17 Black Hat SEO Practices

Black hat SEO refers to practices that attempt to game the search engines. Should a search engine uncover a Web site that is using unethical practices to achieve search engine rankings, it is likely to remove that Web site from its index. According to HubSpot writer Padraig O’Connor, Black hat SEO refers is, “a practice against search engine guidelines, used to get a site ranking higher in search results. These unethical tactics don’t solve for the searcher and often end in a penalty from search engines. Black hat techniques include keyword stuffing, cloaking, and using private link networks” (O’Connor, n.d.).

Google publishes guidelines for Webmasters, available through Google’s Webmaster Central (http://www.google.com/webmasters). As well as outlining best practice principles, Google has supplied the following list of precautions:

• Don’t add hidden text, invisible keywords, or hidden links to a web page.
• Don’t redirect pages by keyword stuffing them and sending the user to a different page
• Don’t send automated queries to Google.
• Don’t load pages with irrelevant keywords.
• Don’t create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content (also known as “cloaking”).
• Don’t create pages with malicious behavior, such as phishing or installing viruses, trojans, or other malware.
• Avoid “doorway” pages created just for search engines, or other “cookie cutter” approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content.
• If your site participates in an affiliate program, make sure that your site adds value. Provide unique and relevant content that gives users a reason to visit your site first.
• The bottom line: design Web sites for users first and foremost, and don’t try to trick the search engines.
• Don’t use “link farms” to boost link popularity
• Don’t create web pages with poor quality content.
• Don’t pay for links to drive traffic to your site
• Don’t spam other sites’ blogs with comments that contain links to your site.

Black hat is all about gaming the search engines and finding shady ways to rank high on the SERP. Google punishes repeat offenders and changes its algorithm regularly to catch chronic abuses.