DEFINITION: Black hat SEO is a practice that increases a page's rank in search engines through means that violate the search engines' terms of service.
Black Hat SEO is most commonly defined as a disapproved practice that increases a page's ranking in a search engine result page. These practices are against the search engine's terms of service and can result in the site being banned from the search engine and affiliate sites.
"Is the work that I'm doing adding value to the user or am I just doing this for search engines to see?" is a litmus test on whether an SEO tactic would go against a search engine's webmaster guideline. If no value is added to the user, but rankings are likely to increase, then your decisions are highly likely to be black hat.
Remember the following:
- Black hat SEO can cause you irreparable damage with Google
- These techniques can actually create negative “points” with Google
- Hacking, cheating and tricking are some of the terms used by Google
- You could end up in the “Google black sand box” if caught using these techniques
Beware of companies that promise overnight SEO success. More than likely they are using Black Hat SEO techniques.
Google Algorithm Updates
• Google changes algorithms 100s of times per quarter. They have an entire team to do this, then give their updates names, such as “Panda”, “Penguin”, and “Hummingbird”.
• Google catches and punishes cheaters
• They have named these cheating methods that they have found and published for all to see • Some of the names they use are “panda,” “hummingbird” and “penguin.”
• Once again, we need to build up the website gradually and over time
If your GOAL is to build a long-lasting business and internet presence then you should avoid Black Hat SEO.