Scrapebox and SEO Presser are two web-based SEO tools that have built up black hat reputations amongst the white hat SEO crowd, but are they really as bad as all that?
In today’s rapidly changing SEO world the line between black and white is anything but clear or define and that means some black hat tools can find life in the white hat world.
SearchEngineLand contributor Charles Floate addressed this topic recently in a blog posting titled, Using Black Hat Tools for White Hat Purposes, and found that black hat tools can definitely find a home with white hat SEOs in the world of grey hat SEO.
Here are a few of his tips for riding these tools across that thin, grey line.
Scrapebox
Scrapebox is the SEO tool Matt Cutts doesn’t want you hanging out with because it does so many deliciously bad things including:
- Keyword Scraping – Scrapebox’s keyword tool can compile massive lists of websites in your target niche. In the white hat world, this is a great way to start developing guest blogging opportunities.
- Bulk URL Shortening – There’s nothing black hat about saving time on URL shortening.
- Image Grabbing – OK, this one leans black hat, but it can definitely be used for good. Just enter a keyword and Scrapebox returns a huge list of associated images that are perfect for use in spun content.
- Link Indexing – Getting links indexed in a hurry isn’t easy when you wearing a white hat, but with the link indexing add on, you can get as many as 10,000 of them submitted in a heartbeat.
- Content Spinning – What’s that you say? Folks are still spinning content in the post-Panda era? We’re not 100% sold on this tip, but Floate maintains that quality, spun content is possible with black hat tools and even puts forth a few examples. (Though when, “perfectly readable,” is the best description you can come with for a blog post…)
Micro Niche Finder
Floate describes Micro Nich Finder as, “…hands down the best keyword research tool on the market.” Though black hats generally use it find exact match domains, white hats can easily harness its power to expand their own reach in the online world.
Any white hat who is willing to overlook Micro Niche Finder’s cheesy marketing techniques will find a surprisingly robust software suite takes the headache out of keyword research.
SEO Pressor
SEO Pressor is a WordPress plug-in that Floate compares to SEO Yoast on steroids. Like a lot of SEO tools, it comes with some pretty big claims about its ability to double your traffic in 30 days.
Floate says SEO Pressor’s real value is its easy-to-use dashboard that lets SEO beginners build well-optimized pages, snippets and social postings.
Finally
Utilizing black hat SEO tools for white hat purposes seems to be all about looking past the way a tool is marketed and digging into what it can really do. If you’re willing to wade in and see what they’re all about, these black hats can offer some true white hat value.