SEO can seem to the novice a magical art; changing a few things on a website to make it skyrocket in popularity. Of course, there’s a lot more to it than that, but like all professions, it can seem likely a fantastic feat if it’s not your industry or specialism. However, this impression can lead some to allow others to dictate their SEO strategy without much input and can lead to paying for services that will not be in your company’s long-term best interest. There are plenty of poor SEOs, but worse is an SEO that uses Black Hat SEO tactics. This article will explain what they are and why you should run a mile if your SEO freelancer or agency suggests them.
What is Black Hat SEO?
Black hat SEO refers to a set of techniques and tactics used to increase a site or page’s rank in search engines through means that violate the search engine’s terms of service. The term “black hat” has been associated with old Western films. The black hat was said to distinguish the “bad guys” from the “good guys” who wore white hats (although there is actually no trope or consistency in who wears white or black). In addition, it’s been used to describe computer hackers, virus creators, and those who perform unethical actions with computers, including SEOs.
Black Hat SEO Tactics
Here are some of the tactics to avoid. First, make sure that any SEO you engage, whether a freelance SEO consultant or a whole SEO agency, is not practising any of these as part of your strategy. I am only going to describe these briefly so you can spot them.
Content Automation
When robots are used to create and publish new content, but the technology is not advanced enough, or a human doesn’t check it, meaning it’s likely to be poor quality and useless to readers.
Doorway Pages
A hosted doorway page is a webpage that doesn’t offer any actual content to a search engine visitor but is a black hat SEO technique for creating multiple keyword-rich web pages used as a gateway (doorway) to the real website’s content.
Hidden Text or Links
Trying to game a SE by hiding many keywords so readers can’t see them, but a robot can.
Keyword Stuffing
Attempting to rank for keywords by adding them to a page without context. This is pointless for readers and will lead to a penalty.
Reporting a Competitor (or Negative SEO)
Purposely attacking other companies to ensure your website ranks higher.
Sneaky Redirects
Sneaky redirection pages are set up in groups of several pages which all target similar or related keywords or phrases. The only links on these pages are to other pages in the same family, creating a false sense of relevant internal linking.
Cloaking
This is where different information is served to search engines and users.
Link Schemes & Guest Posting Networks
This involves crosslinking to the websites you have access to, creating a link for the sake of domain authority without being relevant to audiences. This is often offered on a large scale with multiple guest posting networks and includes buying masses of links not pertinent to your site or audience.
Thin and duplicate content
Creating pages, subdomains, or domains with duplicate content or content that is not of any real value. Thin content also includes keyword stuffing and poor spelling and grammar used in the content.
Why Should You Avoid Black Hat SEO?
There are three main reasons you should not be utilising any Black Hat SEO tactics.
- They don’t work. Search engines can easily spot the above tactics. Therefore, the techniques will not improve your chances of ranking. Furthermore, some of these techniques have not worked for at least a decade, yet unscrupulous SEO will sell them to paying clients promising the world.
- You can be penalised. If you purposely engage in these tactics, you may run foul of penalisation from a search engine. A penalty could damage your website in the long run. It could stop you showing in search engines. Which, of course, is exactly the opposit of what you want.
- It’s unethical. Black hat tactics do not provide genuine value to people. You are simply using tactics designed to trick robots. A marketer should implement SEO with the user in mind at all times. In addition, any SEO tactics that purposely attack other companies and your competitors are incredibly unethical. Concentrate on your website; ignore the others.
What should I do If I have used Black Hat SEO in the past?
Suppose you think you have used Black Hat SEO tactics in the past, whether knowingly or unknowingly, it’s up to you to rectify them. The first thing to perform is an audit reviewing any potential penalties or specific black hat techniques. From an SEO audit, you’ll be able to determine what’s working, what isn’t and how to rectify issues.