Black
Hat search engine optimisation strategies are website marketing techniques
that are generally used to manipulate the likes of Google to gain higher
search rankings in an unethical manner. Black hat SEO techniques usually
include breaking search engine rules and regulations.
Not too long ago many of these strategies now known as black hat SEO
were considered to be legitimate website marketing techniques and indeed
'fair game'. Like most good things, someone stretched them too much
and Google only frowned upon them at that time.
Soon the word got around that webmasters could achieve high ranking
in Google by doing such strategies as making text the same colour as
the background so that the human eye couldn't see them, but spiders
could. Then they stuffed them with keywords to manipulate Google. (This
is only one example).
So why do search engines such as Google ban them? What the eye doesn't
see, the heart doesn't grieve over? - This isn't the point; Google genuinely
wants visitors to have a good experience and find exactly what they
are looking for with their search engine. Why would a webmaster want
to hide words from their visitor? - To attract search engine spiders
and the words may have no genuine relevance to the actual website.
The scenario mentioned above covers two 'black hat' SEO techniques;
Keyword stuffing: Packing long lists of keywords and nothing else onto
a website and Invisible text: This act of putting lists of keywords
in the dame coloured text as the background to attract more search engine
spiders.
These black hat SEO practices may provide short-term gains in terms
of search engine rankings, but those webmasters discovered deploying
these spamming techniques certainly run the risk of being penalized
by search engines such as Google. Black hat SEO is without doubt a short-sighted
solution to a long-term problem.
Doorway Pages is another Black Hat SEO tactic; A doorway page is basically
a page that the user will never see, it is secretly 'cloaked' purely
for search engine spiders to see, with intentions of manipulating them
into indexing the site with higher search engine rankings.
Black Hat SEO might be tempting and often these unethical website marketing
strategies actually do work, but only temporarily. As much as they do
end up getting sites higher in the search rankings; before you can count
the extra money you might have made, or indeed paid to a black hat website
marketer, the sites will more than likely be banned for using unethical
website marketing practices. Consider the risk before embarking on such
SEO strategies.
When in doubt use efficient search engine optimization techniques or contact a reputable website marketing expert to get your site ranked higher. Stay away from anything that even looks like Black Hat SEO.
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