Archive for the ‘Black Hat SEO’ Category
published by Dan in Black Hat SEO | SEO
I recently read a post by Nabha on YOUmoz about why he thinks being a white hat is better than using black hat techniques. I couldn’t agree more with his points when he pointed out that white hat techniques…
- Attract the most valuable links;
- Produce a sense of well-being, a feeling that you have contributed to the world (as Rand’s younger brother said in a different context, you can sleep well at night, knowing that you’ve helped someone); and
- Will never go out of fashion
I do understand that there will always be SEOs that will resort to black hat techniques but I simply believe that sticking to white hat will pay off better in the end. It might result in opportunities lost (some clients actually want you to employ black hat techniques to get faster results!) but it will make you a better/more skilled and reputable SEO in the end.
On the other hand, even though I believe in sticking with white hat techniques I also believe that it is important that an SEO be knowledgeable about black hat methods as well for the following reasons:
- knowledge is power - Black hat methods will also give you further insight on the workings of search engines and you want to know all you can about search engines.
- to know what to avoid - The truth is that there are SEOs out there that start off using black hat techniques simply because they didn’t know any better. As they say though ignorance of the law excuses no one! So you’d better stay updated!
- so you can explain things better to your clients - If a client has heard of a black hat method and think it’s really great and want you to use it you wouldn’t be able to explain your stance if you cannot point out why you do not want to use that method.
Popularity: 18% [?]
published by Dan in Black Hat SEO
Early this week Randfish wrote about the “Dark Side of Wikipedia“. Everyone knows how popular Wikipedia is, and though there will always be detractors you have to admit that it is the number online (and maybe even offline) encyclopedia nowadays. So what does Wikipedia have to do with SEO?
Being a such a popular site anyone in the world of SEO knows that getting links from something as popular as Wikipedia is very desirable to say the least. Spammers hoping to to get link juice of course immediately saw the opportunity and thus placed links to their (or their clients’) sites on Wikipedia. To combat spamming Wikipedia gave all external links (for articles in English) the “nofollow” attribute. This helps combat spammers since all links with tagged as such is not considered by Google when raking websites. Hence, SEO-wise spammers have nothing to gain by littering Wikipedia with links to their sites.
However, as Randfish pointed out, “vandalism” still does exist in Wikipedia since “vandals” for several reasons. Furthermore, he says that “Wikipedia is such a reference resource that if your site earns links on popular pages, you’ll find that those links find their way into forums, blog posts, articles, and journalistic publications more often than not. This is probably one of the most clever ways to use Wikipedia, because you’ll need to link to something worthy of being spread, anyway, which probably means that even a heavy-handed Wiki-editor won’t remove it, as it’s typically relevant enough and interesting enough to belong there.” So this means that links in Wikipedia still are valuable.
Obviously, this technique for getting “worthy links” are questionable (downright offensive to many). So you might as well ask yourself, unless the link on your site really is important to an article, should you just ride with Wikipedia’s popularity to get links? If you ask professional and ethical SEO consultants the answer will of course be NO.
Popularity: 15% [?]
published by Dan in Black Hat SEO
Black hat SEO techniques are the quick and dirty way to get search engines to notice your website. However, they are also the quickest way to getting a website banned and to losing your reputation.
Some people just learning some SEO basics come across techniques that sound really good and unwittingly use it not knowing that it actually falls under black hat SEO. To avoid using these unethical methods you should know what the unacceptable methods actually are.
Here are some of the black hat methods that are most commonly used:
1. Cloaking - Cloaking is simply putting up web pages or websites in which its contents that are seen by the visitors are different from the contents “seen” by search engine spiders. There are legitimate reasons for cloaking (even Google uses a form of it to deliver results!) but if you use it mislead the search engine and mask the real content of your site then THAT is plain unethical.
2. Keyword Stuffing or Spamming - This doesn’t pertain to email spams but spamming or stuffing your content with so many keywords that it lends your webpage unreadable. Some webpages that do this does have readable content but there is still too many keywords that the content, though readable, is definitely senseless or repetitive or just not palatable. In short when you keyword stuff your main aim is to insert as much keywords as possible in your content instead of delivering relevant and well-written information needed by your visitors. Keyword stuffing can also be found not only in the content visible to your visitors but in the code as well. Inserting keywords and phrases will surely get your web page noticed by a search engine but it will be a negative kind of attention if it turns into keyword stuffing.
3. Duplicate Content or Websites - You might have a good reason for having a duplicate or mirror website but if you are doing this and infringing on someones rights you might of course get caught and your website banned. The problem with duplicate content and sites is that Google and other search engines are not able to distinguish which one is the original copy and could end up penalizing the original instead of the one who is guilty of plagiarising the original site.
Popularity: 13% [?]
published by Gary in Black Hat SEO
Black hat search engine optimisation is primarily defined as techniques and tricks that are used to get higher search rankings in an unethical manner. Actually every search engine wants to give the most relevant information to its users and the black hat SEO tricks portray the page as something they are not. Black hat tricks — sometimes — can get you at the top of the search results, but they get your website banned as soon as your tricks are noticed by the search engines. There is no SEO like white hat SEO. Given below are some black hat SEO tricks you should avoid for the longevity of your rankings and SEO efforts.
Avoid keyword stuffing
Have you ever encountered pages that nonsensically contain long arrays of keywords and key phrases at the begging of the page and at the end of the page. They are trying to trick the search engines into believing that they contain lots of relevant information about those keywords. This trick used to succeed for a few days but it no longer works and it is now a sure-shot way of getting your website banned for six or seven months.
Don’t make mirror websites
People erroneously think if they have many websites selling the same thing, sooner or later at least one of them will start appearing at the top of the search results. This is precisely the reason why of late the search engines have started penalising web masters for hosting duplicate content.
Avoiding cloaking and doorway pages
Cloaking and doorway pages are specifically created for the search engines and not for the users. Search engines loath such pages because after tricking the search engine into displaying your cloaked page you can redirect the user to any page of your choice. This is the highest kind of deception and lots of search engine resources go into locating the cloaked pages and banning the associated websites.
Don’t stuff keywords in your title
Your title is meant to make things clearer, not to confound your visitors and search engine crawlers. Use clear language in your title. There is no need to use twenty keywords there. Just use one or two most important keywords and construct a pithy sentence out of them and then use that sentence as the title of your page.
Don’t use hidden text
Some webmasters create lots of text using the same color as the background of their page, thinking that text is no longer visible. They don’t understand that the search engine crawlers strip the text of all the formatting and then read it. No matter what color you use, the search engine crawlers can easily read it.
Avoid automated search engine submissions
All the major search engines don’t accept automated submissions and all the search engines that do, are mostly spam related websites specifically run to collect your email addresses. Inbound links created by automatic submissions can adversely affect your search engine ranking.
Avoid senseless link exchanges
There is a reason why the search engines use inbound and outbound links to gauge the popularity of your website. Inbound links from quality websites validate your content. Similarly, by providing quality outbound links you tell the search engines that you link to important information on the Internet. The senseless exchange of links can drastically reduce your link popularity.
In conclusion I’d say always stick to legitimate SEO practices as their affect is long-lasting.
Popularity: 15% [?]
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