Karla

    • Black Hat techniques are considered Black Hat for good reason. They will at some stage get your website penalized or banned.

    Trying to trick search engines into higher rankings is the basis of Black Hat techniques. The most common methods are doorway pages, hidden text, keyword spamming or stuffing, interlinking and a host of other methods. As fast as a website may climb in the ranking via these methods they will fall even faster. Guaranteed!

    Cloaking

    Cloaking is the method of presenting a different set of information for both human readers and search engines. The way this is done varies and while some search engines may not recognize them, most major search engines do.

    Keyword Stuffing

    This is perhaps the most common black technique. While some may not realize that it is a Black Hat technique, it is. This method involves using a keyword or keyword phrase unnaturally throughout the content. For a human reader it becomes impossible to navigate and for this reason many webmasters place it at the bottom of the page in script too small to be read.

    Hidden Text

    Hiding text is easy when it is made the same color as the background. However search engines can easily see it even if it is invisible to a human reader. It can also take the form of hiding text behind an image. If a search engine detects this Black Hat technique they will immediately put a spam flag on the site.

    Redirects

    Redirecting is most commonly used as a compliment to doorway pages as doorway pages they don’t usually contain content with any substance. For this reason redirects are placed on a webpage which automatically redirect a visitor to another page that contains actual content. This is a Black Hat technique which search engines are finding hard to keep up with. As fast as they uncover it the faster shady webmasters are finding ways to circumvent detection. However search engines will eventually catch up and uncover this practice.

    Doorway Pages

    This entails adding pages to a website with the only intent of targeting keyword phrases. They contain no value to a human reader. They provide no information and are only there to promote rankings. The hope is that reader once they land on these pages will link to the homepage. When a search engine finds this practice a website will just simply disappear. There will be no warning.

    Reporting Black Hat practitioners

    The above Black Hat techniques are only the tip of the iceberg. It is for this reason that one should report black techniques when found. Reporting is not unethical. When you consider the impact on a search engines rankings and how undetected Black Hat techniques could eventually affect your own rankings, you need report them.

    If a competitor is using unfair tactics to gain advantage they don’t have your best interests at heart. Why should you? However if you are thinking of reporting someone for practicing Black Hat techniques you should ensue that your own tactics are above reproach.