Clever Linkbait Tactic over at SEOBlackHat

SEOBlackHat recently wrote a post about global warming that calls it out as being “The greatest scientific fraud in the history of mankind.”  Even though the author says otherwise, the post is obviously linkbait for an SEO competition to rank for “GlobalWarming awareness2007.”  The post contains an exhaustive list of facts, resources, and charts, all attempting to convince the reader that global warming is a sham.  In between the factual arguments are little spurts of crazy psycho-babble:

This sham has taken many otherwise intelligent and good intentioned people and turned them into quasi-religious zealots on a crusade for a bigger, more intrusive, more powerful world government.

The real beauty of this post is that it contains the perfect amount of personal opinion mixed with actual fact to effectively piss off anyone who reads it. If the post were 100% psycho-babble, readers would dismiss it as the rant of a crazy person.  If the post were 100% fact, readers might actually give it a bit of credit and have a positive reaction to it.  It’s the mixture of the two that really gets to people.

Blogging about controversial issues for attention is nothing new, but I thought this little gem at the bottom of the post was particularly clever:

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The author has hit the linkbaiting nail on the head:  generate an emotional response and channel it into links. 

Unfortunately for SEOBlackHat, I nofollowed the links in this post, and because of the subject matter I’m feeling inclined to link to a globalwarming awareness2007 competitor instead.