Black Hat SEO is a set of practices that intend to increase rank in search engines by using tactics that violate that search engine’s terms. Some black hat strategies include content automation, doorway pages, hidden text or links, keyword stuffing, reporting competitors without merit, sneaky redirects, cloaking, link schemes, guest posting networks, link manipulation, article spinning, content scraping, link farms, spam content, automated queries to Google, and pages with malicious intent. It is important to avoid these tactics not only because they are unethical, but also because they have a better chance of hurting your page ranking than helping it. If Google detects you are using these methods, they will deem your site unauthoritative and rank it with this in mind. Your website could also be banned from Google and other search engines. If you aren’t sure if a tactic is black hat or not, just ask yourself if it seems too good to be true. If it is, there is a good chance it is some form of black hat SEO. At the end of the day, SEO takes time and there isn’t an easy way out.
2 Responses
I liked how you offered an easy solution to content creators questioning whether or not a practice is ethical or not. In most instances, tactics that prioritize short-term gains decrease the value due to the potential risks associated with utilizing black hat techniques.
I think it’s really important that people realize that, ultimately, Black Hat SEO isn’t going to benefit you. In the long run, Google is going to punish your site for it and you won’t be able to recover easily. I like that you highlight this in your post!