What is Black Hat SEO
By Fernando Raymond | August 17, 2019
About Black Hat SEO
Black Hat SEO may look like a shortcut to reach our objectives, but shortcuts are always detrimental. The path of it may look easy and close to our goals but once we get into it, we will have to face those problems which are always hard to overcome and eventually our goals will be out of our reach and we will fall into a deep hole.
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization which is used to optimize our web pages and websites to get a better ranking on search engines and attract more traffic to it. And doing that in an adverse way or simply can be said as an illegal way or unethical way is known as “Black Hat SEO”.
Black Hat SEO is a thing which must be avoided by everyone because it may give you a better result for a few days or weeks but later it will turn out to be a headache for your web page and website. And doing it violates Google Guidelines and Google’s Webmaster which usually results in websites suspension or ban.
Things which we should avoid as they are part of Black Hat SEO:-
- Keyword Stuffing
- Misleading Redirects
- Cloaking
- Fake Structured Data
- Spamming on other blogs
Now let’s understand this processes of Balck Hat SEO particularly so that we can avoid using it.
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Keyword Stuffing
Keyword stuffing can be understood as filling your blog or article with a repetitive and irrelevant keyword. It is not false that adding keywords increases your ranking on search engines but there is always a better way of doing it.
If you will fill your blog or article with the same keyword again and again to fool the search engine crawlers, then this will in fact lower your page ranks. Remember that you’re first and foremost writing for your readers.
Keep the content flowing and interesting while including relevant keywords in a reader-friendly manner.
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Misleading Redirects
Redirection is done to take the user from one page to another with a click on the links.
It is mostly done when any web page is under maintenance or permanently closed so that the user doesn’t leave the web page by getting frustrated about not getting the expected results. But doing it for misleading the traffic is against Google’s Guidelines and will result in lower ranks or banning of web pages or websites.
To be precise, Black Hat SEO users redirect the traffic by promising something else and once the user gets redirected to those links, they get different unexpected and irrelevant results.
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Cloaking
Sometimes the developers try to trick the search engines by showing different content to users and the crawler.
What the user sees in the content is different from what crawlers see. This process of misleading the crawler is called cloaking.
There is one more thing in cloaking that is the actual content is entirely different from what the title, keyword, and description suggest it should be. So, cloaking should always be avoided as it increases the chance of the web page being banned.
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Fake Structured Data
Structured data are the small packages of information that show in the search results of search engines and they give a clear indication to the user of what the content is all about.
It makes things easier for the user to surf the web page which seems perfect for what they are seeking. But misleading the user by showing fake structured data is considered Black Hat SEO and is against Google’s Guidelines.
In fake structured data, the user will generally see fake reviews, authors, and snippets which might look good to normal users and hence result in gaining more traffic but once caught by the search engines it will be very difficult for the web page or website developers to recover from the penalties.
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Spamming on other blogs
People usually think that adding backlinks of their web page or website in other blogs or content will bring more traffic to them and indeed it will do, but only until the crawlers catch you or the bloggers report your comment as spam.
While creating backlinks most of the new bloggers don’t even know that it falls under Black Hat SEO and is not allowed by Google and its Webmaster.
People should be aware of the general rules and regulations when it comes to publishing content online.
Everyone who does SEO must know what falls under Black Hat SEO so they can avoid processing it and instead bring genuine and organic users to their web page or website.
Drawbacks of using Black Hat SEO
– The first and most hurting drawback of using Black Hat SEO is that at first, it will give a lot of traffic but when caught by crawlers it will result in the disappearance of a web page or website and hence all the other genuine hard work will go to vain.
– Black Hat SEO leads to irrelevant contents and web pages which annoys users because of poor search results.
– Black Hat SEO may lead to a ban of a web page or website and if not that then the lowering of ranks is certain after being caught.