A few decades ago, black hat SEO techniques were used aggressively to rank higher on SERPs. However, with search engines rolling out algorithm updates, websites who were using manipulative tactics, get penalized now. This blog aims to make readers understand what is black hat search engine optimization and how it damages your site rankings.
Black hat SEO techniques are against the terms and conditions of search engines. It includes practices such as buying or selling of links, keyword stuffing, negative SEO, click-baits, poor content or copied content, etc. After reading this blog, follow this link to Know How White Hat SEO Protects A Website From Google Updates.
Search engines work to return relevant and useful information to search queries. Nowadays, measures are taken to keep the search results relevant and accurate. It is very important to know that black hat SEO techniques come with certain risks. By using such techniques:
- (1) a website might get penalized
- (2) a website may be levied with a heavy fine or
- (3) a website might get banned to appear in search engine result pages.
Follow this guide to Enhance Your Knowledge About Paid Search Engine Marketing Techniques.
Black hat SEO meaning
Black hat SEO are practices of optimizing websites, which are against the guidelines of search engines. Even though it is aimed at increasing the rankings of the webpages, such techniques are against the terms of service. Sometimes, the search engines might end up charging us with heavy penalties and bans due to black hat SEO being done.
HOW BLACK HAT SEO IS DONE
1. Keyword stuffing
Repeated use of keywords in a piece of content is called keyword stuffing. Repeated use of the same keyword gives a bad experience to our users because as per search engines, such content is considered to lower the quality of the content. Similarly, by using too many keywords and irrelevant keywords in the content, alt text images, anchor texts, and headings are some of the characteristics of black hat SEO. Follow this blog to read and learn about ‘How To Choose Right Keywords In Content Writing for better Optimization’.
2. Cloaking
It is a practice where content, that is presented to the web crawler is different from the content, that is presented to the visitors. It is done with the aim to deceive the crawler so that the website can come in the top search results for a search query. But one day or the other, Google penalizes such websites by removing it from its search results.
3. Paid links
Buying or selling links is considered to be a violation of Google’s rules. In case you sell or buy links, your site will definitely be removed from google’s index. When Google penalizes your website, all the links that you have bought or sold will be of no value. Hence, it is always advised to build natural links.
Click here and Learn What Are Outbound Links, Its Benefits and How To Create Them with white hat SEO techniques.
4. Poor content
Writing or posting content that is of no value to the searcher’s query is a common black hat SEO practice. Before the Google Panda algorithm update, search engines were not able to distinguish between original and copied content. But after the update, search engines can easily figure out if the content is copied or irrelevant. Not only does quality content help your website rank higher, but it results in good user experience and builds credibility. Read this blog if you are facing trouble to differentiate between good quality and bad quality content writing.
5. Clickbaits
Clickbaits are deceptive headlines written to catch a viewer’s interest and to get them to click on the links. Clickbaits contain expressions like – you won’t believe it, it’s shocking, this will shock you, etc. Clickbaits result in high bounce rates, decrease in rankings, hence decrease in credibility.
6. Negative SEO Tactics
Negative SEO aims to decrease the rankings and visibility of other websites. This is done by competing websites who falsely reporting the competitor’s websites to get them penalized.
HOW BLACK HAT SEO HARMS GOOGLE RANKING
1. SERP rankings fall
Search engine algorithms can now easily know if a website has used black hat SEO techniques. Google takes immediate action against such websites and ranks them down significantly in SERP rankings.
2. Website can get de-indexed
Google temporarily or permanently removes websites from search results if a website doesn’t follow the guidelines. This can severely hit organic traffic and sales.
3. You can get penalized
Penalties by google are of the following types:
- Web Page penalties: this affects a particular webpage ranking. The whole website does not suffer.
- Site penalty: also called a domain penalty, affects the whole website. Such penalties, ranks down the website in the search results.
- The end of results penalty: this ranks down a website in the end page of the search results. It is considered as a kind of warning before a site gets de-indexed.
- De-indexation: A website is de-indexed or de-listed from the search results. This means that the website disappears from the SERPS.
4. Your organization’s reputation suffers
Manipulative SEO techniques have a negative impact on the reputation of the organization. It can harm the credibility of the company, trust of the customers, and also affect sales of the company. Shares of the companies fall down when they get penalized by Google.
Though black hat SEO might give you good results in the short term, in the long run, it can harm your organization in many ways. A white hat SEO strategy is always better as it brings long term results and it protects you from being penalised or de-listed.
Check out our Beginner’s Manual To Learn SEO With Important Strategies.
