The “Black Sheep” of SEO
Negative SEO & Examples
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the backbone of website growth. It focuses on increasing website traffic through the use of search engines. This has led to the usage of various SEO strategies in order to boost both the quality and quantity of website traffic (i.e. on-page SEO, technical SEO, and off-site SEO). s the backbone of a growing website. However, there is a set of negative SEO strategies that ignore the regulations of search engines and create “shortcuts” for better search engine optimization. These strategies are called Black Hat SEO, which breaks the rules and guidelines of search engines: they bypass the search engine requirements a website must meet to gain a high ranking in search engines. In other words, they cheat the system. It may seem like the easy way out, but these negative SEO strategies are more harmful than beneficial to a budding, new website.
Black Hat SEO Strategy Examples
Keyword Stuffing
Some common Black Hat SEO strategies include keyword stuffing, cloaking, or sneaky redirects. Keyword stuffing was a strategy more common and effective during the 1990s and early 2000s. They are defined as the deceptive inclusion of target keywords multiple times on a page in order to boost search engine optimization. Specifically, they ranged from the usage of block paragraphs (ineligible blocks of text consisting of various search terms), to consistently repeating words (unnatural repetition of a keyword in content), to “hidden” keywords (keywords with font colors that matched the background). This Black Hat SEO strategy became less useful due to Google’s update of its search algorithm against it. The consequences of using this strategy outweigh the possible benefits. A website could either be lowered from search rankings, or lose website credibility with users.
Cloaking
Cloaking can be described as disguising the content of a website to present differently to search engines versus users. A website could appear to be user-friendly and visually appealing, but in reality, contain very little content and instead contain an abundance of multimedia content. Although the commodity of this cloaking method is debated, one way to cloak a website is through the usage of matching IP addresses from specific search engine spiders to the IP address of the one requesting. This Black Hat SEO strategy is extremely forbidden by search engines as it is considered by them as “spamming” or and that the web page shown by the users should be the same as the one presented to the search engine. The consequences of using cloaking could result in a penalized website, or worse, permanently banned.
Re-directing
Sneaky redirecting is another negative SEO strategy used by malicious publishers. How malicious publishers use sneaky redirects is by owning commonly misspelled domains of a specific advertiser’s domain, and registering it as the affiliate program. Thus, when the user accidentally misspells the domain name of the advertiser, they are redirected to the publisher’s domain instead. The malicious publisher then sends the user to the correct domain by a 302 direct, and through this process is given credit by the advertiser and paid a percentage of the revenue. Unfortunately, there is still no definite method of fighting against sneaky redirects, however, they are still banned by search engines.
The Reality of Negative SEO Strategies
The use of negative SEO’s such as Black Hat strategies may seem promising in the short term, but in the long run, have negative effects that will ensure the limited life span of a website. With the updates in search engine algorithms like Google’s, it won’t be long before negative SEO methods like these are discovered. As a result, a website can be penalized with a low ranking or at worst a delisting. Some commonly known websites have received major penalties in the past for using these forbidden techniques: Forbes getting punished for selling links in 2011, and BMW in 2016 for using doorway pages.
The consequences of using negative SEO techniques could go as far as to have financial repercussions, costing lowered customer engagement and thus lower sales. Unfortunately for the websites that get caught using these strategies, are permanently marked by the search engines. Thus, Black Hat SEO techniques will not provide website stability for the long term. Fortunately for the websites that may participate in these illicit activities, there is still a way to regain the favor of search engines such as Google after receiving the expected penalties.
Why Should You Choose White Hat SEO strategies?
Using ethical, or “white hat”, SEO strategies will benefit a website in the long-term. These strategies are beneficial for both search engines, website owners, and users. This is because White Hat strategies provide a stable relationship between the three parties: they put themselves in good standing with search engines, provide a good user experience, and maintain the reputation of the website and its owner.
You may not see financial results right away in comparison to Black Hat SEO strategies. However, White Hat strategies provide more consistent results in the long road. In terms of user experience, these SEO strategies can reflect the high quality of the content being viewed. Avoiding shortcuts like Black Hat strategies create a better user experience for those visiting the website. Most importantly, most SEO agencies use ethical SEO strategies that keep a website in sync with algorithm updates like Google’s. There will be no need to worry if the website breaches any of Google’s updated regulations, as the main goal of using these ethical SEO strategies is to provide users with a good user experience.
