Black Hat SEO is an unethical tactic used against and violates search engine guidelines to get a site to rank higher in search results. It attempts to manipulate search engine algorithms, including keyword stuffing, cloaking, and using private link networks.
The term originated from Western movies where bad guys are separated from the good guys by wearing "black hats". Learning more about Black Hat SEO would help you avoid them as they would lead to your website getting penalised and banned, which in turn, would damage your digital marketing efforts.
There are a lot of dangers involved when using Black Hat SEO to rank your website. The use of Black Hat methods is strongly discouraged by global SEO services due to their unethical character.
Desperate marketers, however, would prefer to resort to these tactics to cheat the system and expedite their organic success. Even if Black Hat SEO techniques are helpful at the start, their results are often short-lived.
Google's Webmaster Guidelines have reiterated the basic principle of SEO: avoiding tricks to improve their search engine rankings. These tactics wouldn't be resorted to if search engines don't exist.
According to Google's Webmaster Guidelines, Black Hat SEO may result in a website getting removed from the Google index or otherwise will be affected by algorithmic or manual spam action. In manual spam action, a website may no longer show up in Google search results or on any of Google's partner sites.
SEO strategy is widely used to increase one's own site's rankings and traffic, however, black hat tactics can result in the opposite. There are three main key points on why you should avoid black hat techniques, which can help you avoid them.
Black Hat SEOs can negatively impact your search rankings and visibility
When a website uses Black Hat SEO tactics, they ultimately result in it losing search rankings, visibility, and traffic. This in turn results in their conversions and revenue also taking a plunge. Further, Black Hat SEO can cause a decline in the performance of a site due to manual action or algorithmic filtering.
Black Hat SEO practices provide short-term results
When a marketer resorts to a Black Hat SEO tactic, a website's organic performance initially increases, however, this is not sustained and is often short-lived. Google and other search engines might take time in determining a site's unethical techniques, but once it does, the penalties are sanctioned almost quickly.
Black Hat practices result in poor user experience
When a website provides a good quality user experience, it retains users and prevents them from accessing other sites instead. It helps search engine crawlers understand if your web page or web pages benefit search queries, thus resulting in better rankings in search engine results pages (SERPs).
However, black hat tactics provide the opposite as it mainly optimises search engines. Over time, this results in poor conversion and retention for a website.
Different link schemes are used in Black Hat SEO that harms your business or website. Link schemes and tactics are one of the classic Black Hat SEO techniques as search engines have rewarded link quantity for websites. Links from other websites, therefore, should be earnestly acquired as it's a vote of trust from another website. You can visit our manual on off-page SEO to be properly guided in ethical backlinking. To avoid getting penalised by search engines, you should avoid the following link schemes:
Meanwhile, Google's Webmaster Guidelines are against buying links or backlinks. When your website is found to have bought backlinks, you can get automatic and manual penalties that impact specific pages or even the entire site.
Private Blog Networks or PBNs are groups of websites that link to each other, designed to build domain authority and boost their rankings in search engines like Google. PBNs used to be an easy way to build quality backlinks, but now it violates Google's Webmaster Quality Guidelines. While you can use backlinks from other sites that you own, you just have to make sure that it's not a huge group of similar websites designed to create traffic among themselves.
If you run your own blog or own site, you might be familiar with comment spam. For example, a WordPress user would usually write blog comments that contain links to their web pages to build free backlinks from other websites.
While this can be effective, a site owner can simply mark the comment as spam and ban the user from posting and commenting. It's best, therefore, to avoid commenting on articles just to link to your website.
We've already talked about the myriad of unethical link schemes to boost your site's ranking in the search results. In addition to this list are hidden links.
Websites would deceptively hide links in a website's text or links appear the same colour as the background. When Google catches you doing so, it might penalise you for violating its guidelines.
Redirects are part of good SEO tactics as it ensures your website is well-organised and easily accessible by users and search engine crawlers.
However, sneaky redirects are frowned upon as it's used by Black Hat SEO to deceive search engines and display content different from what the user sees. A search engine will index the original page, but the user will be taken to a different URL. This tactic violates Google's guidelines, and resorting to it results in penalties.
Some marketers would resort to keyword stuff by repeating a web page's main target keywords excessively to rank. Sometimes, they would manipulate rankings by including irrelevant keywords.
However, search engines like Google prioritise quality content to deliver high-quality search results. When read by a user, it looks like a block of words that don't make sense.
Here's an example provided by Google:
Article spinning is a Black Hat method that involves re-writing content by substituting words with their synonyms, changing sentence structures or re-writing the text yet conveying the same information. These articles negatively impact the quality of the internet so search engines will penalise you for it.
Misuse and abuse of structured data is one of the common Black Hat SEO strategies. Structured data generally helps in defining entities, actions, and relationships online, but those employing Black Hat SEO would use this to give incorrect information. For example, marketers would write fake reviews to boost their rankings.
However, there are a lot of ways to manipulate these structured data or rich snippets. Here's the full list of structured data issues that Google provides that might apply to your website:
Hidden content is structurally the same as a hidden link. Its content is made the same colour as the background of the website. It's a Black Hat SEO technique that uses excessive keywords and keyword phrases on a page.
There may be times, however, that hidden content is not intentionally placed by a site owner, such as when you publish a guest post from someone that includes hidden content, or when your website gets hacked and the hackers placed hidden content, otherwise known as parasite hosting.
There is hidden content that's not forbidden, however. The best way to know if hidden content is acceptable is when it's visible both to the user and the search engine. For example, some content may be available for mobile users but not for desktop users.
Cloaking is an attempt to improve SERPs by generating content for search engines while providing different content to users. Thus, it involves serving different content or URLs to users and search engines, thus providing different experiences for each.
It violates search engine guidelines as it deceives search engines and users alike.
Like Cloaking, Doorway targets specific search queries with content generated only to act as a funnel to one page. Your content must be high-quality and has a specific purpose. Avoid creating pages in an attempt to rank with irrelevant keywords.
It's no question that Google and other search engines prioritise high-quality content in ranking sites. While it might be easy to generate content to rank using excessive keywords or by copying the same content, it's frowned upon as it desecrates the quality of the Internet.
A good website takes its time to create search engine-optimised and friendly articles to avoid poor-quality content. Find out more here.
There are two ways to report a Black Hat SEO depending on the reason. If your website has been maliciously attacked by a negative SEO campaign of link spam, you can first try to contact webmasters to have the links removed. If your request remains unheeded, you can then use the Disavow Links Tool in Google Webmaster Tools.
If your website is maliciously attacked by a hacker, a virus or malware, you can request a malware review after you've removed the malicious code.
Finally, if you see spammy web results on a competitive keyword your website is ranking on, you can file a webspam report through Google Webmaster tools. However, take caution in using this tool as falsely reporting web spam is also considered Black Hat SEO.
When Google detects that your website is using Black Hat SEO, you may receive a penalty like a drop in rankings or worse, getting deindexed from the search results. In response to a question on Reddit, Google's John Mueller provided the strongest penalties that can be given to a website that engages in Black Hat SEO. Here's a rundown of his main points:
A website can be deindexed temporarily until fixed by the site owner
Google doesn't permanently deindex an erring website. Contrary to popular belief, Google doesn't have a list of permanently blocked sites. As such, if you're caught utilising Black Hat SEO and are subsequently penalised by deindexing, you can always recover by placing an effort to get indexed again.
Of course, this means that in theory, your website can remain deindexed forever until you've put in the necessary effort. According to Mueller, manual actions that lead to pure removal are for severe cases such as when the site is pure spam.
Moreover, site owners can ask for reconsideration for penalties after fixing the issue. The response can be quick or it might take a while.
A website unintentionally using Black Hat SEO can be ignored by Google
Google has developed a system of "ignoring the bad parts and focusing on the good" for websites that haven't violated its guidelines to the point of getting deindexed.
There are times that websites would accidentally use Black Hat SEO by following bad advice. Google may ignore this and show the site for its useful parts such as skipping certain search features or broad drop in search rankings (if the bad and good parts are inseparable) rather than outright deindexing the website. This results in happier users and site owners learning a lesson.
This might lead to situations where a competitor may rank higher despite resorting to Black Hat practices, which tempts you to resort to it too.
It's good to take note that a website can receive drops in its rankings even if there's no black hat activity going on, such as when the site is irrelevant or its usefulness has passed.
While the penalties for Black Hat SEO are mainly sanctioned online, if you're a business operating in Singapore, you can also check the PHMC guidelines for the do's and don'ts of advertising.
White SEO strategy means following the rules or guidelines set by search engines. It's employing ethical tactics to rank in search results. Black SEO is its direct opposite. As we've defined, it's an unethical tactic used against and violates search engine guidelines to get a site to rank higher in search results.
But what about Grey SEO? There are debates on the true meaning of Grey SEO. Some would say that it's a mix of white and black hats, while some would say that it's entirely neither and operates with different techniques. These are both correct. In actuality, Grey Hat SEO is the middle of white and black hat, either transitioning between the two or a mixture of the two.
It's important to know their definitions as they pose different risks and rewards. While White Hat SEO impose no risks of manual actions, it may pose a risk of not working especially in a highly competitive industry. Black Hat SEO, on the other hand, have a clear risk of manual actions which results in a dropping in rankings or getting deindexed. Meanwhile, Grey Hat SEO have the risk of getting penalised in the future.
From what's given, it seems that Grey Hat SEO is more rewarding as it presents the best of both worlds. However, it's important to note that it still carries risks of getting penalised in the future as it still, in a way, manipulates search rankings. And the truth is, Grey Hat SEO will be a large part of the SEO industry.
Therefore, White Hat SEO and a carefully considered Grey Hat SEO is still the safest route, which provides substantial rewards with minimal risks.
White Hat SEO lists you to a search engine's good list. It ensures that you're abiding by the guidelines set by search engines and helps you avoid manual actions. It takes great skills to utilise and achieve good results from White Hat SEO, but unlike Black Hat SEO, it's beneficial in the long run.
Here are some good White Hat SEO strategies that you can use for your website:
User experience makes or breaks a site's rankings. Load speed, easy navigation and intuitive interfaces play a great part in your search rankings. Thus, it's highly essential in white hat strategies to provide a quality user experience.
This quality user experience should be converted as well for mobile users. As more people search online through their mobile devices, mobile-first optimisation has become more crucial.
Therefore, quality user experience on your website must be present not only for desktop users but also for mobile users.
Quality backlinks are one of the most significant factors to determine the relevance and authority of a website in a search intent. As we've said, link schemes like PBNs and paid links are prohibited and the use of which would lead to penalties.
It's important to build high-quality links through ethical tactics as it would benefit you in the long run.
If you're a struggling site or business owner, you might be tempted to use Black Hat SEO to achieve a good position in search rankings. However, it's important to note that while it's not entirely illegal, the use of these practices can lead to your website getting deindexed or receiving a broad drop in the search results. Its rewards might be tempting, but its risks outweigh them.
If you're in doubt about what's best for your business or website, a trusted digital marketing expert that provides reliable SEO services can help you.
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