As we have already mentioned to you several times, natural referencing (SEO) is essential in your marketing strategy. So we have given you advice on several occasions to improve the appearance of your website in Google searches or how to write content that will positively impact your SEO. But we never told you about the practices that should be avoided in your marketing strategy. It is more commonly called Black Hat SEO which includes all the techniques that can harm your SEO. We will explain it to you in detail.
What is Black Hat SEO?
This technique characterizes practices described as dishonest aimed at making your website appear high in search results. Put simply, Black Hat SEO goes against what is recommended by Google and pays very little attention to user experience. These practices are generally a reason for banning from search engines. Showing up in search results is vital for business growth, but there are good and bad ways to optimize search engines.
5 Black Hat SEO Techniques to Avoid
1- Keyword overload
This keyword overload technique refers to the practice of filling your content with irrelevant keywords for the purpose of manipulating the page’s ranking in search results. Adding multiple keyword variations where they add no value creates a bad experience for users. It can also cause your page to rank for irrelevant queries.
Google gives the following examples to illustrate this technique:
List of irrelevant phone numbers,
Text listing the cities or regions for which the web page is trying to appear,
Repetition of the same words and the same sentences.
Here is a concrete example: “We sell personalized cigar boxes. Our personalized cigar boxes are handmade. If you are considering purchasing a personalized cigar box, please contact our personalized cigar box specialist at custom.cigars.boxes@example.com. ”
2- Concealed content
This technique consists of offering different content to search engine algorithms and users. Websites practicing this kind of SEO will do so in order to make content ranking for a variety of terms irrelevant to their website. Spam websites often do this to try to prevent a robot from discovering the spam content they offer to users.
3- The purchased links
Search engines like Google strictly prohibit the buying and selling of links. They state on their website that “any link intended to manipulate a site’s PageRank or ranking in Google search results may be considered part of a linking pattern and a violation of Google’s webmaster guidelines.” . This includes sending a website of free products in exchange for links.
You should avoid paying any other site to link to your content. Google asks users to tell them about cases of people buying or selling links. They say they will penalize the link buyer and seller once the practice is detected.
4- Spam comments on your blog
As the name suggests, this technique involves including a link to your website in the blog comments. This practice occurs less often these days, as search engines like Google have updated their algorithm to update all links in blog comments.
5- Network of links
A link network is a website or collection of websites developed solely for link-building purposes. Each website links to the site (s) they want to rank higher on the search engines. Search engines rank websites by looking at the number of links that point to the website, among other factors. Black Hat SEO exploits this by using these link networks to inflate the number of “backlinks” to a particular site.
Why Should You Avoid These Black Hat SEO Techniques?
Although Black Hat SEO is not illegal, it is frowned upon and even worse referenced by search engines. Basically, it is against the rules allowed by search engine algorithms. If you use these grossly frowned-upon techniques, expect serious consequences. For example, your website’s visibility decreases in search results and could even in some cases be deleted. Don’t you want to get this far? Be careful!
In addition, be aware that search engines more and more systematically detect fraudulent SEO techniques, making you unmask has become almost inevitable. And if you are not spotted, you will have short-term benefits, but in the long term, you will, unfortunately, inherit the consequences, among other things, much lower visibility on the search engines.
In short…
If you are not very experienced in SEO or on the contrary you are a master of algorithm hijacking, be careful. Bad internet behavior could get your site listed in the search engines, and that’s not what you want. If you are unsure and want more advice and expertise, consult us!
