Some firms employ black-hat methods to take the top spot on search engine results pages (SERPs).
While there are a few black-hat SEO techniques that you should avoid, such as hacking (which is illegal), others appear to be less dangerous. Even the ones that appear to be worth it are rarely a good idea for reputable companies—so you should avoid them at all costs.
Buying links
Buying links implies paying another website to link to your site.
On many fronts, purchasing links is unethical:
- It’s against Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.
- A Google penalty may result. If Google discovers that you’re selling or purchasing links, they’ll penalize your site. Some SEOs are skeptical about Google’s algorithm’s ability to detect paid links, yet the fact is that they’re getting better at it all the time. While they can’t possibly know them all, they’re unlikely to harm your rankings.
What to do instead?
Focus on link outreach instead.
When you build a valuable resource and then contact the owner of a website to which you want a link.
Getting results from link outreach is difficult. It’s more probable to succeed when you have a fantastic resource, promising prospects, and an excellent outreach email.
That said, the icing on the cake approach is a fantastic way to get started:
- Create useful resources.
- Create a list of pages that your resource would complement.
- Contact the site owners and pitch your product.
Keyword stuffing
This technique of repeating the exact keywords (or similar phrases) in your material to improve ranks worked back in the ’90s. That is no longer the case.
Keyword stuffing is a poor SEO technique because:
- You come across as if you’re reading from a script. It makes your writing sound mechanical and foolish. As a result, it will repel readers right away.
- It may result in a Google penalty. “Filling pages with keywords or numbers…can harm your site’s ranking,” according to Google, so avoid it unless you want your rankings to plummet.
What to do instead?
You should avoid overstuffed keyword content with comprehensive content. You can do this in two ways.
To begin, produce detailed information on a subject thoroughly. What will happen? You’ll undoubtedly include the majority of phrasings and long-tail keywords that people use to discuss the issue.
Second, aim to include subjects that searchers may be looking for and anticipate seeing. These factors may aid your position on the search engine results page because Google does not solely focus on how many times the query is mentioned on a website. It also considers whether the page contains additional relevant material and keywords.
Spamming blog comment
When you post irrelevant comments on blogs to obtain a backlink to your website, it’s known as blog comment spam.
Even if we pretend that this isn’t annoying for the blogs on the receiving end, it’s not good for SEO since blog comment links are almost always nofollowed. As a result, the connections are improbable to aid your placement in search engines.
What to do instead?
High-traffic blog postings attract many comments, which can be beneficial.
It won’t result in more valuable links than leaving spammy blog comments since they’re still nofollowed. People are more inclined to read a valuable and helpful comment and go to your website, which is not a direct SEO advantage.
Spinning articles
Spinning is the process of generating many “new” pieces of content from a single piece of material by rewriting it.
Most article spinners don’t use spun material on their blogs. Instead, they produce many “unique” guest posts for posting on various sites and rapidly generate backlinks.
Spinning text on a website is detrimental to SEO because:
- The method of spinning articles rarely yields a fascinating read. Spun content frequently sounds weird and artificial. Thus, low-quality websites are the most likely to post spun guest pieces.
- Spun links are less likely to lead to high-quality backlinks. Because only low-quality websites tend to create spun articles, the links you earn from spun guest posts are rarely of much SEO value.
What to do instead?
Use the perspective technique to vary a guest piece from various perspectives.
Let’s assume you write a guest piece entitled “The future of link building.” You can shift the author’s viewpoint to produce numerous distinct and valuable guests.
Negative SEO
Negative SEO is an unethical method of harming a competing website or web page’s rankings.
Negative SEO is harmful because:
- It’s unethical and sometimes unlawful. Negative evaluations or a relentless barrage of low-quality backlinks are underhanded and unprofessional. On the other hand, hacking is a crime in and of itself.
- It seldom works. In other words, pointing low-quality backlinks at a competing website or web page is the most typical form of negative SEO technique. Google is fantastic at detecting and deleting these connections as a whole.
- It’s only a short-term remedy. Even if negative SEO is effective, another page will overtake your low-quality one quickly.
What to do instead?
Create content that Google should rank—and, more importantly, prove it to them.
There are two significant elements to this:
- Matching user intent
- Obtaining backlinks
Reach out to an advertising agency with a proven track record to avoid all these black hat tactics.
