What is Black Hat SEO?
Black Hat SEO is an illegal method to gain more website traffic. It is a set of techniques used to spike up website ranking that violates the search engine guidelines. Moreover, it is not beneficial for the users/ customers. Marketers adopt Black Hat SEO to increase their ranking and to gain more customers after it backfires their sheepish efforts.
The motive of marketing is to speak about your brand simultaneously learn about your customers. Marketing your brand to the best customers is the prerogative for every brand. Digital marketing has opened so many opportunities for brands to spread their brand voice. The digital landscape is evolving over the years, and it is creating greater chances for brands to attain a digital identity. Now having your brand’s website at higher rankings in search engines is the main target for every marketer out there. It has become a real struggle as there is heavy competition. Procuring an online brand reputation and ranking high on search engines is tough but not impossible.
However, this platform is being exploited by marketers for their personal gain. These marketers are treading towards the illegal lane to target high rankings. In order to gain greater online visibility and boost website rankings, marketers are opting for Black Hat SEO. It is a shortcut to spice up your website ranking but it has a higher chance of getting your website banned.
Black Hat SEO techniques
These are categorized as Black Hat SEO techniques:-
Cloaking in an e-mail
It is a method in which users are sent e-mails for ad content. It is against the search engine policy. These e-mails hide the sender’s name and address.
Blog Spam comments
It generally appears in blogs. For example, you might have come across some unrelated comments below the blogs which are usually promotion content.
Reporting a competitor
This is a petty method adopted by some marketers, who intentionally report their competitor’s website.
Shady Redirects
Initially, a website that is shut down is displayed as 301 re-direct. But some are using it to convert this old page as a method to redirect to their website.
Click Baiting
It is a method in which the user is tricked into clicking a web page only to lead to a different webpage.
There are many more Black Hat SEO techniques like Article spinning, Content automation, Duplicate contents, Pages with malware, Link schemes, Guest posting networks, Link manipulation( including buying links), etc
Why you should avoid Black Hat SEO?
Firstly, Black SEO techniques are annoying and displeasing for the users.
For any brand to work out you need the customers to like your brand. If you are using this shady method to gain more users it will backfire. The customers will have a strong aversion towards the website from the get-go. Marketing is primarily done to gain customer’s trust. By opting, this method your brand/website would be associated with a scam. It isn’t easy to erase the scammer image from your brand. Nobody chooses to become a loyal customer to a scammer. The little chance of attaining loyal customers will never happen due to this pre-conceived image created by Black Hat SEO techniques.
Second, it is a momentary glory that will soon fade away.
Just way the way it automatically generates more traffic, it loses the traffic and the users almost automatically. Its impact is just like, a sudden viral video that becomes the talk of the town but it’s soon forgotten. Every brand targets to have a longing impact on the customers. But this easy method can bear sudden results but will revert back to its initial position. It is a risky method without guaranteed success.
Thirdly, Google and other search engines are strengthening their security.
Black Hat SEO is a straight-up illegal scheme that directly goes against the search engine guidelines and gets your website banned even before it can make any progress. If a search engine bans the website then, you will lose the chance to market it online.
Conclusion
So, in conclusion, switching to Black Hat SEO is not a smart move. It is illegal and would most probably get your website forever banned. You will lose the opportunity to present your brand on the digital platform. Your website will accumulate a bad reputation.
