Ranking high on the Search Engine Results Pages is a prime objective of a website and so it opts for Search Engine Optimization, which is indeed, an unbeaten method of achieving its goal. Sometimes, webmasters employ ‘Black Hat’ SEO methods to make it to the top. ‘Black Hat’ methods refer to unfair means that are employed to improve the website ranking. Some of the common ‘Black Hat’ methods include the copying of contents from other high-ranked sites and pasting them onto the personal site, inserting ‘hidden’ text (with a similar background color) so that they are not visible to the logged in visitors or directing the visitors from an original search engine page to another user friendly page. Though these methods save a considerable amount of time, money and hard work, there arises a risk of the website getting ‘Blacklisted’. On getting blacklisted, the name of the website along with its rank is no more visible on the result pages. Following are some common ‘Black Hat’
SEO methods that are against the
SEO rules and hence, should be avoided –
Hidden/Invisible text: Inserting hidden text is a common black hat method. In this method, the text is formatted in such a way that its color matches with that of the page background and as a result the visitors are unable to read them. Though they are invisible to the visitors, they can be easily traced and read by the search engine robots or spiders. This method of using hidden text is considered as ‘Spamming’ by the major search engines. To remain unaffected on a Search Engine Results Page and improve the ranking, the website must avoid the use of hidden text.
Submission to a standard search engine: Using fully computerized software for Search Engine Optimization does not provide with good and fruitful results. The search engine robots disapprove such techniques since the former considers them as spamming. Therefore, the site might get blacklisted. For better results, the sites must be submitted to standard and prominent search engines at least once in a month.Submission to a standard search engine: Using fully computerized software for Search Engine Optimization does not provide with good and fruitful results. The search engine robots disapprove such techniques since the former considers them as spamming. Therefore, the site might get blacklisted. For better results, the sites must be submitted to standard and prominent search engines at least once in a month.
Creating Doorway Pages: Doorway pages for a particular key phrase are created for attaining better results in the search engine pages. These doorway pages are designed only for the search engines and as such, are of no use to the visitors. Therefore, the major search engines ban the websites, which employ such methods for promotion.
FFA/Free for All Links: Sometimes, with an intention of drawing more visitors, the websites create ‘FFA’ or ‘Free for All’ pages that are cost-free and do not require any reciprocal link exchange. However, the websites containing such pages are not included on the search engine indexes. This happens because the contents of the pages are considered ‘spammed’ and the website is, therefore, unable to draw the attention of any visitor. To avoid spamming, the clean methods of reciprocal link exchange, directory submission, and writing article with fresh and unique contents, can be adopted.
