How to Identify Black Hat SEO?

All roads in search engine optimization lead to the one and only one destination: “higher search engine ranking”. There are several ways of achieving this goal. You could choose the ethical route or the unethical one. If you tread the unethical route then mind you, you have indulged in Black hat SEO. Unethical routes might help you attain your goal fast but will never help you to sustain your success.

Well you might ask me which is an unethical route and how you could identify Black hat SEO.

Activities that do not follow the Search Engine’s rules and regulations and break them are Black hat techniques.

Activities that compromise on quality and provide the user with a poor user experience are again Black hat techniques.

Activities that unethically present content visibly or invisibly to search engine spiders and search engine users are Black hat techniques.

Over-enthusiastic people go overboard with normal ethical activities and turn the entire activity into an unethical one. Here are some tips to identify Black hat SEO techniques.

We all know that the number of times keywords are used really makes a difference. If you find in a website that keywords are repeated several times with no logic behind and provide a very poor experience to the user then you have identified a Black hat SEO. Usually the keyword density (the number of times the keyword is repeated in the content) should be between 4% and 7%. Sometimes, people knowingly increase the keyword density above that limit to make the bots take that word or phrase as an important keyword. This is called keyword stuffing. This is the most common Black hat SEO technique used.

Going a step further, just because they do not want the user to know that they are doing such keyword stuffing but want to present it to the search engine spider to increase rankings, the letters are made to blend with the color of the background. It would look like a plain background and you would never know that the keywords are hidden in it. This is another Black hat SEO technique to be avoided. Search Engines are capable of identifying such cheating.

There could be a doorway page which has no content but is entirely fabricated to suit the requirements of the bots and thereby increase the ranking of the website. This practice is frowned upon and the site may be banned or penalized for such action.

Empty meaningless links from one website to another website is also created.

Sometimes you will find the same web pages repeated in a domain. Search engines are intelligent and can identify such duplication within a domain

These sort of techniques could help you achieve your goal for a short while, but will definitely not help you retain your success. If identified, your website will be banned and penalized by search engines, thereby putting an end to all your online marketing dreams. Just remember that Search Engines are constantly improvised and made more and more intelligent. These short-term successes are best avoided. Aim for long-term success and benefit through White Hat Techniques. White Hat Techniques definitely lead you on the route to long-term success.

Remember, in business it is not enough if you succeed, how you succeed also counts.