It’s the era of digital transformation. Here, things are changing rapidly. And one of the noticeable changes is human habit. Unlike earlier, nowadays, the first thing people do when hunting for information is turning to the search engine, irrespective of the type of information they need, like about a place or a product, etc. And the number of such people is pretty huge. Yes, it’s approximately 93% (source: Web FX). And a report by Brightedge Research highlights that of all the web traffic, 53.3% comes from organic search. These figures highlight that online presence is crucial but not enough.
More significant is appearing on the top of the SERP for organic reach. Needless to state, that has to be the first page of the search results as people hardly turn to the second page. And here, SEO comes into the scene. It’s all about the practices that aim to make you more beloved to the search engines, in turn, enabling you to secure a noticeable spot in the SERP.
Well, SEO is not as simple as it sounds or looks. It’s an umbrella term, including numerous concepts & techniques, whose usage varies according to the situation and knowledge of the person doing SEO. These methods, according to their fitness with search engine’s service terms, can be classified as White Hat SEO, Grey Hat SEO, and Black Hat SEO, White Hat SEO being the most ethical approach.
Well, for now, the Black Hat SEO technique is the one about which we are concerned.
You must be having an idea as to what is Black Hat SEO method!
What’s your perspective on this?
Are you thinking is it relevant in 2021?
Or is Black Hat SEO dead?
What it holds for those who want to appear on the top of the SERP?
Should you include it in your SEO strategy?
Oh! So many questions. And there can be many more!
Read through to find the answers and conclude, should you use Black Hat SEO techniques. Let’s begin with the basics.
It’s a method to improve SERP ranking by employing unethical/immoral techniques.
Black Hat SEO is a highly risky shortcut to the top place of the Search Engine Results Page. You don’t know whether you will land there or not. But there is a surety that even if you do, your webpage(s) won’t be there for long because search engine service guidelines discourage using such techniques.
Okay! What are the activities coming under the Black Hat SEO method? Continue reading to know.
It’s the most significant component, and without it, nothing can work. But it has been observed that many a time, people have the most negligent approach towards this. They, while going for SEO, forget to pay attention to the quality of the content. It could be due to a lack of awareness or budget constraint, etc. And this is a serious mistake.
Okay, what are those content-related activities, which form part of Black Hat SEO?
Automated Content
Sounds odd! But it is happening. With the evolving technology, you have several tools, which enable you to generate content with minimal human intervention. Yes, with these AI-enabled tools, you can automatically generate content, thereby saving time and money. But what about the quality? You won’t get that. The outcome won’t be original. With such content, your SEO efforts are destined to fail.
Spammy Comments
You must have come across the comments on the website blogs or articles and would have wondered – ‘why is this comment here” because it was irrelevant or useless! This is what we are talking about. It is used for link building and can be manual or automated, but hardly helps.
Keyword Stuffing
It’s a common practice but not at all advisable. In this, all that an individual cares is – the use of relevant keywords in bulk irrespective of the context of the content.
Duplicate Content
Using somebody else’s content, knowingly or unknowingly, is a crime, and you get penalized for the same. So, stay away from the copy & paste technique. Here, you have a similar technique as well – ‘Article Spinning’. It’s a re-creation of content using tools. Though it’s not direct copy & paste, it’s stealing anyway.
You need to understand that high-quality content should be the heart of your digital marketing efforts. Along with being SEO-optimized, the content must have other essential features.
Worthless Click-Baits
A method where the headline ignites the curiosity to open the link…but content barely offers any value.
It’s nothing but befooling search engine. In this, you present different content to users and search engines, and the one for search engine carries value so that you can get a good position in SERP.
These pages, created using targeted keywords (the ones with high search queries), take you up in the SERP for these search phrases. Upon opening, it redirects the user to another page.
A text that is created to be seen only by the search engines and not the users. For example – loads of keywords are included in the content in white text on white background. If you think that this way, you can rank without spoiling UX, you are wrong. And once UX is gone, again SEO won’t help.
Though many SEO folks use Black Hat SEO to take a website to the top, it is a fishy act and not worth using. The techniques forming part of this method violate the webmaster’s guidelines.
There was a time when it was easy to trick search engines through such practices. People got success also. But not anymore, as algorithms have become more intelligent. Thus, don’t include Black Hat SEO in your SEO strategy. Without it, you can get sustainable results.
If you have already become a victim of Black Hat SEO – connect with us. We can reverse things.
