Black hat SEO or black cap SEO is an unethical tactic used by marketers. The tactics applied in this kind of SEO are keyword stuffing, cloaking, doorway pages, and so on. If you want to learn more about it, let’s check the information below!
What is Black Hat SEO?
A black cap SEO encompasses a collection of techniques employed to elevate the position of a page or site in search engine results pages by violating the terms of service of the search engines.
In order to differentiate the “bad guys” from the “good guys,” who donned white caps, the expression “black hat” developed in Western films. Lately, it has come to be more frequently applied to computer pirates, malware developers, and individuals who engage in illicit computer activities.
The term “black hat SEO” is frequently used to refer to an unauthorized technique that may improve the position of a website on a search engine results page (SERP). Engaging in these practices violates the terms and conditions of the search engine and may lead to the site’s exclusion from both the search machine as well as affiliate sites.
A compilation of methods and approaches utilized by individuals practicing black hat SEO have been publicly criticized in the Webmaster Guidelines of both Google and Bing.
“Does the work I’m performing provide value to the user, or am I merely performing for the attention of search engines?” is a diagnostic test for determining whether an SEO strategy violates a webmaster guideline from a search engine.
Your decisions are almost certainly grey hat if they do not offer any value for the user but improve the likelihood that rankings will be improved. The aforementioned criterion may also be utilized to ascertain whether a paid search technique qualifies as “black hat ppc.”
Read More: SEO: Beyond Technicalities
6 Black Hat SEO Strategies
Black cap SEO practices are very risky for the sustainability of a website. Therefore, it is important to know what techniques are included in it. Here are some of the most commonly used black cap SEO techniques.
Keyword Stuffing
Keyword stuffing is the practice of writing keywords repeatedly with the aim of increasing visibility and maximizing organic traffic. Usually, the keywords written are not relevant. This clearly disrupts reading comfort and produces low-quality content.
This technique used to be one of the easiest to do and effective in increasing the ranking of a website in the search engine column.
Cloaking
The cloaking technique is a black hat SEO tactic that is carried out by tricking search engines. Where a person has two different versions of content on a web page, which if visited by a search engine bot, then the content contains version A. However, if displayed to the user, the content is version B.
This technique is almost the same as irrelevant keywords because it targets keywords that have nothing to do with the content being created.
Doorway Pages
In the domain of spamdexing, portal pages, leap pages, and bridge pages are alternative names for doorway pages.By employing this strategy, pages are optimized to achieve a high ranking for a specific query.
Typically of inferior quality, these landing pages serve only to deceive search engines into redirecting visitors from the link they select to unrelated sites or pages.
Spinning
The spinning technique for black hat SEO is one that is increasingly popular. This is a form of content plagiarism, which is usually in the form of article content.
The spinning technique is generally done by using software to copy the source and paraphrase or rewrite it to make it look like a new or different article, so that it is considered unique content by search engines.
Link Farms
A link farm comprises a singularly purposeful website or aggregation of websites designed to generate links. Each site incorporates a link to the site or sites that it wishes to achieve a higher ranking on search engines.
In order to determine a website’s ranking, search engines consider, among other things, the quantity of inbound links. A dark headwear This is taken advantage of by SEO through the use of link farms to exaggerate the amount of backlinks a site possesses.
Numerous links as well as low-quality content are characteristics of link farms. Anchor text typically includes the desired keyword for which the website aims to achieve a high ranking. Due to the fact that search engines such as Google can readily identify link farms, their use should be ignored.
Conversely, it is advisable to employ white hat SEO strategies, such as generating exceptional content, infographics, data, interviews, or any other form of material that facilitates the organic accumulation of backlinks.
Comment Spam
Another example of black hat SEO techniques is comment spam. Usually web owners will attach a link to their website in the comments column available on other websites. This practice is carried out so that the website gets lots of backlinks from comment spam.
However, since the launch of the Google Penguin algorithm, Google is now more stringent in evaluating quality backlinks. Therefore, backlinks obtained from comment spam practices no longer receive assessment weight from Google.
Negative Impacts of Black Hat SEO
Because black cap SEO is an illegal strategy, so you should learn the negative impacts of it. Below is the list:
Penalties from Google
Black cap SEO is an optimization practice that violates Google guidelines. In other words, if you use black cap SEO techniques, then you must be willing if one day Google finds a violation that you have committed and imposes a penalty on your website.
Penalties given by Google can cause your website’s performance to decline drastically, starting from a decrease in rankings, a decrease in the number of organic visits, to the possibility of your website being removed from search results.
Damaging User Experience
User experience (UX) is now an important factor for Google to select illegal practices by site owners. The surge in increasingly creative black hat practices means Google is always looking for ways to patch weaknesses in its detection system. UX is now one of the priorities in determining the quality of a site.
If you use black hat techniques, you will definitely sacrifice UX due to unnatural methods. This will be detected by Google, especially if there are many complaint reports coming in from visitors to your site.
Decrease in Traffic Quality
While these practices may briefly increase traffic, that traffic may not be relevant or convert. This can reduce the quality of traffic and harm the long-term goals of the website.
Decline in Audience Trust
What will happen if your content is uncomfortable to read due to black hat practices? Internet users will give your site a bad rap. The level of trust will decrease drastically and they will probably spread the bad news about your site to other people. Unethical techniques may attract a lot of visits initially, but the results will not last long.
A similar thing will also happen if internet users search for information by typing keywords on Google, but get references to sites that use illegal SEO techniques. They will no longer trust your site name because the information presented does not satisfy them.
How to Avoid Black Hat SEO?
The tips for preventing the practice of black cap SEO are avoiding optimization practices that aim to deceive search engines, doing production of high-quality content that addresses users’ information needs, complying with the webmaster guidelines that have been created by Google and following the latest updates, as well as avoiding doing link farming or creating PBNs to generate backlinks.
Well, from the information above, it can be said that black hat SEO is very bad for your site’s performance. In order to reach the goal you set, it is better to lean on the right path. If you do not know the right things to do towards your site, it is better to rely on Essentials.id.
References
https://toffeedev.com/blog/seo/5-bahaya-menggunaka-black-hat-seo-dalam-bisnis/
https://sunmedia.co.id/blog/black-hat-seo-memahami-mengenali-dan-menghindari/
https://accurate.id/digital-marketing/black-hat-seo/
https://glints.com/id/lowongan/black-hat-seo-adalah/
https://cmlabs.co/id-id/seo-terms/black-hat-seo-adalah
