The Pros and Cons of Black Hat SEO

The Pros and Cons of Black Hat SEO

Black Hat SEO vs White Hat SEO

Black hat SEO is the use of various tactics to manipulate search engine results in order to obtain higher traffic and conversion rates. Many black hat SEO experts use automation tools to post comments on blogs, post articles on article directories and automatically post on forums to increase backlinks to their sites. Black hat SEO also involves duplicate or spun content that is generated through automated spinning tools, invisible texts or stuffed keywords, and cloaking or redirecting users from one website to another site. All these done, just to rank at the top of SERPs.

So white hat SEO is what Google loves: high quality content, well-labeled images, unique and relevant texts with no plagiarism, and relevant links to other websites in the same niche. Basically, the opposite of black hat SEO.

Why Is Black Hat SEO Dangerous?

You may have been approached by various black hat SEO services that promise to boost your site’s ranking and traffic in a short time frame. They could help your site achieve number one ranking in search results within a month or sooner. A lot of small business owners fall for this trap. Although black hat SEO marketers cannot be considered scammers, they do implement illegal tactics to achieve their results. If for any reason Google finds out that your site is involved in black hat SEO, it could ban or blacklist your site altogether.

Google keeps changing its algorithm periodically to adapt to changing black hat SEO techniques, so what works today may be useless tomorrow. If you are looking for a long-term SEO tactic that will not become useless or harmful over time, you should opt for white hat SEO. Not long ago, Internet marketers kept building as many backlinks to their sites as possible, since Google was using the number of backlinks to a site to rank that site in search results. However, when people started to abuse the algorithm, Google immediately reversed this site ranking technique, resulting in millions of sites being penalized across the globe.

One example of a famous brand that fell victim to Google for applying black hat techniques is JC Penney. Back in 2010, JC Penney had been able to rank very well for a number of different keywords. The first news about JC Penney’s black hat SEO backfiring was published by The New York Times. It is unclear how The New York Times found out about the black hat techniques that JC Penney used at that time, but maybe it was a tip from the brand’s competitors. The investigation process found thousands of links from unrelated websites to the prestigious online store. Needless to say, Google immediately took action against this abuse and punished the store for violating its terms and conditions. Apparently JC Penney’s SEO service was fired, but to recover from the financial damage this incident caused wouldn’t be an easy feat.

What Does Google Say About Black Hat SEO?

Google definitely hates black hat SEO techniques, so here’s a list of things to stay away from if you want to build a sustainable business model online:

• Do not in any way use hidden text on your site. Hidden links are also a big no-no.
• Do not involve in cloaking or sneaky redirects.
• Do not use duplicate content on your site. You will get blacklisted faster than you could imagine.
• Do not employ keyword stuffing when writing content for your pages. A good keyword density for any article is about 2% maximum.
• Do not create doorway pages just for search engines or use cookie stuffing techniques, especially when you do affiliate marketing.
• Do not create pages that send automated queries to Google.

Why Black Hat SEO is a Benefit to Mankind

Although black hat SEO is a bad concept and online businesses should stay away from it, it does help search engines develop more effective technologies and keep improving their services. Black hat SEO keeps evolving over time, and so does Google. Black hat SEO attacks make Google realize they are not perfect, so they have to keep improving their services in order not to fall behind the black hat SEO guys. The users will be the ones who benefit from this competition. We, the users, will get better and more relevant search results over time. Through many major search algorithm updates, we can definitely commend Google for striving to deliver the best search results to their users.

In conclusion, if you are a small business owner looking for a way to boost your traffic and sales, you should stay on the safe side and never touch black hat SEO tactics. Even though black hat SEO could deliver faster and better results in a short time frame, it will ruin your business’s prospects and reputation in the long run. Sooner or later, search engines will find out about your techniques and take the appropriate actions against you.