Who is the Rand Fishkin of black hat seo?

[JasonJackson]

If you had to choose one person to represent the black hat community who would it be?

[EGOL]

The late G-Man might not be the most famous but deserves mention.

Loved and missed by all.... even tried to go under the radar of  Matt Cutts.

SEOMoz posts.

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[JasonJackson]

Know of anyone who is currently active?  (I spent 10 minutes trying to phrase that sentence in the nicest way possible)

[EGOL]

Thanks 

Most are probably trying to stay under the radar so Matt doesn't get 'em. 

[AlanBleiweiss]

Fantomaster   http://twitter.com/#!/fantomaster    http://fantomaster.com/

[AlanMosley]

There was a guy who went by the name "Earl Grey"

Rand can thank this man for getting him a break.

Earl Grey was interviewed by Neesweek as a Black Hat, when asked by the interviewer if he knew white hat SEO he could interview he gave Rands name, and SEOMoz boomed from that point.

Forgive me rand if i have not got the facts correct, but thats the routh story.

[randfish]

That's pretty much the story! He also goes by Mick Sawyer sometimes, though I believe his real identify is still unknown to all but a few.

Just to be fully transparent, the Newsweek reference was a big deal, but as I noted in the recent "Story of SEOmoz" post, it was a surprisingly low traffic + branding driver compared to our launch of the Beginner's Guide and the subsequent Slashdot coverage (followed by dozens of other blogs/resources). Combined w/ the Newsweek press, though, it definitely gave us a nice bump

[randfish]

Some well known black/gray hats (note, many of these do lots of white hat stuff, too, and some have even retired fully from black hattery) include:

• Greg Boser (WebGuerrilla)
• Dave Naylor
• Todd Friesen (Oilman)
• Kris Roadruck
• Rae Hoffman
• Ralph Tegtmeier (Fantomaster)
• Bob Rains
• Neil Patel
• Eli (from BluehatSEO)
• Frank Watson (AussieWebmaster)

There's loads more, but black/gray hats often like to stay under the radar (apologies to any I've forgotten; I'm sure it's more than a few).

[JasonJackson]

Thanks for the Responses everyone!