So What is Black Hat SEO?
Simply put, it’s the unethical tactics to fool search engines into giving a website a higher ranking. SEO stands for search engine optimization and proper SEO practices such as adding meta tags to pages, page titles, alt tags on images, site maps, redirects and having a website that meets web standards should come along with any well constructed website.
Every website wants to rank number one. It us becoming more and more challenging to get the number one spot on google for new websites. This has spawned an industry for “SEO experts” Good SEO experts will know to refrain from using the following techniques.
Bad SEO techniques will have a significantly negative impact on your websites ranking. There have been instances where Google has even banned websites for attempting to fool the search engine with these techniques. So what SEO techniques am I referring to? Well maybe you should just ask Google. They are very open about SEO practices that violate their standards. These SEO practices will either get your site banned or deemed untrustworthy. Here are a few that should be avoided:
Buying Links
Buying links from link farms is never a good idea. This has become an increasingly common practice which can easily get your site banned. Link buying originated ever since Google’s algorithm started increasing a website’s rank partly based on how many other sites were linking to it. Instead of buying back links, build links by writing useful and thoughtful content.
Duplicate Content
Putting the same pages up on your site with the same content repeatedly does not help your rank. Pages with the same content will only get indexed once.
Key Word Stuffing
The practice of writing purely for SEO makes your content look forced and repetitive. Be aware of the words you are using when writing text for your website but always remember actual people who will be reading your content, not just the bots will be reading your website. This practice will damage your Trust ranks.
Hidden Text and Links
Having text the same color as the background color on your website can hide large chunks of content from your readers while still being visible to crawlers. People will do this as an attempt to stuff extra key words into their text.
High Profile Examples of Bad SEO Practices
These practices can happen to websites from any size from lesser known site to large cooperate entities. Three examples that have received allot of press have been JC Penny for and Overstock.com and Forbes. These websites were using very sleazy SEO techniques that got them into allot of trouble with Google.
What To Do If You Commit a Bad SEO Practice?
Read Google Web Masters Standards and ensure you meet all their criteria. If you don’t know how to code a website, find a legitimate web design firm that know how, then you can resubmit your website to Google.