Black hat SEO practices can be defined as a set of practices used to improve the rank of a website or a page on the search results for search engines like Google and Bing, but the practices exploit the terms of service of the search engines. There is not much difference between white hat and black hat SEO apart from some of the violations that black hat SEO makes. The term “black hat” is derived from movies where the good guys wear white hats and the bad guys wear black hats. Black hat is also used to identify hackers, malware developers, and other programmers that indulge in unethical internet practices.
Black Hat SEO
Black hat SEO is a disapproved practice that can be effective in boosting a website’s rank on the search engine result page (SERP). However, on being caught for using such practices, the website can get permanently banned from the search engine and affiliate sites. Search engines like Google and Bing have open guidelines and warnings for using black hat SEO practices. When your website gets no user-added value and still does good on the rankings, you are more likely to use a black hat.
Some fo the most used black hat SEO techniques include
• Content automation
• Keyword stuffing
• Doorway pages
• Hidden text or links
• Sneaky redirects
• Cloaking
• Link schemes
• Article spinning
• Link manipulation
• Automated queries to Google
• Creating subdomains with duplicate content
How can you report black hat SEO
Black hat SEO is not generally a problem for you unless your website gets attacked by a malicious hack or virus containing SEO practice of spammy links, or a website using black hat SEO is affecting your hard-worked website or page in rankings.
To report a black hat SEO, you can file a webspam report using Google Webmaster Tools. It is suggested that you use this tool discreetly as falsely reporting a webspam can become a black hat SEO in itself and backfire on your website. If your website is attacked by malware spam, request a malware review for your website after cleaning the code.
Why you should avoid black hat SEO
The black hat SEO can get your website banned from search engines. That is probably the reason why you should stop right away with any blackhat practices. Many websites still use black hat strategies to gain recognition on the internet quickly. Their short term success may feel good but can have devastating results. Google’s penalties for black hat SEO are becoming more devastating for the websites as Google needs to keep its search results meaningful and free of spam. If you want to build a long-lasting business on the internet, you should never choose a black hat SEO no matter how attractive results it can promise. There are white hat SEO agencies that can provide similar results with a little hard work and investment.
