz:

5:09:45 pm

Analytics: – Change user behavior information by using paid surfing services (trick your competitors by messing with their analytics) – Cloaked and fake queries and search terms traffic – Buy botnet fake traffic trends

Barry Schwartz:

5:11:05 pm

Hack! – 302 highjacks still work – Cross domain canonization – Cloaked 301 redirects – Cloaked JavaScript redirection – Geo targeted DNS poisoning – Fake credit card sales

Barry Schwartz:

5:12:31 pm

Human Resources: – Eliminate his SEOs by hiring them away – Distribute the SEO team members resumes online as job seekers – Trash the SEO team results to management – Get your own people inside as a spy

Barry Schwartz:

5:12:42 pm

Social Media: – Trash reputation on sites

Barry Schwartz:

5:13:30 pm

Affiliate Network: – Positon an affiliate link instead of the home page – Trash affiliate program in UGC – Contact all affiliates as a fellow affiliate and tell them about the bad experience you had

Barry Schwartz:

5:14:05 pm

Denial of Service: – Target the site itself – Go after the same IP – Kill the sites resources

Barry Schwartz:

5:15:49 pm

That is all Q&A

Barry Schwartz:

5:15:56 pm

Good night folks!