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There seems to be a new generation of script sellers out there. Their Z Power SEO solutions offer you the most profitable search conversion experience possible.

Is it too good to be true? Not exactly.

I’m sure this stuff works. I won’t predict how long it can work, although one package I just looked at (and which I have not seen before) offers to create email accounts, solve CAPTCHAS, and build RSS mashups for you.

RSS mashups … that is SUCH a 2007 tactic.

Read between the lines here: RSS mashups were being used by black hat SEO spammers years ago and now someone else is offering an RSS mashup spam package for sale. If it’s really THAT good, why is he giving up his advantage?

Because maybe he can make more money by selling it through an affiliate program?

So, what do the black hats use for their SEO tricks? How do you spot them? How do you deal with them? Well, your task as a Best SEO practitioner is not to police the Web or the search results, but here are a few signs that you’re competing against a high-powered SEO spammer (or maybe a script kiddie who couldn’t optimize his way out of a brown paper bag).

You get two things to work with in SEO: Links and Content.

• Link injection tools – These little programs find “do follow” blogs and forums and drop links for you. I first saw them in 2005/2006. The better ones register an account, drop a few messages, and maybe even target their comments to content on the site.
• Blog farming tools – These programs set up hundreds of blogs (usually using Wordpress) on domains you buy and host. They’ll populate the blogs with RSS feed summaries (or whole posts) from all over the Web (or maybe just from Syndic8t’s spammy RSS feed list). I first came across a blog farm in 2006.
• Autogenerating tools – Some people call them article spinners. Some people call them dynamic content creators. They come in all forms. Spinning is controversial because some people see it as a cheat, even though it may create very original content. I’ve come across many schlocky spinners that publish garbage. Some are better than others.
• Text injection tools – Got a hankering to be big in social media? I’ve only seen text injection tools at work for the past year or so. Some may be older but the ones I’m aware of are less than 6 months out of beta. These tools will Tweet, Hub, Stumble, Publish, or do whatever it is you want to do with social media. They create a huge footprint that would take about six Google data centers to notice. For now.
• Artificial blogs – Some people are unbelievably good at creating realistic blogs. When other analysts ask me for an opinion on why a funky-looking site is probably not for real, that means even seasoned professionals are not sure of what they’re looking at. These blogs are used for a variety of reasons: some to carry AdSense, some to position links for other sites, some to test algorithms — and maybe some are just being mean.

I’m not telling anyone to stay away from these kinds of tools. If you have an opportunity to use this technology, it may indeed give you exactly the results you want. Some of the better systems will meter out the links in a randomized pattern so it looks like you’re acquiring links at a normal pace.

Then again, I’m not promising you won’t be caught, filtered, penalized, banned, or kicked out of any affiliate programs.

If you’re going to go play with fire, expect to be burned. You had better be willing and able to take some big hits because if you buy in to all the promotional hype you find on the Websites pitching these products you’re asking for trouble, plain and simple.

In every gold rush, the people who make the most money are the merchants selling picks, pans, and shovels to the miners. A few miners become rich. Everyone else just becomes a nameless face in a historic photograph, wishing history knew who they were.

The bottom line here is that there ARE substitutes for good, old-fashioned hard work. You can buy content, you can buy links, you can steal content, you can steal links. You cannot blame anyone but yourself if you get caught, though.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.