SEO is the number one most used way to gain more traffic and viewers to your site. It is also the way many companies have used to increase their revenue. But with good, and doing everything the right way, there is also the bad, and doing it the wrong way. Although the internet is a wonderful place, and there are a lot of people willing to help your company succeed, there are also companies and people that are willing to manipulate the system and if you work with the wrong person or company, they could fill your site with black hat SEO techniques and ultimately your site may be banned from all search engines for life. So, what is black hat SEO and how do you avoid it at all costs? Caseo LTD (https://caseo.ca/ontario/seo-toronto) has shared the most important things to understand about this practice.
What Is Black Hat SEO?
Black hat SEO is most commonly defined as aggressive SEO strategies, techniques and tactics that focus only on search engines and not a human audience, and usually does not obey search engines guidelines. This can end very badly, as the companies who are using these strategies will ultimately be banned from their own site and will be blacklisted from Google searches, which makes it nearly impossible for viewers to find you on any search engine.
Why Do Businesses or Companies Use Black Hat SEO?
Usually black hat SEO strategies are used by those who are looking to get rich quick rather than a long-term investment. They are looking for the easy way out in which if they get caught can lead to very bad consequences, even being banned from Google. Although this may seem unlikely, it’s still a risk that can ultimately shut down your site.
Watch Out for Spammers
These are the people are that using black hat SEO on companies they have manipulated.. not knowing that the spammers in the end are taking the money and leaving the companies without money and ultimately being banned. They try to outsmart search engines while tricking the system and learning new ways to get more money into their pockets.
Some Black Hat Techniques to Look Out for
Kasia Perzyńska from Unamo reveals eight risky SEO black hat techniques that include paid links, spam comments, duplicate content, cloaking (which is to trick search engines in order to get the desired ranks for target keywords), and much more. She also shared that doorway pages are a common black hat tactic, which lure visitors onto the site by redirecting them after they click on the article or web page. Kasia also stated that with the internet become the most reliable source for oncoming traffic for sites, black hat techniques have also seen a rise in recent years and are becoming more popular.
Popular Brands That Have Participated in Black Hat SEO
According to Padraig O’Connor from Hubspot, big companies such as Groupon, Sprint, Forbes, and JC Penney have all participated in black hat SEO. They all had consequences and realized they had to change their SEO strategies before they were penalized. All the companies were penalized because of their actions but were able to fix their mistake and regain their former rankings.
Why Should You Avoid Using Black Hat SEO?
Although black hat SEO is not illegal, it’s against the policies of search engines. It may feel like a get rich quick scheme but if your site is penalized and caught it can be bad news and in the end, you may be banned. It’s better to hire a professional or try to do it yourself than finding the easy way out of this particular situation.
Nowadays search engines have gotten so good at recognizing black hat SEO that it’s pretty much unavoidable that you will get caught sooner rather than later. Black hat SEO is a short-term solution and ultimately turns into a long-term headache as you will get banned and become blacklisted. Black hat SEO is damaging to your reputation and ultimately not even worth it. Long-term investments are better than short-term success.
What Are the Consequences of Using Black Hat Techniques?
Getting caught using black hat SEO does not only cause your website to be blacklisted by search engines, but you would lose the ability to send organic traffic to your website and its content. While black hate SEO might seem like a quick way to increase traffic it is not recommended, and it’s considered to be a high risk of being caught by search engines and ultimately cause detrimental effects. Facing the backlash of the consequences does not ultimately outweigh the positives of using black hat SEO.