So I have been diligently reading my feeds, and came across a few ideas that are worth cross referencing. DaveN recently said:

• 75% of his income is whitehat

• When out for a casual drink with Greg Jarboe, Dave also said "Black hat stuff is getting too hard," he said. "I’m actually thinking about turning legit."

DaveN also mentioned that he is starting to work on a search engine, and has been producing legit content...even posting niche channels with furry animal USB drives.

In a recent WMW supporters thread Brett Tabke said:

I count 15 independent blackhat SEO's that have went to work for other corporations. The actual number must be closer to 50 or 60 that have thrown in the towel and went to work for the man.

But Marcia added

If the newer breed of the SEO black arts involves link-based manipulation, how could anyone assume there wouldn't be a good degree of underground collusion involved?

Contextual advertising and easy blog related links are making niche channel content production a no brainer. Even if it was only self funding or moderately profitable a content network would still allow you the ability to help market anything in a hurry. Partner up with a few friends on the idea and you are talking about some serious link authority that can be shifted to and fro.

So long as it is scaled out in a logical manner I think many SEOs are going to start becoming large scale publishers of many niche networks.

Sure the blog hype might be overrated, but there is something to be said about having your own network which can be used to help launch newer sites. Content costs are usually a one time fee, and so long as your niche selection is smart within a year or so the revenues should be able to outpace the cost on most channels.

Many paid links may be a bit obvious to engines and discounted, but there is only so many links they can chose to ignore. If you have a legit network that does not blatantly sell links your link popularity and content base will likely be leveragable in more ways than you can count.

I think the SEO theme for 2006 is networks and friendships with network owners.