Black Hat SEO, the Black Magic of the Internet
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can be done in various ways. SEO is flexible, and the possibilities are almost endless. There are two popular approaches to SEO: “white hat” and “black hat.” In this article, we’ll focus primarily on black hat SEO.
But where does the name come from? We’ve all seen enough movies or played enough video games where black always represents evil and white represents good. In SEO, it’s no different—black represents “evil” here as well.
Why? Black hat SEO is a method used to harm other (and sometimes even your own) websites in order to boost your ranking on Google. In the past, these methods were still used legally, but unfortunately, many users abused them. Since then, search engines have condemned these techniques. If you’re caught using black hat SEO now, you run a high risk of having your website banned from search engines.
If you’re banned from search engines, your business will undoubtedly suffer. Even if you want to rebuild your brand, you’ll face challenges. Reputation is vital these days, which is why there are services like “online reputation management” and “search engine reputation management.”
Examples
These are the three most well-known and common methods used in black hat SEO:
Keyword stuffing
With keyword stuffing, the “trick” is to cram as many keywords as possible onto your website and pages—to the point where the keywords are often anything but relevant. It significantly reduces the user-friendliness and quality of your website in exchange for a higher ranking in search engine results. Even though Google can detect these kinds of practices more easily these days, you still come across this method every day.
Although it’s important to optimize keywords, it’s just as important to ensure that the content you write is relevant and informative, rather than something that would merely generate a temporary spike in search traffic.
Invisible Text and Links
Invisible text is really just a matter of making popular keywords the same color as your background so they’re invisible to visitors. At first glance, these websites look just like any other, but with a few simple mouse movements or by using the CTRL + A function (select all text), you can easily see the hidden text. This method is used to add more characters and keywords to a web page in order to improve its ranking, but it’s also a way of attempting to exploit Google’s algorithm.
Invisible links are also a common problem. You may occasionally come across a page that suddenly redirects you to another page, even though you can’t see the link you clicked on. This negative link-building technique aims not only to mislead, but also to drive traffic to websites that would otherwise generate very little traffic. Google can now quickly detect this problem, though a huge number of websites continue to use these methods.
Cloaking
This is one of the oldest black-hat techniques. Cloaking misleads visitors by directing them to a page with content they weren’t looking for at all, even though it appeared in the search results. A simple example:
You’re searching for garden furniture, and the search results show you several innocent-looking results that, at first glance, appear to be the expected (garden) furniture stores. However, when you click on the link, you’re taken to the website of a construction company.
This is a common method for generating traffic to a website. However, it is a deceptive practice. It makes the user experience less enjoyable. It can also result in your website being penalized by Google.
