Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) - Black Hat SEO

What is Black Hat SEO?

Basically it is the use of techniques which have been banned by the search engines because they results in a distortion of the search engine results. The use of these techniques is at your own risk as they can (and probably will) result in permanent exclusion from the search engines. We never use them - they are reserved for those companies who have moved over to the “dark side”.

What should I avoid?

• The following is not an exhaustive list but it will give you a good idea.
  keyword, anchor text and domain name stuffing - repeating your key phrases over and over to raise its presence on the page
• Using hidden text or links - a definate “No No”
• Using techniques to artificially raise the number of inbound links to your page - eg through the services of link farms
• Cloaking - that is delivering different content to the search engines than your users to artificially raise your rankings
• Doorway / Gateway / Jump pages - pages which are designed as an entrance to the web site but which have no real content. Great care needs to be taken when developing landing pages to ensure they are not classed as doorway pages.
• Excessive outbound links to sites which are using black hat SEO
• Link Hoarding - obtaining as many inbound links as possible whilst giving out few outbound links
• Auto-generated content of no value to the user which is used purely to generate high ranking pages

So why are these banned?

These techniques are banned because they artificially raise your rankings. The principle of most search engines is to deliver results that are relevant to the search term you entered. If you are trying to distort these results you may find your site banned. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the art of optimising your site without the use of techniques which get you banned!