Does France Have the Best Black Hat SEO? - Leo Poitevin Interview

[00:01] gambling industry, you know?" So, I was like, "Yeah, let's move with that." The gambling industry. They have the most biggest, you know, media in terms of been your experience with the French, and especially French versus English SEO

[00:17] both? There is one big difference, which is the the size of the of the markets. But, how do you approach link building in to like to foreign markets, taking example, I work with people in Italy.

[00:30] "Okay, now I want to check a bit of the test button to buy links in Italy." test button to buy links in Italy." There is none. them, and there is none in Italy. So, talking about AI, have you been using AI

[00:43] use AI, to be honest. Perhaps not every time in the good way, but everybody tries, at least. [Music]

[01:02] Welcome back to another episode, where I'll be interviewing some of the SEO experts from around the world. In today's episode, I'm going to be talking to another Chiang Mai resident. So, I'm no longer Chiang Mai, fortunately, but

[01:14] another another Chiang Mai resident, who I met in Chiang Mai, and who I met at actually attended my Phuket SEO mastermind back in 2022. Now, Leo has been involved in various different companies, starting out I believe at

[01:28] Cdiscount, which is a very big uh French discount website, and then moving into uh various different gambling companies and lead generation companies, mainly being their head of SEO or some kind of SEO lead role. So, ladies and gentlemen,

[01:43] welcome Leo to the show, please. Thank you, Charles. Thank you. That's like a real pleasure to be here on your show today. Uh and I used to speak a but I've not mentioned the international one. So, it's a really pleasing for me

[01:56] SEO community. 100%. I don't I feel like there's kind 100%. I don't I feel like there's kind of a lack of uh French SEO influencers that, you know, are out in the Like, I I know quite a lot of the French SEO

[02:09] scene, right? But, they just don't seem to uh kind of participate, or not participate, but they they definitely do participate. They they don't seem to um influencers and things like that, you know, doing doing interviews and stuff,

[02:22] and and and stuff are. And I I think that the French SEO community is quite advanced, right? And there's quite of and then there's quite a lot of uh awesome stuff going on.

[02:34] Mhm. Yes, to be honest, um I think that due to the French, I'm not like so much know? We have like those big internationals

[02:46] because we have like that's like a whole microcosm, you know? Like, the people stay here and and continue to work with French people, etc. Uh except uh Gael other French people, they stay national, you know? That's a bit sad. Um the

[03:00] French SEO community, I really love it, because like in my opinion, it's really advanced. It's like one of the best in the world. Uh really black hat, but not Europe community, you know, about hacking and stuff like that. More about

[03:13] little bit of link building at great scale, a little bit of every black hat stuff that you can find, uh mixing their own way, you know? So, that's always funny to have the French SEO community, which is quite different

[03:26] in the SEO approach than all every other SEO community overall, you know? And bit later. I just wanted to ask you first, how did you get started in SEO? So, I started doing my studies. I think I'm one of the only SEO that studies,

[03:41] not just like auto learning and everything. Uh but, I just fell in love doing my studies, and after I was like, "Okay, this stuff is like so crazy." And I was discovering new techniques by new techniques. And initially, I studied in

[03:55] uh computing science. So, I every like, you know, computing related stuff, every SEO. So, all the technical part was quite easy for me. I was like digging into that, and that's like I I I used to love that, you know? I was spending so

[04:09] every blog, so much time trying stuff. Um so, yeah, I did a little bit of um so, in France, we have this type of program where you do um half of your working at a company. So, I was working at Cdiscount, which is like the biggest

[04:25] at Cdiscount, which is like the biggest French retail uh sites that you have, um like still uh have a large scale, you know, in terms of share of the market. know, in terms of share of the market. And uh then I I want to move abroad. So,

[04:38] uh I was in France, and I was like, "Yeah, you know, going on Twitter, Malta told me like, "Hey, we're searching some people in the gambling "Yeah, let's move to that." And um so, I've been in Malta for 2 years and a

[04:51] uh doing a lot of um gambling affiliate business. And after I moved to Thailand to keep in the gambling affiliate business, and I'm still doing that uh until uh recently, where I moved uh from gambling affiliate business to hosting

[05:04] Okay, so you're you're you're still within the affiliate network, though, kind of industry like Yeah. 100%. Okay, so I So, I want to talk industry a little bit more, cuz as I said, it is quite advanced, and I didn't

[05:18] put in my notes, I would say that it is more black hat than most other languages right? Um and I I would say that there's not this kind of um ethical or like moral dilemma that we have in the

[05:32] English SEO scene, where everyone thinks that like Google is some kind of saint, against Google's guidelines, you're the bad guy kind of thing, right? Um I don't think that really is the case in the French scene, and I think that there

[05:45] is quite a lot of people that uh kind of endorse the black hat uh SEO tactics more so than the other stuff. Um what has been your experience with the French, and especially the French versus English SEO scenes, cuz you've been kind

[05:58] Yes, so to start, the the funny thing is that the net the the starting point of the French SEO community, the first French SEO that we had, which is like started in 1997 or something like that, you know? Uh we called everyone in

[06:11] French every SEO in French calling the pop of SEO, you know? So, he is the the always like the white hat guy, and presented everything in white hat way. generation of SEO, all the ones starting

[06:25] in 2000 until like 2010, all of them, all the big names that have been in French, they all have been like, you know, um not white hat, not really white between, you know? Like, accepting just doing the best of of both of them, you

[06:38] know? So, uh [Music] first pop of SEO, but the second layer, which was like all mixed black white hat

[06:50] SEO, using a lot of back linkings. So, net linking was big thing in French. And so, I saw sometimes here still on Twitter and stuff like that, like people like, "Oh, no, you should not do that, you know? That's not in the guidelines."

[07:04] follow the guidelines, you're just dead, you know? You just don't don't follow you know? The game is just being first." Uh so, we consider I think we we we some risk, that going out of the guidelines is part of the risk, but

[07:19] you have to take some risk at some point if you want to get some good results. Yeah, 100%. No, I don't think uh many entrepreneurs did very well without There there needs to be some risk to get

[07:33] So, you said you've done a fair amount of work in the kind of gambling industry and the gambling SEO space. What would you say the major differences between you say the major differences between the English gambling SEO subs and the uh

[07:47] non-English gambling SEO subs? Mhm. So, as the the size of the of the markets, and therefore the size of the sites and the money that is invested in every site.

[08:00] stuff like that, the sites that are operating are like really big sites. sites, it's like from the top biggest sites in the world, authority, in terms of money invested in the sites every year, every day, every

[08:14] year. Um so, on other markets, it's more smaller. It's but it's comparing to the markets, you know? You just get to the another level. Um after there is like really main differences when you go in uh regulated markets and unregulated

[08:28] markets. As you go in regulated markets and stay in regulated markets, so where the casino online online casino is legal, uh you have like all the big major actors and stuff like that. Uh if you check the SERP in the unregulated

[08:40] market, where the casino is not supposed to be legal, uh is not legal, and you are not supposed to do affiliate business on it or operate a casino, here it's like way more black hat and way more like dynamic, I will say, in terms

[08:52] of of SERP of actors. There are like much more smaller actors, much more places, uh because I will say that less money invested less money is invested, because you know that your your your domain will not stand forever in this

[09:05] type of markets. So, there is I think the biggest difference is more between regulated and unregulated, and between English and non-English, there is like a big one as well, uh according to the the

[09:17] domains and everything. Yeah, so yeah, it's a lot of um big like stock-based companies, almost, you know, like billion-dollar companies and that's crazy, you know? So, like big stock company, public company, only

[09:32] gambling, you know? And there is like several of them. It's not like just one several millions. It's crazy, to be honest, it's crazy. And I still think now that the There is few big big company and

[09:45] affiliate business that are public and doing like big numbers and everything, know? Like, if you go to Dotdash Meredith type of of group and companies and big media groups. Uh but if you go on web-based only type

[09:59] of companies, I think the athlete the biggest athletes are all in the gambling industry. Uh and uh just like from they're almost the biggest, you know, uh media uh in terms of money making uh on the

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[11:24] inspirational. Um so, I want to talk to you about how you approach link building right? Because you kind of said it yourself there, there's a lot of spam that goes on, a lot of like like, you know, mass link building and stuff. Um I

[11:38] French link building platforms. So, there's a lot of French link building platforms that you can go and buy links off of, and there's even some controversy last year when a guy uh like from ran away with a few million euros

[11:51] running a link platform and then he just gambled it all away, unfortunately. Um but how do you approach link building in international markets? Yeah, so I will I will tell you the story that my story for link building

[12:05] was like doing my link building in French and all ways because I was operating on French markets. So, I was was like few French link brokers. I was links at the beginning when I was students, it was a good way for me to

[12:18] make money. I was like link exchanging on Facebook group, stuff like that. But there used to be like so much platforms. There was like platforms easily, which is all like big platform with employees and everything

[12:31] buy links. You find your good platforms, your favorite one, the one with like you the best UI UX. That's like you you're really choosing a service, you know? And in this ecosystem. And when I went like to foreign markets, to take an example,

[12:46] Italy and I was like, "Okay, now I will check a bit the best platform to buy links in Italy." There is none. And I was like, "What the hell? You know, we Italy." And so, I check another market and there is none as well. So, it's like

[13:00] I realized that the the whole platform to sell links was only French because selling links. Nobody will go like Google report or stuff like that, you know, they're selling links black like

[13:13] I realized that you have to do it differently in in in outside of the French markets. So, in French markets super easy, you go to the best platforms that you can find. You can DM me for that like I think Ereferer is the best

[13:26] Um and it's easy to buy links. Everything is cheap, no need to negotiate. So so so so easy. different business. Best is still to do some hard outreach, you know, so you

[13:40] top 100 and you're like, "Hey, will you sell me links, you know?" or you find some brokers as well. There is some good brokers out there. But it's way more complicated than just having to, you know, a list of 10 platforms and

[13:54] appreciate the best. Yeah, that makes sense. There there there does seem to be some serious market saturation when it comes to like France. And there's And this is something that I think a lot of people

[14:08] opportunity if you are, you know, somebody for example in markets like Brazil or you're in markets like Indonesia or even Japan and things like that, right? There aren't actually very good link building agencies in those

[14:21] countries. And if you can be just a even if you can be the middleman. So, you you don't have to do anything, right? You just make a platform and then the some massive opportunities in those countries cuz there just is nobody there

[14:34] need. I have I have a a back story on that which is quite crazy, you know? So, I was in an event in France and everyone was like not everyone but like half of the audience was like link seller, you

[14:46] France, everyone is selling links. And then uh so because I was in the gambling you know? "Hey, what links to sell for me?" And like everybody's come and I chat with everyone. And I was telling to all of them, "To be honest, if you want

[15:00] to sell links easily, go for Japan, you know? Everyone in the Japanese market want to buy links. Nobody want to sell links because Japanese are like, you functioning in different way for business and and hate you and link

[15:12] "Just buy some random that GP links, you know? Put some translation in that. It doesn't even need to have much keywords, you know? Like everybody will buy it for like several hundred euros just because it's Japanese. So, to be honest, just go

[15:25] for it, you know? Like free tips for you. I buy links every day in Japan. even like, you know, average link, I will buy them. So, there is like big much opportunities, to be honest. Yeah, 100%. Like like I said, there's

[15:40] especially if you're from that country and you speak the language and things. You can so easy just go and open in those markets and start selling. And of people that need it and there's nothing to fulfill it. So, go go go and

[15:53] start a new business tomorrow, guys. Go and make your website. Um So, talking about AI, have you been using AI much in your own work? Yeah, to be honest, a lot for producing content mostly. Um I didn't use Copilot

[16:05] or anything for you. I just use ChatGPT. I just use GPT, uh classic one, um and lot of knowledge in the niche that he's GPT is the best in terms of writings, you know? Like I don't know, I don't

[16:20] remember exactly statistics, but it's like, you know, top 1% of human style writings, something like that. Um but for the data is not really good, for the stuff about SEO in general is not super good. Uh if you just have a good human

[16:34] best content that you can get in the world just putting the uh the good the good inputs, the good prompts, the good data, and you will end up with the Yeah, that makes sense. Do you see a big difference in the output of AI content

[16:48] in English and French? Um quite a lot, quite a lot in different first aspect which is interesting is that as soon as you use GPT to make or in English, you get like completely different results. Therefore, you get

[17:02] and you get completely different stuff. do the research in English and then ask him to translate it. It's like where you think. Um in French you have like good

[17:15] results overall, to be honest. Yeah, it's it's GPT is good in French. Uh complicated, typically in Japanese that we were speaking about. Um and but the translate it. I think it's the best. When you speak the both language, it's

[17:30] where you get the best the best content. Yeah, I think it's the the the research side that you just said was probably very clever because the training data in even a thousand times the size of the

[17:42] French training data. So, the research side in English will be far superior to the research side in French, but the writing side might be just as good in French and, you know, maybe even better than English to some extent. Um

[17:54] quite heavily then? Are they Is it just Is it everywhere now AI content in Yeah, they go crazy about it. Um and they they use it So, in in France, I know in the international scene it have been less popular, but in

[18:08] French people get crazy about Google Discover like the last 2 years. But when speaking only about Google Discover. Every event is like half of the event is funny because half of the people are like selling links and the other one are

[18:22] Discover. So, I think in French right now we have like quite a lot of people Discover. Um and uh so, they were trying so much to automate all of that with AI and like GPT.

[18:35] of AI. Having super good results? I'm not sure, not crazy ones. Sometimes some some good stuff, but not like, you know, like fully auto automatic sites. I don't think it will work that much that

[18:48] easily, you know? Like the basics have done be done so poorly. Uh but yeah, everybody use AI to be honest. Perhaps not every time in the good way, but everybody tries at least.

[19:00] you coming on. Is there anywhere where anybody can find you online or follow you for more information? On Twitter, that's where I spend most of my time, to be honest. So, you can drop my hat Twitter somewhere in the description or

[19:12] pleasure to share the time with you, Charles. Yeah, there'll be a link in the coming on, and I'll see you guys in the next episode. Peace.