Definition:
The term Black Hat SEO refers to a set of strategies and techniques considered to be aggressive and aimed at improving the positioning of a website as quickly as possible, even at the risk of contravening search engine policies. It consists of applying automated rules, massively creating artificial and low-quality links in forums, comments on blogs, and low-quality directories. The term “Black Hat” has its origin in Western cinema and refers to the “bad guys”.
The most used Black Hat SEO strategies
- Keyword Stuffing: It is an organic SEO technique that consists of the constant repetition of a keyword in a text in an exaggerated and conscious way.
- Cloaking: It is a technique or SEO strategy that shows different content on the same web page, depending on whether the person who wants to access it is a person or a robot.
- Article Spinning: Article spinning is an SEO technique that creates new content from existing content. Replace words and phrases with alternative versions to reduce the similarity ratio.
- Page Hijacking:It consists of duplicating a complete web site, generating confusion in the search engines as to which is the original page.
- Link Farms: Networks of websites created exclusively for link exchange with the objective of manipulating search rankings. Link farms generate a large amount of inbound links, but they are usually of low quality and can result in severe penalties from search engines.
- Hidden text: This technique involves hiding text or links within a web page to manipulate search rankings. This can be achieved by using text of the same color as the background, placing links behind images or using CSS to hide page elements.
- Doorway Pages: These are pages created specifically to rank for certain keywords and redirect users to another website. Doorway pages offer no real value to the user and are designed to trick search engines.
- Negative SEO: This practice involves sabotaging a competitor’s ranking by creating low-quality or disreputable links to competitor websites to damage their online reputation.
Risks of doing Black Hat SEO
Although Black Hat SEO practices can quickly improve a page’s position in search results, they are contrary to search engine guidelines and have a high risk of being penalized.
There is a consensus among SEO professionals that these techniques are counterproductive. While they may offer short-term results, the risk of the site being severely penalized by search engines is high and almost inevitable. This can result in a significant loss of online visibility and ultimately damage the site’s reputation.
Tools used in Black Hat Seo
Among the most used tools in Black Hack SEO we can mention:
- Scrapebox: Known as the “Swiss Army Knife” of SEO, Scrapebox is used to perform mass scraping tasks such as collecting keyword data, searching for link opportunities and automated posting of comments on blogs and forums.
- GSA Search Engine Ranker: This tool automates link building, generating backlinks to a website from a variety of sources, including some of low quality.
- Xrumer: A powerful tool for automated link generation in forums and blogs, known for its ability to overcome captcha systems and publish content in bulk.
- SEnuke: Offers a suite of features to automate SEO, including social media profile creation, content publishing and link generation.
- Article Spinners: Tools such as Spin Rewriter and The Best Spinner allow you to create multiple versions of an article by replacing words and phrases with synonyms.