Society of Tactics

Mark, when you get a moment, tell us about what you have called, "Parasite SEO Host Hijacking."

I was calling this, “Parasite SEO Host Hijacking,” but have since started calling it, “synthetic backlinks,” which is an unwitting accomplice tactic that asks very targeted questions on any platform that allows discussion, for the sole purpose of others posting your link on your behalf without prior arrangement.

An example of synthetic backlinks would be if you want to sell a product that solves question X, and you rank well on a long tail keyword of “best product to solve x”. Knowing this long tail keyword, you would find an active enough forum related to X or where X could be naturally discussed. Create an account on the forum, and post a sincere sounding request for assistance trying to figure out the best way to handle X. You generally do not want to type the long-tail keyword into the post, but rather you want to give the unwitting accomplice enough direction for them to do a search with the long tail keyword. They will do the search, most likely find your product/page, and post a response with your backlink for you. You then take the opportunity to thank them, and maybe even “try” the product/serve and provide a review in the thread, while staying on-topic and not coming across as spam. If a moderator reads it, the thread looks like an organic conversation with a presented problem and solution. Moderators will like to see this positive closure. The unwitting accomplice feels good for helping a stranger, maybe even gains some thumbs ups or other gamification goodness. And you generated a backlink that will most likely stick around for a while. After a decent pause, you can update the backlinked page to your liking, although it is highly recommended you do so towards the bottom of the page, leaving the “legitimate” solution for X on the top of the page.

This is not new, but I have not seen a name for it so I decided to name it.

It is a type of unwitting user generated content?

Exactly.