Ask Scott Fox: What is "Black Hat" SEO?

Dear Scott,
What is "black hat" search engine optimization?  How can it hurt my web site's search engine rankings?
Carmen D.
Irving, Texas

Scott Fox's Answer

"Black Hat" SEO is the "dark side" of search engine optimization that can hurt your site's traffic if it's done incorrectly.  It's named after the "bad guy" characters in old cowboy movies who always wore a black hat. 

While most search engine optimization techniques are neutral or positive, there are some approaches that you (or your consultants) need to avoid.  Deliberately engaging in these tactics to fool the search engines into ranking your site higher is a "black hat" strategy.

* Keyword stuffing: Search engines index a site in their rankings based on the key words that site presents to their indexing crawlers. Stuffing extra keywords into the site’s pages deliberately to influence a search engine’s rankings is called keyword stuffing. This can be done visibly (although it usually makes the text awkward to read). Keywords can also be “stuffed” invisibly by hiding text on web pages that is the same color as the page’s background. This invisible text can conceal extra keywords and links that only a search engine spider will see.

* Link Spam: Because search engine rankings rely heavily on the number of links back to a web site from other sites, “link spam” is a common black hat technique. This involves placing links to the client site on other sites, even where inappropriate or uninvited. Links in blog posts, links in blog comments, and building of new pages or sites specifically to fill them with additional link-backs (“link farms”) are common examples of link spam.

* Article Repurposing: Copying and modifying of content such as articles can also be used for black hat SEO. This technique places a slightly modified article repeatedly across the web so that its keywords and links get counted multiple times by the search engines.

* Cloaking: A web site can be designed so that it shows different content, images, keywords and links to a search engine bot than to a human. This deceptive delivery of content causes the search engine to index the site differently than a human would in order to gain additional ranking points.

All of these strategies can be used conservatively and fairly but when abused they are “black hat” SEO techniques. Black hat SEO tactics violate the terms of service for most search engines. Violation of search engine guidelines like this can result in your web site being banned from listing by search engines!

There's no need to cheat to improve your site's search engine rankings.  Avoid "black hat" techniques by ensuring that any SEO consultants, software, or services you use only use legitimate and ethical techniques.

Thanks for writing,
Scott Fox

Comments

[Mac Bull]

Hello Scott,

Thanks for the post on "blackhat" SEO.

A question for you though?

You said that article repurposing is a blackhat tactic. If I am confused please enlighten me, but I thought articles could be picked up by others and posted on their site or about the internet freely. It was my understanding that they are written and distributed freely by those that like them and enjoy them. Since that is the case, if the Google spiders find your article on webpage "A" and then after more spidering about find it again on someone else's website "X" they count it as content, but because the link was already counted it is not counted again. Or if I post an article and then someone in Africa likes it and posts it on their website I have no control over that, so why should Google or Yahoo or any other search engine lay down the law and ban my site?

Let's think of it in terms of print. Let's say I write a freelance article for Time magazine, but I know that Newsweek would also be interested in it as well. So I spin the article a bit or rewrite it enough that it is still legit in terms of a good article with solid content and then give it to Newsweek. Is that wrong?

Again this is my understanding of how this works. If you have a better understanding or can clear some things up for me I would really like to hear it.

Thank you.

Good luck to you and your endeavors,
Mac Bull

[anwaralhasan]

Thanks SCOTT
THIS position is very important and interesting, I did not know this information
You are warned of a thorny issue I will try to study, and if you allow me some questions greetings to you
Thanks SCOTT
THIS position is very important and interesting, I did not know this information
You are warned of a thorny issue I will try to study, and if you allow me some questions greetings to you

[Scott Fox]

Hi Mac,
You're right that articles are often repurposed around the Web.
If this is done with the copyright owner's permission it can be fine legally (or if the articles are sourced from a legitimate Article Bank like eZineArticles.com).
But I'm talking about SEO guidelines, not "right or wrong."
If you re-use one article (legally) here or there, you're not likely to run into the duplicate content penalty.
But what I'm referring to above as a "black hat" technique takes this to an extreme.
It may take one article and slightly rewrite it 10 or even 100 times and spread those rewrites across the web like spam. The intention is to post as many links as possible but without really adding any value or new information. That's black hat and Google or other search engines are likely to discount the links achieved through such tactics, and maybe even penalize or ban the site that benefits from them.
I hope that clarifies things?
Thanks for stopping by to ask.
Scott Fox

[Katherine Helman]

This was a great article, Scott. As a freelance copywriter starting to use the Internet (Elance, etc.)to expand my business, I am shocked by the number of "projects" requesting these types of Black Hat tactics. Many, if not most of the writing assignments out there are for article repurposing (an insult to a true writer) and link spamming. I had no idea these tactics were so prevalent. I was glad to see in your article above that the search engines are catching on and penalizing the sites that use them.
Thank you for the information!

[Mac Bull]

Scott,

Thank you for the clarification.
Now I understand what you meant.

Thank you,
Mac Bull