08 Mar
Most businesses want to get on the first page of Google, whether organic or paid. But it’s more worth it if you apply tried-and-tested SEO techniques that will get you to the top. However, it can be easy to cheat the system and use black hat SEO strategies to boost rankings. Unfortunately, applying black hat strategies might get you nowhere and get your site penalized. Or worse, banned. So, in this article, learn more about black hat SEO and what strategies you should avoid.
What is Black Hat SEO?
Black hat SEO is using SEO strategies not following search engine standards and rules. Doing this may result in your website getting banned.
Google Algorithm Updates To Remember
Before we further discuss what SEO strategies you SHOULDN’T do, you need first to understand the Google algorithms. You see, these algorithms will penalize you if you don’t comply with Google’s standards. I’m sure you’ve probably heard of Panda or Penguin. They may sound adorable, but they can fight back if you use any black hat SEO strategy.
Here’s an overview of the algorithms that made an impact on how professionals practiced SEO:
- Panda – It may seem like it was named after the furry and lovable black and white animal. But, Panda was named after Google engineer Biswanath Panda. According to Moz, Panda notices duplicate content, more ads than content on a site, and low-quality content.
- Penguin – On the other hand, Penguin deals with keyword stuffing and buying and over-optimized links.
- RankBrain – As explained by Search Engine Journal, this was part of the Hummingbird algorithm. But the difference between Panda and Penguin is its machine learning capabilities. It can tag your site because of low-quality content and even poor UX.
Black Hat SEO Strategies to Avoid
There are more than 40+ black hat SEO strategies. Its consequences vary from mild to devastating. Here are some that you should familiarize yourself with to avoid getting penalized by Google.
1. Keyword Stuffing
One of the many no-nos is keyword stuffing. You don’t want to risk stuffing keywords to your blog or site so you could rank and people visit it. And for those who write blogs, it’s a writing mistake you don’t want to commit. So, use keywords sparingly and when relevant only. You don’t want to get penalized all because you posted the same keyword repeatedly on your web pages.
Google provides this example of how keyword stuffing works:
2. Comment Spamming
Leaving comments is good. And make sure that they are valuable enough and add something more to what’s been written. However, if it’s something along the lines of “this is a good article,” then you throw in irrelevant keywords or URLs in there, you can skip doing that. That wouldn’t look good for your company.
3. Duplicating Content
This is a big no-no! As pointed out by Search Engine Journal, Google has systems in place for plagiarized or duplicated content. You don’t want to steal people’s hard work and pass it off as yours. But, if it’s relevant AND valuable to your site, you can ask permission to republish it instead of copying without asking.
At the end of the day, it’s much better to create original content for your site.
4. Article Spinning
Don’t get into trouble by spinning an article. What this means is you’ll use an automated service to rewrite the article. It’s another version of duplicating content, but you’re changing some words to make it seem like it’s unique.
One question you may also ask is, is this the same as article rewriting? There’s a gray area in that because spinning is mostly automated. However, some writers could spin an article manually. But for rewriting, you can take the basic ideas and write in your tone of voice. Perhaps add more ideas in there. So long as it doesn’t copy the source material, that can suffice.
But the best thing to do is write high-quality content made for your site. You can hire writers that can provide well-written content without violating Google guidelines.
5. Cloaking
Cloaking is deceiving search engines by posting one type of content for search engines to crawl and the other is for users.
According to Hubspot, it’s not considered cloaking if you have a translated version of your content or present different ads on devices. They further elaborate that the content made for search engines should be the same for the users.
Another form of cloaking is invisible text.
Some sneaky black hat SEO professionals would hide keywords in their pages. The trick? Use the white text on white backgrounds. In some cases, they would use images to hide those keywords.
6. Sneaky Redirects
It’s expected that companies audit their sites to organize it. Perhaps, they might move to another URL. But what Alexa says about sneaky redirects is you’re leading the visitor to another page different from the one they clicked. It’s a deceptive strategy because the low-quality content needs more visibility.
To combat this practice, use a 301 redirect. Google won’t penalize you for doing that.
7. Buying Links
Link building is a well-known SEO tactic that most companies would use. Moz says it’s a great way to build:
- Referral traffic
- Relationships
- Branding
But, some companies would buy spammy links to get a higher ranking on Google. And it’s not a good practice. Even Neil Patel shared his story about buying links before, and Google eventually penalized the sites.
Doing link building outreach can prevent you from buying links. As seen in the bullet points above, you can achieve those. And who knows, you might get a higher ranking by doing outreach.
8. Negative SEO
Healthy competition is part of any organization’s growth. Your competition may have the upper hand sometimes, or maybe you get more traffic and sales. But what you can’t do is sabotage your competitor by reporting them.
One of the most notable examples of negative SEO was experienced by Jellyfish UK. They saw a dip in their ranking. Plus, it was reported they over-optimized keywords. They had to get rid of backlinks because of this.
You shouldn’t consider this as a tactic to boost your numbers. If anything, just stick to your SEO efforts. Recognize that playing by the rules will benefit you more.
Why Playing By The Rules Helps You
Black hat SEO may give you a temporary boost in ranking. But in the end, it will do you more harm than good. Black hat’s “good” twin, white hat is a much better solution for SEO professionals and marketers. Sure, it can take time and tons of effort to become a trusted source or get a higher ranking. But, at least, you avoid the possibility of getting banned.
