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Know about Black Hat SEO and the major Risks it could bring

Digital Links

By Digital LinksPublished 3 years ago 7 min read
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Know about Black Hat SEO and the major Risks it could bring
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

The concept of SEO has gained popularity in the digital marketing world and there are marketing tactics created for understanding the Google algorithms and move ahead with the higher ranks for any search query. Google algorithms are highly sophisticated and the identification of web spam is something that it does with the fullest perfection. Digital marketers used to follow some unnatural SEO tactics for ranking their websites. However, times have changed and now, the marketing agencies look for ways not to do any such activity as it could blacklist the website and hamper the webmaster quality guidelines. So, let’s discuss the black hat SEO

What is Black Hat SEO?

Black Hat SEO tactics are used for ranking the websites by violating the guidelines by Google, and other search engines. These are manipulative optimization techniques that aim at increasing the SERPs by going against their terms. It is clear that with the violation of the guidelines, there will be strict outcomes leading your website to get penalized. Google has automated ways to penalize a website and, in some cases, it is done with manual action. This leads to the lowest ranking positions and hence, the decreased organic traffic towards your website.

Risks associated with Black Hat SEO

Black Hat SEO comes with various risks and that is the reason to never consider it. The reality is that there are a few marketers that want to try and cheat the system to hurriedly obtain faster rankings. Black hat SEO techniques might give the required results but those are not long-lived. Google mentions its Webmaster Guidelines to make the website owners aware of the things NOT to follow in their digital efforts.

The tricks for faster SEO must be avoided. When it comes to the usage of black hat tactics, the reality is that these techniques don’t help users and won’t be useful if search engine algorithms didn’t exist.

Reasons for Avoiding Black Hat SEO techniques

The worst consequence for the black hat SEO techniques is that the violations may lead to the website being entirely removed from the Google index or get into the Spam category. Any website that comes into the Spam action no longer shows on the Google partner websites. A good SEO can increase the organic visibility of a website and black hat techniques can do contrary to it.

3 major consequences that could occur by using Black Hat SEO techniques:

1 ) Negative Impact on your SERPs and website visibility

The website will ultimately lose search engine visibility, rankings, and traffic by following black SEO tactics. It will consequently lead to lower conversions and negatively affect revenues. It can reduce the business income and leads to job losses. The severe declination in organic traffic might be due to any unethical tactics or the requirement of paid media supplements.

Blackhat SEO techniques can cause the declination of the website performance with algorithmic filtering or any manual action that would ultimately cause a negative issue for the website. No long-term results

2) No long-term results

There can be no long-term projections made with the black hat SEO techniques. It might take time for Google to determine the unethical techniques but there is no way to escape. There will be a sudden loss of traffic and the penalty could occur for the inevitable troubles that could occur to your website. The artificial inflation of the rankings could be dangerous and the businesses will become unpredictable with the usage of black hat SEO techniques.

3) Poor User Experience

Google never ranks the websites doing the best SEO but focuses on the website that delivers positive experiences to the customers. The links serving the best content and trusted by the search engines are always recommended by them. Search engines always recommend websites that are more loved by the users and explored for relatable content, images, or videos. If the primary consideration is given to the search engines over the relatable users, there will be a lower conversion of the website’s ability to convert the leads.

What are the main Black Hat SEO techniques to AVOID?

The website owners need to know what all should be AVOIDED to get towards the Black Hat SEO techniques. Many of the advanced tactics require attention to understand the detailing. You need to follow the right advice as some of the so-called ‘advanced strategies’ in reality will lead you towards black hat techniques.

Here are the tactics that should not be considered as they violate Google’s Webmaster Guidelines that MUST NOT be used:

Keyword Stuffing

The repetition of the main target keywords in excess won’t help to get the ranking. Keyword stuffing will result in oppositely and come under black hat SEO techniques. The stuffing occurs in random blocks that do not make sense when you read them with an open mind.

Google hates Duplication

It is not easy to create amazing content and it is one of the topmost priorities for Google too. The biggest mistake could be to automatically generate the content with keywords without actually going through its usefulness. Content is King and shouldn’t be ignored in any way as the low-quality or duplicate pages could penalize the website.

Hidden Text

The hidden text has the same colour as that of the background and is positioned behind the image or off-screen, zero font size, and uses CSS to hide it from users. Sometimes, the SEO companies stuff keywords in this text to deceive Google and rank higher on the websites. It is not at all recommended to add any hidden text to your pages in any form.

Gateway/Doorway Pages

The unnatural creation of pages that target specific search queries can violate the guidelines by Google. It acts as a funnel to one page and these pages are termed as gateway or doorway pages. Every content on your website needs to have a particular purpose and your aim should not always be to create the pages for search engines. Rather, the informative content should be relevant to humans.

Manipulative or Paid links

Paid link building is always dangerous for your website. Google gives preference to the earned links and avoids tactics such as paid links, excessive link exchanges, forum spamming, automated link building, exactly matching links, site-wide footer or sidebar links, spammed directory links, large-scale content marketing or guest posting, and similar other manipulations.

Misleading Redirects

Redirection is a common part of search engine optimization. There is nothing wrong with redirections uncles it is done misleadingly. The search engines will index the original page but if it is redirected to some different URL, it violates the guidelines. Hence, it won’t be preferred.

Negative SEO

There are some unethical SEO applications for reducing the competitor rankings and encourage your website’s position. It is never good to point someone else’s domain to the wrong sites to penalize it. Google is getting smarter to ignore the spammed links to get rid of such attacks. It is essential to regularly analyze your link profile to check the link sources.

Cloaking

This tactic involves making different URLs or contents for the users or search engines by providing a different experience on each. It is a way to point to some other locations deceptively that is hated by Google. It is essential to design the best possible experiences for the users and this way, search engines would also love your page.

Conclusion

Digital Links is the best digital marketing agency with its presence in the UK, UAE, India, and Qatar. The company includes a group of proficient experts who focus on building the website’s digital reputation organically that is well accepted by Google and other search engines. They follow 100% white hat techniques illustrated by Google and do every single activity in a way that is going to be the BEST for your online business. Digital Links is a well-trusted and reliable source to hand over your web site’s marketing campaign without any fear of black hat SEO impacts.

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