black hat seo

Black Hat SEO Techniques

black hat seo

Black hat SEO are web page optimization techniques that are unacceptable to the search engines. These techniques may trick the search engines and show fast results in the form of higher search engine rankings, but they offer no benefit of website visitors. The ultimate aim of these techniques is to somehow boost a website position temporarily without any long-term perspective.

In terms of SEO, black hat SEO refers to the use of various blacklisted SEO strategies, tactics and techniques to rank high on search engines. They do not provide any value to actual website visitors, and they also do not obey any search engine guidelines. Black hat SEO is also referred to as spamdexing or unethical SEO.

Few examples of black hat SEO strategies include invisible text, keyword stuffing, addition of unrelated keywords to the webpage content, doorway pages, and page swapping (changing page content once it has been ranked).


Black Hat SEO Usage

Black hat SEO is mostly used by all those who’re interested in quick financial gains on their website, rather than any long-term investment on their website. In fact, persistent black hat SEO efforts may even result in your website being completely banned from the search engines. But since focus of such website owners to make fast buck they don’t mind getting banned by search engines and consider it as a somewhat irrelevant risk.

Black Hat Techniques And Strategies Are Used For Two Reasons:

  • Some people are not aware that their websites could even be penalized or banned by search engines due to the use of black hat SEO.
  • They continue implementing black hat SEO strategies until search engines find out about them, and then they’re banned.

Even if search engines fail to detect that website owners or SEO agencies are using black hat SEO techniques, competitors who themselves use such techniques to rank high report them to search engines. So, even SEO agencies can suffer due to black hat SEO.

Black hat SEO techniques


Content

Keyword stuffing

  • Overusing niche keywords in alt tags, comment tags, and meta tags
  • Placing key phrases and keywords in the hidden text by making their font color the same color as the page background
  • Overusing keywords and key phrases in the visible text, to the point where their repetition is apparent to the readers


Deceptive content

  • Cloaking-displaying a completely different content to the search engines than to the users by identifying users through IP’s and other methods.
  • Doorway or gateway pages-These are the pages overstuffed with keywords and key phrases that are visible only to the search engines because people are redirected to the real content.


Linking

  • Link farms: These are pages with thousands of unrelated links that are meant solely for creating new links to target pages
  • Spamming blogs, forums, and social media sites with huge amounts of links. Though search engines may not penalize websites for this, but it’s completely unethical.

black hat seo techniques

Examples of Some Black Hat SEO Techniques


Hidden Content

It’s one of the most widely used black had SEO techniques. Hidden content comes in many guises, but is mostly included in the code of the site along with the keywords. This content is not visible to the website visitors.

Many black hat SEO agencies include hidden content in the comment tags.

Comment tags usually look like this;

<! Comment Tag >

The main purpose of the comment tag is for website designers to add purposeful reminders within the code explaining what that particular piece of code does.

Let’s have a close look at an example of comment tag being used in a correct way,

<! Start of the Main Content >

Now, let’s see how comment tag is used incorrectly to promote hypothetical page targeting SEO,.

<!SEO, Search engine optimisation, search engine optimization company, spamming search engines ->

Another way of hiding the content is by using the <noscript> tag. This tag is used to inform the user that a script is being used but their browser doesn’t support it or that particular function has been turned off.

Let’s have a close look at the example of correct use of <noscript> tag,

<script type=text/javascript>
<! document.write(Hello World!) //>
</script><br />
<noscript>Your browser doesn’t not support JavaScript!</noscript>

Now let’s see how

<noscript>

A car hire firm “Do Car Hire” which is affordable so if you’re interested in hiring a car call us because we are one of the best and most efficient car hire firm in the world

</noscript>

Other HMTL tags that are misused in similar ways include hidden inputs and the

tag in forms.

Content an also be hidden from the end-user by using CSS, colored text or excessively small text on the same colored background is used for this purpose.

All these SEO techniques are disapproved by the search engines and once they are detected, search engine will penalize your website. These types of tricks are invisible and difficult to spot to the untrained eye.


Meta Keyword Stuffing

There are two types of meta tags that are used to inform search engines about the content on any page. They’re placed between the <head> tag of the web page and if used incorrectly they can alert search engine bots that site is using spam SEO techniques to boost its rankings.


Meta Description

The meta description is used to describe the page content concisely and honestly in one or two sentences.

Example of meta description being used correctly to promote a company ExampleSEO,

<meta name=description content=ExampleSEO are an Online SEO agency providing a wide range of digital marketing services throughout the New York and the Manhattan area. If you need Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Pay per Click (PPC) or search engine marketing (SEM), we’re there to help you. Contact us now. />

Example of meta description being used incorrectly to promote a restaurant EatMe

EatMe restaurant website is one of the best EatMe restaurant website, we are better than any other restaurant,best food restaurant, great restaurant, visit our restaurant />


Meta Keywords

Ideally, meta keywords should be a short list of words that inform the main focus of the page. They have been so misused in the past that now search engines do not give much weight age to them.

Example of the meta keyword tag being used correctly,

<meta name=Keywords content=digital marketing, online marketing, search engine marketing, search marketing, SEO, e-mail marketing, />

Example of the meta keywords tag being used incorrectly for a web page promoting a restaurant named EatMe,

<meta name=”keywords” content=”food,restaurants,take away food,feed,junk food,fast food,eating out,eat,dining,dinner,eating,meal,steak and chips,EatMe,pie and chips,chicken and chips,desert,pudding,small restaurant,big restaurant,great restaurant,best restaurant,cocktails,exclusive restaurant,drink,wine,sandwhiches,pizza”>


Doorway/Gateway Pages

Doorway/Gateway pages are the web pages designed for search engines and not end users. They are basically fake pages over optimized with two or three keywords with link to landing or target pages. The end-user never sees them as they’re automatically redirected to the main target page.


Link Farming

Link farm have no other purpose than to list thousands of links of completely unrelated websites. They don’t provide any traffic and there’s a big risk of your site being banned by search engines. So it’s best to avoid link farming.

In this article we closely examined the black hat SEO techniques that will help you decide whether the SEO service you’re using currently is compromising on your business website.

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