An internet user will search or browse anything on the search engines, but an experienced SEO expert knows the process behind it. They are familiar with Search Engine Optimization or SEO. If you are running a business and want more market exposure, SEO can do that for you. However, it is not easy to see immediate results after investing to SEO wherein agencies should first develop a unique, well-researched marketing strategy to outperform your possible competitors and other businesses same on your field. Higher ranking means effective marketing strategy, and to place high on the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) is every SEO agencies dream. While you are on top of it all, be careful of a technique called Black Hat SEO if you don’t want to experience a sudden loss of traffic to your website.
How Black Hat SEO works?
Black Hat SEO is an unethical practice of boosting own rank on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) through various unorthodox methods, one of which is plagiarism. It is a subtype of a generalized SEO and the opposite of White Hat SEO. Agencies that exercise this don’t really care about their visitors and potential customers. Rather, they resort to unwanted actions to immediately rank higher on search engines. Some agencies are doing and tolerating this kind of effort discrimination and making it as an income generator instead of a service-generating website for the people. If you will be caught practicing Black Hat SEO, you might get banned any search engines.
Common Black Hat SEO Practices
Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search engine functions 24/7 because they want to provide quality searching experience to the people where they can find all the answer and information in just one attempt. However, these search engines can easily detect unethical and illegal practices and it is important to know if a Black Hat SEO attack has targeted you.
1. Auto-Generated Keyword and Content
It is a method wherein websites can easily generate content or posts that includes a keyword in the content. This may seem easy, but it is not worth it. The content generated is inappropriate and no substance for the readers as it is not technically written by a writer and possess lesser delivery of intent.
2. Useless Keyword Fabrication
Keywords play a huge part in any content or post on a webpage and it attracts potential customers or readers to visit your website. However, making useless keywords to rank higher among your competitors is still irrelevant as your website will be viewed as weak and non-credible for the users. This technique is keyword stuffing and it includes placing the same target keywords all over the paragraph which leads to unrelated queries coming from your site.
3. Technical Traps
Black Hat SEO is like an underground work that will lure you into something dangerous and may harm your profile. Aside from stuffing irrelevant keywords, here are some ways it can be done:
- Using white text on a white background and contrast of colours
- Setting the font to size zero
- Placing a text behind an image which is inappropriate
- Hidden small characters like period, hyphen, or any marks
4. Never-ending Plagiarism
As mentioned earlier, Black Hat SEO already master the art of plagiarism. If your website contains quality contents and trustworthy information, you are very prone on the attacks of black hat SEO. Unethical actions include scraping content, republishing content without giving any credits, and improper rewriting techniques from the original work.
5. Cloaking
If you think that only traps, irrelevant links and viruses are the only invaders on the internet, then you have cloaking that should be addressed immediately. Websites use this method to disguise as something quality, reliable information instead of just a spam. Of course, readers will click the spam because they don’t know what really it is behind the curtains, and agencies use this method to rank on SERP without any quality content being published on the site.
How Will Google Combat Black Hat SEO Attacks?
Google’s actions and respond about this issue has been publicly managed, and it’s simple. They launched subtle algorithm changes that change time to time and will detect sites that don’t comply with the standards set by Google. They called it “above-the-fold” and for websites that regularly make and publish quality content for the readers, expect that your ranking will move up.
From an intense level of competition in the market to the unrelentless practice of Black Hat SEO by most SEO agencies. To rank higher on Google’s Search Engine Results Pages or any search engine takes a lot of effort and can be sometimes frustrating. That is why others resorted to such unethical action on a desire to rank immediately. But always remember, even if you are still struggling ranking your website, don’t even dive into Black Hat SEO because it is not worth the risk.
