Black Hat SEO is an unethical way for a person or business to get their website to rank higher on search engines (SERP – Search Engine Results Page). These Black Hat SEO’s will usually follow the following characteristics.
Black Hat techniques are frowned upon by the search engines. Not only are most of these techniques in contravention of all the rules and regulations laid out by the search engines, but they also create a bad user experience.
Black Hat SEO at one time were legal but as is with many techniques and services, overuse led to it being flagged off by the search engines. Today, while it may be tempting to resort to Black Hat techniques to get immediate results, it is harmful in the long run because the search engines will downrank your website if they discover that you are using these techniques. And that is the least they would do.
Other penalties for using black hat SEO techniques can be extreme so to speak and could include getting banned from all search engines. Some of these techniques are adopted unknowingly by individuals and SEO people unknowingly, thus making your site one that uses Black Hat techniques. Following are the three most commonly made mistakes that lead to this:
- Do not stuff your website and blogs with keywords: Using a lot of keywords in your website content will lead to your site being flagged for Black Hat techniques by the search engines. You need to place your keywords judiciously and properly to avoid this. Fluffing up your content and blog posts with a lot of keywords will increase the chances of ranking higher on search engines, but remember that this is a short term spike and will not last.
- Do not use invisible text: This is a very common practice, especially among beginners who are starting out on their own. ‘Invisible Text’ is when you add a lot of keywords in white font against a white background. It will be hidden from the user but will get indexed by the web crawler and will push your website’s search ranking higher. Such a technique will result in an immediate flagging by search engine and you run the risk of being penalised.
- Do not use doorway pages: A doorway page is nothing but a fake page that is used to attract web crawlers. The customers themselves will never see this page. The doorway page will trick the web crawler to rank your website higher but again, this will be a short term gain only and the flip side of it is simply not worth it.
As you can see black hat SEO techniques are indeed tempting but as a business or website owner, you should be aware of the consequences of using them. They are considered unethical, deliver only short term results, and the long term harm is something you or your business may never recover from.
We recommend that you do not touch these techniques even with a barge pole and resort to only white hat techniques. Google keeps updating their algorithms regularly and they inform us in advance like in this instance. Keeping abreast of these changes will help you plan your SEO strategy and avoid unnecessary blacklisting.
PaperCup Media employs only white hat techniques because we believe that we need to be in it for the marathon and not for the sprint. You can contact us here or email us on info@thepapercupmedia.comfor your SEO requirements.