Don’t Let Blackhat SEO Tricks Kill Your Website
Whitehat, blackhat…what does it all mean? No, we’re not talking about pirates. These are both terms that describe different methods of Search Engine Optimization, however, they are very different from each other.
The one similarity between the two schools of SEO implementation is that they both focus on getting your website ranked higher in search engines. However, the means by which they achieve this goal are very different.
While whitehat SEO focuses on methods that legitimately grow your online presence via online marketing in order to make your website more visible and relevant to search engines like Google, Yahoo!, and Bing, blackhat SEO focuses more on exploiting search engine algorithms. While this article will not go into technical details regarding the different blackhat SEO techniques for obvious reasons, we will list a couple for the sake of comparison.
One underhanded trick is to put up exact duplicate content of competitors websites in an attempt to get them blacklisted by search engines. Blackhat SEO also focuses on building “spam” type links wherever they can. These are not quality backlinks, but spammed messages thrown out in hopes someone will include them on their websites. These links are often on pages that are totally irrelevant to the linking site’s business. Keyword stuffing is exactly like it sounds, the practice of ignoring good internet copywriting rules and instead shoving keywords all over your website, sometimes even invisible to visitors, but still searchable by search engine spiders.
These are not online marketing strategies, but internet tricks that blackhat SEO firms use to artificially inflate search engine ranking. Many of these companies claim to get “First Page Google Results Guaranteed” or “Be the First Hit on Bing” and even “Yank your Website to Top Yahoo! Results”.
Any company that claims they can “guarantee” a first page result is either A) lying, or B) using blackhat SEO techniques. Google, Yahoo!, and Bing do not look favorably upon sites who use exploits to garner first page search engine results. The term “Guaranteed First Page Google” doesn’t even make sense. How do they know what keywords or phrases you are marketing for? How do they even know what your business is about before they make these promises?! The minute your website is caught using these techniques, you will become blacklisted by the search engines, effectively killing whatever online business you might have had.
The moral of the story is this: no one can guarantee first page Google, Yahoo!, Bing, or any Search Engine results. Search Engines were created to give people relevant results when they search for information, so when a company can boost a website selling Viagra on the first result page for “Puppies and Kittens,” then you know something wrong is going on.
The only way to guarantee online marketing success is by using time-tested, organic, and search-engine-approved methods to build your website’s online presence. You can do this by:
- Having quality, keyword rich (but not stuffed) content with search engine friendly code, SEO optimized.
- Building as many quality outbound and inbound links to RELEVANT web sites that rank highly for your desired keywords of phrases.
- Using Google, Bing, Yahoo!, or any other number of analytics programs that will allow you to choose which online marketing campaigns are working, and which aren’t.
When it comes to blackhat SEO techniques, search engines definitely live by the adage “Cheaters never win.” Build your online presence intelligently and correctly, and if you don’t know how…hire a professional.