About 93 percent of online experiences begin with a search engine. For companies looking to gain leads and new clients, finding ways to rank higher in search engine results is vital. Usually, that means turning to search engine optimization tactics.
SEO utilizes many different techniques and some of these can get companies in trouble with the very search engines they strive to profit from. Black hat SEO techniques entail manipulating how the search engine perceives the web page and they do so in ways that go against search engine guidelines.
To avoid negative repercussions for your business, here are the black hat SEO techniques you want to steer clear of.
1. Black Hat SEO: Keyword Stuffing
Keyword stuffing is the practice of stuffing a page with numbers and keywords that will make the search engine think the page is relevant and deserves higher rankings.
Most of the time, the keywords are irrelevant to the site itself and other times they are even hidden from the user while still allowing the search engine to scan them.
Keyword stuffing will end up doing the opposite of what you intended, dropping your page’s ranking.
2. Link Farms
Another of the most common black hat SEO tactics is to create a link farm. A link farm is a number of websites that use hyperlinks to connect to one another just for the purpose of increasing their rankings.
The links themselves will not provide traffic to your site but are used to trick the search engine into thinking your site is connected to many others, increasing its popularity.
3. Cloaking
Cloaking involves showing different content and even different URLs to users and search engines. Cloaking attempts to rank higher using content created especially for search engines while directing users to another page.
If a search engine determines a site is cloaking, it will usually ban it. Misleading redirects is an issue similar to cloaking. It involves misleading the search engine and displaying content that is different from what the user will see.
4. Duplicate Content
This black hat SEO technique involves taking content from another site and copying it across different domains. Search engines want unique content and will usually flag duplicate content, lowering the ranking of the site or sites.
5. Invisible Text
One of the simplest black hat SEO techniques is to write keywords in white on a white background. The user will not see them but the search engine will still scan them, ranking the site higher for those keywords.
Turn to White SEO Techniques
Ranking higher on search engines is crucial for any company but using black hat SEO techniques to achieve this can have the opposite effect. Search engines are improving every day, learning to detect cloaking, invisible text, and all of the other black hat techniques out there.
At Bloom Digital Marketing, we will help you with SEO rankings and deliver measurable returns on investment for every marketing campaign. Contact us today to put your digital marketing strategy into action!
