Black hat SEO is the use of unethical techniques to manipulate search engine algorithms and gain a competitive advantage over others. These tactics are usually employed by unscrupulous individuals who want to cheat their way to the top of search engine results pages (or SERPs), but they may come at great risk to your business’s reputation.
These tactics are considered unethical and potentially illegal, but many companies use them anyway. As a result, black hat SEO has become one of the fastest-growing areas of internet marketing today.
The goal of black hat SEOs is to rank websites higher in the search results for keywords they want to target, rather than using white hat SEO tactics like building quality backlinks from relevant sources.
Common Black Hat SEO Tactics
While this list will by no means be extensive, we will list a few black hat tactics. Just understand that the things mentioned below should not be part of your rehab seo plan.
Keyword Stuffing
Keyword stuffing occurs when a website uses large amounts of keywords in order to trick search engines into thinking that the website contains a lot of valuable content. Keyword stuffing is not only bad for readers but it’s also considered spammy behavior.
Cloaking
Hiding text and links behind a login wall, redirecting visitors to another URL, using JavaScript to display irrelevant content, and inserting invisible text into a webpage.
Sneaky Redirects
Directing users away from your website to another domain name or IP address without their knowledge by hiding the actual URL.
A sneaky redirect is when a website changes its URL structure to fool search engines into believing that a new location exists. A classic example of a sneaky redirect would be changing www.example.com/aboutus.html to www.example.com/?p123. When a person clicks on this link, he or she is directed to a completely different page.
Black Hat Backlinks Strategies
Now that you know what a backlink is, you can understand that getting them by unscrupulous means is considered blackhat. Paying websites to post hyperlinks to your website is an example.
Link farming is when a website creates multiple links to itself in order to increase its PageRank. Link farms are generally seen as poor practices because they dilute the value of legitimate backlinks.
Why Should You Avoid Black Hat SEO?
Because black hat SEO tricks can damage your reputation, decrease your credibility, and even lead to penalties.
For starters, black hat SEO is frowned upon by search engines. Many search engines frown upon websites that employ shady SEO tactics.
Black hat SEO can hurt your brand. People tend to associate negative things with a company that employs questionable SEO tactics.
Finally, black hat SEO can put your website at risk. Because search engines frown upon black hat SEO, they sometimes remove your website from their index altogether.
