When Google emerged in the late 1990s, the highest ranked websites on the results page were there for their keywords and also for links pointing to them. Quickly, some developers identified “tricks” to fool the tools and position their websites at the top of the results. Thus was born Black Hat SEO, alluding to western films, where bandits generally wore a black hat.
At that time, websites that used black hat techniques included several keywords and links for the pages and thus achieved the best positions in the ranking. But all that user attention also pointed Google’s focus to those sites and their techniques.
Although sometimes black hat SEO can achieve some immediate results, in the long run it is never worth it, since if the search engine detects an attempt to cheat the penalties are very severe. Therefore, we usually end up generating the opposite effect to the desired one. In addition, black hat SEO presents another problem, and that is that it does not provide any value to end users. Therefore, although it may be effective in the short term, it ends up being detrimental to a company’s marketing objectives.
Among the most popular black hat SEO techniques are:
▸Keyword stuffing
It consists of entering a keyword over and over again on our website so that the search engine can position us for it. According to Google’s standards, the keyword must always respond to the needs of users and provide value. Repeating it over and over without rhyme or reason affects the quality of the content and the user experience.
▸Cloaking
One of the most important rules of ethical SEO is that websites must be the same for users and crawlers. In the case of cloaking, the trap consists of generating a super-optimized website for search engines, but which would be unreadable for a human being, and “covering it” with another website aimed at users but which is not traceable in search engines.
▸Duplicate content
This happens because, for Google, good content is original content. Any page that has identical content to another already published is considered duplicate content. Much is debated among webmasters if there really is a penalty for this, but the fact is that when there is similar online content, Google will prioritize only one to be displayed to the user and will hide the copies of the search results.
▸Hidden text
This black hat SEO practice is very old and violates the regulation of showing the same content to users and trackers. It is about hiding texts that repeat the keyword over and over again, for example, putting the text in the same color as the background or reducing the size.
▸Paid Links
Basically, the goal is to pay a website to generate a link for you. And that does not apply only to money, but also for example, to offer a discount on the product or an advantage in the company. Any link generated only by a reward is considered a paid link. Of all the techniques, this is the most difficult to be identified by the Google algorithm, since it has no way of discovering if you have chatted with a friend in a cafe and paid them to include a link to your website.
More reads:
What is a Negative SEO Attack
What we understand about SEO Poisoning
