Everyone who owns a website can never turn down a chance to drive as much traffic to it as possible, simply because it often translates into higher revenue. Unfortunately, many of them mistake black hat SEO tricks as that chance. The truth, however, is that they are traps that will lead you into black hole that you might never climb out of.
What are Black Hat Techniques?
If the method of getting traffic to your website through Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is not genuine, then you are using a black hat SEO technique. This means that even when you are getting high ranking, you do not deserve it. Some of these techniques include manipulation of the algorithms used by search engines into giving you top ranking or listing.
Remember that the main aim of search engines is to provide internet users with the information that is current and accurate. They do their best to build and retain an excellent reputation. By manipulating their algorithms, therefore, you are also tricking their users and putting their hard-earned reputation in danger. Thus, they will hand you heavy penalties without as much as a blink as soon as they realize that you are using black hat SEO techniques. Keep in mind that they have put in place various ways aimed at catching you. In the end, you will lose much more than you had in the first place. You are far better off working your way up than falling for black hat SEO techniques in the hope for a fast climb. In order to check your progress, use rank tracker pro and find better and a safer way of raising your ranking other than using such means as explained here.
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Plagiarizing a Website
Plagiarism of any kind is never good or allowed, both in ethical and legal terms. It is a mark of malice, deception and laziness. It is also against the law and when caught, you will pay a heavy price for it. Don’t think that you won’t be caught. Google, for one, is always on the lookout for people who copy other people’s website. They make sure that they learn a lesson. It is neither beneficial nor anywhere near good. You are better off foregoing it.
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Stuffing Keywords
One of the best ways of gaining traffic for your website is the use of keywords. SEO, in fact, wouldn’t work without the use of keywords. In addition, it is perfectly right and allowed by Google. Nevertheless, overdoing it is an unforgivable sin. It is not only frustrating and tiring for readers, but also shows that you are only after high flow of traffic in place of offering quality to your visitors.
Remember that Google monitors the density of keywords through various means including Panda. You will, therefore, soon be discovered. The consequences are dire and you don’t want to get there. Thus, strive to make your keywords as sparse as possible. You can, alternatively, use variants of the keyword instead of placing the same one in every sentence.
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Spinning Articles
You can gladly use technology to avoid detection when you copy someone’s work and post it on a website as your own. Among them is spinning articles or other types of written work. However, the same technology will lay bare your sins. When discovered, you will pay as huge a penalty as anyone who plagiarized the full content. To avoid this, write your own work or hire a writer to do it for you. You will not only have a clear conscience, but also confidence that you will never be at risk of incurring the cost of penalties imposed by Google.
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Duplicating your Content
Closely related to plagiarism and spinning, duplication of content is another black hat trick that will lead you nowhere but down the ladder. True, you may claim that you have not copied anyone’s work and you have the freedom to do whatever you like with the product of your own sweat. It might not even be illegal to use your content as many times as you like. However, it is immoral to feed readers with recycled content. You won’t be in good terms with Google, if you post similar or spun content on different websites even when you are the creator.
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Fake Click
It is natural for people to be enticed by juicy news or information that is more helpful to them than others. Some website owners know this and use that human weakness to bait internet users into visiting their websites. They lure them into clicking on links that lead them into pages that carry something entirely different from what it promises. It gets worse when they don’t get what they were really after searching for it all over the website. In the end, they become a frustrated lot and will never return, but the website owner has achieved the goal – getting them to visit the site. Nevertheless, using a fake click automatically puts you in Google’s bad books.
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Cloaking
Related to a fake click, cloaking leads visitors into different websites from the one promised. People who cloak trick search engines into believing that the page that they have been sent is the same one seen by visitors to the websites. This means that there are two versions of the same page. Unfortunately, search engines do not like to be tricked and when they realize what you are doing – and it will be soon – they will clap you with a penalty that will send you into oblivion.
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Exchanging Links
Also known as link swapping, the tactic is used by website owners in the guise of solidarity and cooperation. They do this by linking back to one another’s site. Nevertheless, this often results into many links that do not come with much benefit to people visiting the sites. One of the reasons for this is the fact that the content on the link sites is not similar or at least relevant.
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Hidden Text
This is simply using colour to hide text. The website is designed in such a way that the colour of the background and text match. The aim is to make keywords invisible to visitors. Usually, the keywords are irrelevant and aimed at expanding the website’s reach and helping related websites through the owner. Google knows this and soon is at the neck of such website owners.
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Baiting and Switching
Popularly used in advertising, the tactic is used to attract the attention of potential buyers even when the item in question is not available. In internet usage, the technique is classified as black hat. Deceptive website owners gain high ranking for a certain website through creation of keywords, only to replace it with another one.
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Spamming on Social Media
In itself, spamming has never won any kind words. It is, therefore, obvious, that it is a black hat tactic. In social media it is used to send a large number of links which usually have no relevance and hold no value to readers. It, however, does not go without penalties when noticed.
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Domain Squatting
Domain squatters buy a domain whose name is almost similar to the name of a targeted company or brand. The main purpose of doing this includes benefiting from the traffic gained as a result of deceiving users into visiting a site that doesn’t belong to the original company. The squatter may also use the domain to spread viruses or get unauthorized access to passwords. The practice is obviously illegal.
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Redirecting
While the use of redirects is allowed and expected by everyone including search engines, some ill-minded people use it to mislead others for their own selfish gain. They dupe internet users into landing on websites against their wishes. This, in the end, has a negative impact on traffic as well as ranking. You would do well to avoid this type of black hat SEO trick.
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Parasite Hosting
This is a tactic used by malicious and greedy people to reap where they never sowed. They do it by hosting a webpage on someone’s server without any permission. They then link it to their own websites with the intention of gaining from the resulting traffic. This kind of crime is easily earthed out and carries heavy penalties.
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Spamming Comments
Most website owners leave room for comments for visitors to write their thoughts on what they have just read, watched, heard or anything else. This is usually a great way of creating engagement and transparency. Nevertheless, some people are tempted to put in comments that carry keywords and links with the aim of gaining traffic for their sites. It is a temptation that you should avoid at all costs.
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Creating Private Blog Networks
Linking back on sites helps website owners get a lot of traffic. One popular way of achieving this is creating a number of websites with the goal of directing traffic to a particular site, which is usually the ‘money site.’ Private Blog networks are especially preferred for fulfilment of this purpose mainly because they give the website owners the power to control what is contained on all the websites on the networks and anything happening in them. Unluckily for this kind of site owners, Google is always tracking them down and giving them their prize – mostly in form of stiff penalties.