Google has started producing algorithms by the droves to rank websites based on quality content, relevancy and useful links. But before that, website owners were using deceitful black hat SEO tactics to drive up their ranking. Black hat SEO tactics are now considered unethical and unacceptable strategies that mitigate your website ranking. Here are top seven black hat SEO tactics that you should far behind.
Link Farms
Most search engines consider internal and external links a valuable ranking factor, due to which website owners started paying link farms to generate and acquire links that direct users to their sites. However, nowadays sites are penalised if they use this black hat SEO
tactic.
Hidden Text
In the past, marketers used hidden or invisible text to attract search engines for a higher ranking in organic search engines results (SERPs). This tactic, however, is now considered a black hat SEO technique and results in bad organic ranking.
Cloaking
As the name suggests, cloaking is a stealthy way of showing one website to search engines and entirely different one to the users. For example, a website may show HTML content to Google and flash content to its users.
Keyword Stuffing
In the early 2000s, keyword stuffing was a hot and upcoming SEO technique for higher SERP ranking. However, this sneaky technique is now frowned upon by search engines. Ever since the Panda update, keyword density is carefully monitored by Google. Instead of using keyword stuffing, post creative and user-friendly organic content that has scattered terms throughout the text that you would like to rank higher for.
Hidden Links
Link equity has gained immense importance in the website ranking process, which make hidden links a black hat SEO tactic that must be avoided at all costs. Hidden links cannot be seen by users but can be detected by search engines. This is done by placing hyperlinks behind images, or adding links with zero font size or in the colour similar to the website’s background colour.
Clickbait
Clickbaiting is an under-handed way through which websites entice their users to click on a link by deceiving them with attractive headlines that catch their attention. Most often the Meta description and title will denote one thing while the content within would be completely different. Most websites that use clickbaits are concerned more with generating income via website clicks than providing useful information to their users.
Duplicate Content
In the past, websites would post same content on different pages to enhance their individual page ranking and sometimes stoop to stealing content from other websites. Nowadays, search engine algorithms have become smart enough to identify duplicate content in different forms and take it quite seriously. It’s imperative to avoid it.
All of these black hat SEO tactics are unethical and can translate into a terrible user experience. Consider this: Have you ever clicked on a website link only to find out that there is absolutely nothing of value in there and completely irrelevant to your search? This can annoy users to a point that they would never visit that site anytime soon.
Another important reason to avoid such unethical SEO
tactics is that nowadays search engines algorithms are keen enough to identify such abhorrent techniques, which will result in demotion of your website in SERPs. That can make it quite difficult for businesses who are trying to attract prospective customers.
Do good by Google, and Google will do good by you!