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How To Use Barnacle SEO – aka, White Hat Parasite

Author: Charles Floate

Whilst some may not deem the name “parasite SEO” as white hat from the offset, there are still a lot of ways that you can use parasite SEO in a white hat way, which some like to call “Barnacle SEO” – And our tool gives you the ability to do a lot of these functionalities out of the box, without any real prior experience, as our AI can build your campaign for you!

In this post, I’m going to teach you how you can use barnacle SEO to drive traffic and visibility, boost brand signals, increase leads and ultimately your or your clients’ revenue.

Let’s dive into this non-traditional digital marketing technique.

What is Barnacle SEO?

Barnacle SEO is a strategy that leverages high authority websites to rank for keywords in search engines that promote your or your clients product, service, brand, content or reputation. 

The term was first coined by Will Scott in 2007, but wasn’t popularized until his later blog post in 2011 that showed the technique, examples and case studies.

It can include techniques such as:

  • Guest Posting / Guest Blogging
  • Online Reputation Management
  • Newsjacking / Launchjacking
  • Review Marketing
  • Branded Mentions 
  • SGE / AI Overview Optimization
  • Industry Roundups
  • Local Profile Optimization

As well as anything that simulates the way crustaceans latch on to larger organisms to thrive in a much vaster ecosystem than they ever could on their own.

Barnacle SEO vs. Traditional SEO

Using this technique goes completely against traditional SEO, because you aren’t:

  • Using your own websites to rank
  • Targeting low competition keywords
  • Having to only target keywords your sites intent matches

And in some cases, you might not even be creating new pages at all! If you are doing local SEO for example, you might find that pre-existing “Top” Yelp or TripAdvisor pages are already taking up the majority of your visibility, and you need to instead to become the #1 spot recommended by manipulating those platforms instead.

Barnacle SEO vs. Parasite SEO

Whilst both strategies utilize third-party authority sites, Barnacle SEO is considered a white hat technique that involves more legitimate methods that have less debate around ethicality. Parasite SEO often employs black hat tactics by exploiting CMSs or file attachment vulnerabilities to host content without permission.

You can still do parasite SEO WITH permission, but the intent is usually white hat vs. black hat.

The Top 3 Most Powerful Barnacle SEO Techniques 

Whilst it does depend on what niche you are in and what you want to achieve, these are my personal recommendations on what to use as a completely clean, white hat SEO style of promoting a business or brand.

#1 – Online Reputation Management

Considering some agencies are charging $25,000 to $50,000 for ORM services that mostly consistent of links and profiles on free websites, I would say this is one of the most underrated ways you can be using a combination of parasite and barnacle SEO.

The aim is to not only take control of all of the top 10 or even 20 pages in search engines for the brand name, but also start using some of those pages to 

Of course, first you’re going to want to make sure that you or your clients site has all the necessary, high authority social profiles and citations 

But once you’ve ticked off the necessary checkboxes, it’s time to get the serious pages out that can contribute to trust signals, AI overviews, conversion rates and so much more…

I’m going to use myself as a case study here, and put my own name into the tool, select ORM (Individual) mode and input my home country of the United Kingdom –

I can look for any free parasites I’ve missed, but the real gold is getting the paid parasites that I can mold the narrative that I want both the user and Google to believe about the brand.

All I have to do is click for a list of paid parasites, and it’ll automatically find the niche most relevant to my brand – In my case of course, it’s SEO! So it gives me options that are highly relevant and powerful in SEO, digital marketing and the UK –

If they have a green tick next to them, it means that you can buy them within the parasite platform – And there are over 6,000 paid parasites in our database now across 25 countries!

For my name, the tool actually already finds 2 barnacle SEO articles that I had paid for (under $500 a pop) to help better control my ORM in the AI overview age –

You’ll see they’re both in an interview format meant on high authority, trusted domains that are perfect for my exact needs –

#2 – Building Guest Posts

Guest posting is often the bread and butter of white hat link building. It’s not only about throwing content onto a site for a backlink but strategically choosing platforms that boost your brand’s authority and visibility, especially if it’s a trusted publication in a specific niche. 

The biggest mistake most people make with guest posts? They go for quantity over quality. I’d rather have one killer article on Search Engine Journal guaranteed to rank #1 than 10 pieces on medium DR SEO blogs.

#3 – Review Marketing

Review marketing is a massive part of ORM and barnacle SEO. Dominating Google’s review-centric results can flood your client with leads. This involves not just getting as many positive reviews as possible, but also strategically placing these reviews across high-traffic platforms like Yelp, Trustpilot, and Google My Business.

If you’re targeting local SEO, use review sites that rank well for local intent keywords, like “best [service] in [city].” Push reviews to platforms that already hold the top results for your keywords, and encourage customers to mention specific aspects of your service or product that align with those keywords.

Fake reviews? Yes, they work, but I’m not advocating that since Google has been making the recent changes to display if a company is suspected of faking them. Focus instead on setting up some sort of custom exchange programs to get real, local reviews – And if you have a real business, or your client does, they should have a customer book anyway!

How To Track Your Results

Use tools like Wincher, Google Search Console, and even your CRM to track the performance of barnacle SEO campaigns. Set up Google Alerts to monitor brand mentions, and use keyword trackers to see if your barnacle assets are making gains in the SERPs. 

Focus on monitoring and tracking conversions, whether it’s lead generation or sales, as barnacle SEO’s ultimate goal is to boost the bottom line without breaking any Google guidelines – Whether you choose to believe in those or not.

Can You Scale This?

Absolutely! As you identify more high authority platforms to use as barnacles, or use our tool to do it for you, it becomes easier to replicate and scale your strategy across niches. 

You can hire VAs to handle the outreach and content creation once you’ve refined your process – Set up templates for emails, content briefs, and even tracking sheets to streamline the entire operation from the get go.

One of the #1 mistake people make is forgetting to track the URLs they created, don’t be that person…

Take Over With Barnacle SEO

Barnacle SEO is about latching onto platforms that already have the trust and authority you need to dominate your keywords. It’s not about building from scratch; it’s about using existing power structures to your advantage. 

With the right strategy, you can rapidly take over SERP real estate and control more of your niche’s search visibility in an AI age where clicks are becoming rarer, and arguably in some cases, less important for clients.

Signup for ParasiteSEO.com today and start building your brand as the vision of the future!