Black Hat SEO is the set of tactics that are prohibited by Google or other search engines and aimed at reaching the top search result rankings in the fastest possible period of time. If used wisely, such a promotion method can help webmasters rank for the desired keywords, however, in the long run, a website may be penalized. The risk of a website being banned increases when the search engine rolls out the update that rioritizes websites promoted with white-hat methods.
Here are some of the black-hat methods used for manipulating the search engine algorithms:
- Cloaking is about showing different webpage content to search engine spiders and users. This method basically tricks search engines in order to get the desired ranking and monetize the obtained traffic.
- Automated linkbuilding is about using special software that places backlinks to a website on various resources in order to create an illusion that the website features high-quality content that people often cite.
- Article spinning is about using software that scrapes the articles ranked for specific keywords and rephrases the content to make it seem unique. Such a technique allows webmasters to quickly fill websites with massive amounts of content.
Although black-hat SEO is a risky method of website promotion, webmasters in some niches won’t be able to rank for the highly competitive keywords without black-hat tactics. For example, all top players in dating and betting niches rely on black-hat promotion methods, so a new website would need to do the same in order to compete.
