How to Identify Black Hat SEO

Black hat SEO is an unethical tactic that intends to manipulate the search engine in some type of way. These tactics of black hat SEO rarely have the user’s best interest in mind. There are levels to black hat SEO, with some of the higher ones possibly resulting in some sort of damages to the user.

Types of Black Hat SEO

1. Keyword stuffing is one of the most popular types of black hat SEO. Keyword stuffing occurs when keywords are crammed into content for the purpose of ranking higher on the SERP.
2. Link manipulation is another popular form of black hat SEO. Purchasing links and link farms are way people drive more traffic to their website using black hat SEO. The purpose of using this tactic is to inflate the number of backlinks a website has.
3. Doorway pages are pages that are created for the purpose of redirecting users to another website. Typically the content is low quality and doesn’t provide value to the user.

Identifying Each Type

1. Keyword stuffing is common but typically just used to receive a better ranking on the SERP. Identifying keyword stuffing may be difficult at times, but typically you will realize it when the content you searched for doesn’t match the results on the page.
2. Many users won’t be able to directly identify link manipulation, because the only way it usually effects them, is unrelated content to their search. A page that doesn’t seem like it should have the credibility or rank it has, may be using link farms or link manipulation.
3. Doorway pages can be harmful to the users at times, or they can be used to just simply get more visits on a site. Often, scammers/hackers may use doorway pages to install malware on your device. If you are on an unknown website and a redirect to another page occurs, it is best to carefully analyze the page. Sometimes the content can be similar and other times it might not be relative at all. If you feel anything is off or scam-like, immediately leave the page.