Black Hat SEO | Definition and How to Avoid it

January 21, 2021

Black Hat SEO | Definition and How to Avoid it

Black Hat SEO

Black Hat SEO

It is a set of illegal practices, inconsistent with search engine guidelines, which are used to increase and enhance the ranking of a site or page on search engines.

Black Hat SEO technologies ignore the researcher’s goals and try to bypass best practices by deceiving the system and gaining additional research insight by resorting to unethical technology practices.

And this is done by using some means and tools that violate the terms of service of search engines.

It can be said that the main difference between “Black Hat SEO” and “White Hat SEO” is that:

  • Black Hat SEO exploits search engine guidelines to boost rankings.
  • White Hat SEO follows search engine guidelines to boost rankings.

Black Hat SEO exploits vulnerabilities in search engine guideline strategies.

But the results it achieves in doing so will disappear once the vulnerability is fixed.

And this constantly happens, because search engines are always looking for vulnerabilities that people use to tamper with the system and fix them.

You must know that implementing Black Hat SEO strategies can lead to your site being banned from search engines, which will banish you from referral traffic number one on the Internet.

What is Black Hat SEO?

Black Hat SEO is a depraved practice, which can increase your page ranking in search engine results pages.

However, these practices conflict with search engine terms of service and may ban the site from search engines and affiliate sites.

A list of techniques and strategies that Black Hat SEO practitioners use publicly is rejected in the Google Webmaster Guidelines and Bing Webmaster Guidelines.

Therefore, always ask yourself:

Does what I do add value to the user or am I only doing it for search engines to see?

And this question is a critical test of whether the SEO you are considering will conflict with your SEO webmaster guidelines.

If you find that you are not adding any value to the user, but the ratings are likely to increase, then it is very likely that your decisions are Black Hat SEO.

The same test can be applied to paid search practices to determine whether an activity is Black Hat SEO or not.

The techniques used by Black Hat SEO owners:

If you want to stay on top with Google and other search engines, there is a bunch of techniques that Black Hat SEO follow that you should avoid, and they are:

  • Content Automation:

    Which is transforming content writing into automatic writing in which the human element is completely dispensed with.

    And this is done by using some techniques for writing and automatic review.

  • Doorway Pages:

    It is one of the famous Black Hat SEO technologies.

    It is intended to improve your website’s ranking on search engines.

    Its mechanism of action depends on its compatibility with the SEO standards well and is acceptable, and helps raise the page to the highest ranking in the search engines.

    These pages contain a hidden link that takes the user to the original content by clicking on the page link.

  • Hidden texts or links.
  • Keyword stuffing.
  • Report a competitor (or negative SEO).
  • Fraudulent or sneaky redirects:

    They are processes used to mislead users and deceive search engines.

    A redirect link is set up that directs users and search engines to specific high-quality pages, instead; the high-quality page is redirected to the low-quality page to boost the search rankings of the low-quality page.

  • Cloaking:

    Black Hat SEO is a technique used to trick search engines into ranking content for a specific search term that is not related to the context of the web page.

    As anonymous shows only one part of the content to the users, while it shows a different part to the search engines.

  • Link Schemes:

    Links are intended to circumvent the terms and conditions of search engines.

  • Guest Posting Networks:

    They are sites that allow publishing the content of other sites within their own blog or site.

    Through it, the content owner benefits by presenting his content to other visitors who do not know him, which makes it easier for them to access his products and services, and contributes to spreading his work on a wider and greater scale.

  • Link manipulation (including link buying):

    Getting high-quality sites to link to your site is an off-page SEO technique, which can boost your search rankings.

    Instead of gaining high-quality backlinks by legitimate means, Black Hat SEO marketers may push websites to link to their site by link manipulation.

  • Article Spinning:

    It is the process of rewriting articles to create new copies of them, and avoiding direct copying is forbidden.

  • Link networks (Link Farms, Link Wheels, or Link Networks):

    It is a paid way of linking some networks or sites with each other to increase the search engines’ ranking.

    You are only paid to use a network of websites created to link to sites whose search rankings you want to improve.

  •  Forged formatted texts, and encoding spam messages to raise them to the top of search engine results, such as fake products, recipes, or prices.
  • Sending automated (automatic) inquiries to Google:

    They are illegal ways to get a content rating from Google and to know the ranking in the search engine results.

  • Create copied pages or duplicate subdomains.
  • Pages with harmful behaviors such as hacking, phishing, viruses, and other malware.

Why should you avoid Black Hat SEO?

Google always strives to resist all illegal behaviors and to maintain the integrity of its standards and provisions.

It is also keen to provide the benefit accompanied by security to its users to always gain their trust and loyalty.

And Black Hat SEO tactics can block your website from Google and other search engines forever.

And although you (using Black Hat SEO) may achieve some success in the short term by increasing traffic to your site and getting more interactions from visitors and users, Google’s penalties will become more complex over time, and they can have devastating effects on your rankings and traffic to your site.

And always remember; There are hundreds of millions of users searching on Google every day,

In addition, you really can’t afford to be de-indexed or blocked!

How to avoid Black Hat SEO?

This is very simple by following some steps:

  1. Put your focus on achieving the conditions of search engines and adhering to their standards to reach your goals with integrity.
  2. Avoid keyword stuffing.
  3. Avoid buying and selling links.
  4. Keep up with the webmaster updates to avoid black hat SEO schemes.
  5. Focus on developing a white hat SEO plan that will give your brand long-term SEO results and lasting brand credibility.

How to report Black Hat SEO:

There are two reasons to report:

  • Either your website has been attacked by a malicious or viral hack or a Black Hat SEO campaign for unwanted links.
  • Or, you see unwanted web results on a competitive keyword and rank your website on it (in this case, you can file an unwanted web content report through Google’s webmaster tools.

We also suggest:

  • If your website is attacked by viruses or malicious hacking software; Request a malware review after removing the malicious code.
  • If your website is exposed to a Black Hat campaign for unwanted links, use the Disavow Links Tool in Google Webmaster Tools after you try to contact the webmasters who direct these links to your website to remove them.

Conclusion:

SEO is one of the popular shortcuts in the world of content writing and e-marketing.

It is a set of laws that content writers and website builders abide by

to raise their sites to the first ranks in search results on popular search engines.

We know that competitors always strive to achieve SEO conditions

achieve the highest percentage of viewership of their content, and the highest percentage of interaction with their products.

And because this is really worth the effort

there must have been cyber pirates seeking to access it without making any effort, even if it was done illegally.

It seems like a quick way to manipulate the system and boost your search rankings

but in all its forms, it is an unethical practice that can permanently damage your appearance

on search engine results from pages and your brand’s credibility.

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