Beware of Black Hat SEO Companies

Since the dawn of the internet, seo and internet marketing has been a very powerful tool for business to reach a global audience. With the rising competition seo companies who have looked at gaining quick results opted for black hat seo techniques, but the big question remains:

Q. Are these Black Hat SEO Techniques here to last?

A. The Answer is No.

Technologies are being upgraded on a day to day basis and search engine giants such as Google / Yahoo / MSN are finding new ways to cut the clutter of spam websites. The day is not far when the websites that try and spam their way out high SERPS will find themselves out of the search engine results.

So now the point is that are you looking at a scenario where you want your website to be banned from search engines?

I am sure your answers is no as well.

So try and stay away from seo company that follow seo techniques that can get you into such troubles, and are capable of getting you black listed from search engines.

Listed Below are some things that you should ensure that your seo company in not indulging in:


Hidden Content: Many SEO companies put a lot of keywords in a paragraph and hide these content through CSS or other html tags.
Meta Keyword Stuffing: Keywords are repeatedly used in the meta tags of create unnecessary focus on a theme.
Doorway or Gateway Pages: Pages which are designed with very high keyword density which are not designed for visitors but for search engines and the visitors are eventually redirected to another page.
Link Farming : Unethical Link building techniques are used to generate large number of links using networks and link farms.
This is an Effort to create awareness of Black Hat SEO and its implications



Professional SEO Company BrainPulse Technologies Pvt. Ltd.




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Black & White - The Philosophies of SEO

So what exactly is SEO?

Search engine optimization otherwise known as SEO is a popular form of search engine marketing. The main goal of which (as its name would suggest) is to improve the ranking of the site in various search engines. An entire industry of consultants has sprung up around the idea of search engine optimization. However it's important to note that there are two distinct and disparate methodologies at work when it comes to optimization. The two categories are best known as "white hat SEO" (which is aimed at improving overall site quality, and increasing the site's ranking through approved methods), or "black hat SEO" (often use methods such as cloaking and spamdexing to increase rankings. However, using such methods can lead to your site to being removed from search engine listings). Those in the white hat camp charge that black hat methods are not only giving SEO a bad name but are also attempting to manipulate and undermine the search rankings. The black hatters counter that argument by saying that in truth all SEO is an attempt to manipulate rankings, and therefore the particular methods one uses to increase rankings are irrelevant. In other words they take the more Machiavellian approach of using the end results to justify the means they use.

So what more specifically are the methods being employed by the two camps?

White hat methods:

These methods typically involve following the search engines' published guidelines as to what is and what isn't acceptable. The advice typically given by the white hat SEO experts is to create more user-friendly content, and not focus so much on the search engines. That is if your site is well put together and presents something users need it will naturally climb in the rankings. Also by making content that is easily accessible to the search engines spiders it will be properly read and therefore properly indexed in the search engines. The white hatters are needed most often because a webmaster has made critical mistakes in either the design or the set-up of their websites, inadvertently "poisoning" them so that they will not rank well. The SEOs then attempt to discover and correct these mistakes, which may include unreadable menus, broken links, temporary redirects, or simply a poor navigation structure.

Here are a few examples of SEO activities which the search engines find acceptable:

o Using a reasonably-sized, accurate description meta tag without excessive use of keywords, exclamation marks or off topic terms.

o Optimizing tags, titles and other parts of the code as necessary;

o Using WordTracker or a similar database to find popular and relevant keywords and phrases to use for your site.

o Monitoring the various search engines to ensure that your URL gets indexed

o Increasing the amount of unique content on the site.

o Writing quality content for the website visitors instead of the search engines.

Black hat methods:

Whereas the white hat methods follow search engine guidelines "Black hat" SEO methods to try to improve rankings by any means necessary. Most of these methods are disapproved of by the search engines, typically because of their deceptive nature, but also hamper the ability of the search engines to provide quality content to site visitors. Search engines often penalize the sites they discover using black hat methods, by reducing their rankings or eliminating their listings from the search engine results altogether. These penalties are usually applied automatically by the search engines' algorithms, because the Internet is too large to make manual policing of websites feasible. However once they are discovered, search engines may take action against those found to be using unethical SEO methods. Take for example Google's removal of both BMW Germany and Ricoh Germany in February 2006 for use of these practices.

One common black hat method is known as Spamdexing. Spamdexing is the promotion of irrelevant, chiefly commercial, pages through various deceptive techniques and the abuse of the search algorithms. Unfortunately it often gets confused with white hat search engine optimization techniques, which do not involve deceit. Spamming involves getting websites more exposure than they deserve for their keywords, leading to unsatisfactory search results. Optimization involves getting websites the rank they deserve on the most targeted keywords, leading to satisfactory search experiences.

One example of spamdexing is link farming. Link farming can be basically defined as any group of web pages that all link to every other page in the group. Another common practice is listing popular keywords in fine print or in the same color as the background so they can't be seen by users.

So how can you tell the difference between Black and White SEO practices?

A very easy way to distinguish between the two is though the amount of time involved in getting the desired results. White hat SEOs use methods that produce results slowly over time and only after a good deal of effort has been put into the site. Black hat SEOs offer you quick and easy results most, if not all, of which will obtained through deceptive practices.



Jennifer Kothe is the talented marketing coordinator at Internet Traffic Solutions (http://www.itsontarget.com) which is a full service marketing agency that offers clients a profitable way to get the attention of their target audience online.




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Black Hat is Back 2 - the Evil and Dark Side of Search Engine Optimization

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that the ultimate goal as a webmaster is to appear higher up in the search engine results pages as possible. Knowing Google is so intelligent, what are the chances that an average web marketer can appear high in the search engine results? Is there a way to allow yourself an advantage over others that aren't informed? After studying some underground methods outlined by Howie Schwartz in his Black Hat is Back 2 video series, I've discovered some very sinister things...

The solution to this million dollar question ultimately depends on what market you are trying to target - of course the more competition within market, the greater amount of keyword phrases have already been dominated by your competition and the harder it will be to out-position those pre-existing pages.

Having said that, the search engines are definitely not perfect. How many times have you searched for a term and found the first group of results are totally garbage? - and out of these first 10 results, perhaps only 1 or 2 are actually relevant to what you're looking for. Dang annoying to say the least when you're constantly hammering on the back button (by the way, Google actually takes this into consideration now - the bounce rate of a website can actually be calculated based on how fast someone clicks the back button after arriving on your site.)

Logic would then dictate, if you are serving up relevant information that is highly related to the search phrase your visitor is looking for, then your "bounce rate" should obviously be less

Now despite all the above-board or "white hat" methods around, there have been some sneaky webmasters who have achieved high rankings in the search engines using evil tactics which are known as "spamdexing" - or Black Hat SEO If you are able to artificially increase your positioning in the SERPS by implementing techniques which are not considered above-board, then you are utilizing some sort of Black Hat SEO method - even if it's as innocent as creating an inbound link from another site that you own. The skill to outrank OTHER sites that are actually more related for a particular keyword, could this be regarded as sneaky and evil? Absolutely. Are there lots of people doing it? Absolutely! Black Hat is Back 2 by Howie Schwartz is a step-by-step guide on some of the most evil and tricky methods.



Tavis is a 2x Ironman Triathlon Finisher and "SEO Hobbyist". Using techniques he has learned over the years, he has applied these strategies and achieved many top-ranking results for websites in numerous topics. He is currently ranked #1 in Google for The Smartest Guy On The Web and has discovered some interesting SEO tips and tricks from the Black Hat Is Back 2 course.




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Black Hat Search Engine Optimisation

As long as Search Engines are around, people have made every effort to get their website on top of the results. The race of being number one on google is still on and now known under the name - Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). But as much as we want to know how to get there - the more Search Engine developers try to hide the big secrets. It has become a real "cat & mouse" hunt.

People have tried many things to win this game. Some of them "good" - some "bad". Hang on, you may think, if there is a way to get my business up to the top and increase my sales - I don't care how I get there! NO - that's a very plain and shortsighted assumption and would only work for a short time, if at all! The consequences are disastrous. The following Search Engine Strategies can and will put you on the search engine's "blacklists" which in simple terms mean - you are out! Banned from Google, Yahoo... and such like.

The commonly used term for bad SEO techniques is "Black Hat" SEO in contrast to "White Hat" SEO techniques which use an ethical ways to optimise a website in order to achieve better ranking positions. Watch out which methods SEO companies are using, promising your business immediate number 1# results. This article will help you to understand the various "bad" methods, so called "Black Hat" techniques - and yes maybe there is a little bit of magic involved.

Let us put the "black hat" SEO into two categories: Content Spam and Link Spam.

Content Spam: The first search engines were using only the website's content to measure the site's relevance to certain search keywords.

Hidden & Invisible text: This is the easiest and the most common spamming method. It simply means to set text in the same colour as the background, use a tiny font size or hide it in HTML code sections. For a real person looking at the website nothing will change, but for a search engine crawler, it will make a difference. The code will have more content and so it will find a higher keyword density. This problem was quickly fixed with an algorithms to check the accessibility of the text before the search engine consider it as relevant content and then take the appropriate actions.

Keyword stuffing: This can be a "black hat" method, but is also used for "White Hat" SEO.

A website can be penalised when its overloaded with a specific sentence/keyphrase in order to make a search engine think the content is more relevant than others. This technique can be used in combination with hidden text too. Most of the search engines now have mechanisms in place to avoid the abuse of keywords.

Scraper sites: Web scrapping is copying content from one or more other/unrelated websites and put it on this 3rd party website without copyright permission, it's a mirror site adding no new value. Most of these websites are overloaded with advertising - which is their source of income. One should be careful to use this method, as it is severely punished.

Doorway pages: A doorway page is a fake page that a real user will never see. It has been created to optimise search engine results, but if you click on the link, a redirect will lead you to a different webpage.

Cloaking: Basically, cloaking is quite similar to doorway pages. The difference is that the website will show a different content depending on the IP address the user requesting the page has. If an IP address is recognised as a search engine spider, a script will deliver a different version of the page.

Link Spam: Search engines have step-by-step changed their search algorithm judging the value of a website and therefore the websites ranking. Incoming links are only one attribute checked by the search engines. The more relevant the referring websites are, the better.

Link farms: On these community-like websites each member is linking to the others, trying to pretend high relevance to the search engine crawler. These communities were commonly named "mutual admiration societies".

Hidden links: The technique is the same as it is with the hidden text: Links are added to a site which visitors won't see in order to increase their link popularity.

Sybil attack: The principle again is the same as with link farms. One person will buy multiple domain names and then create various websites linking to each other in order to pretend high value of content and importance.

Wiki Spam: A wiki is a website that everyone can edit and modify. Black Hat SEO will use it to add links to their website, most of the time on unrelated pages.

Blog Spam: As on wikis, people can add comments on blogs, forums or guest books. Posting links to a website is an easy way to increase your link popularity.

Page hijacking: This is one of the most unethical ways to increase your website's link popularity. It simply means to copy the content of another website but modifying the out-coming links. It is often referred to as 302 forwarding.

Always keep in mind that the techniques mentioned above truly are unethical ways to optimise your website for search engines. Using "Black Hat" SEO can and will add your website to the blacklist of most search engines, and has the opposite effect. And it does not stop for big companies either many have already tried to use "Black Hat" SEO techniques and were banned. Imagine - people who will type in a banned brand name or keywords related to it and they will simply not find the website and end up on your competitors website enjoying their offers.



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Black Hat SEO Tactics

The search engine optimization industry has exploded into a multi-billion dollar market, creating one of the most cut-throat sectors to come from the dot com boom.

Because of the fierce competition in the industry, some search engine optimization firms began using tactics that the search engines have labeled as "black-hat", or "illegal", in the search engine world. The "Big 3" (Google, Yahoo, and MSN) have all issued rules and guidelines listing several of these black-hat tactics. Failure to comply with these guidelines will most likely get you de-indexed, or worse, banned from the search engines.

Generally, black-hat is the "intentional deception of search engines" to gain ranking or popularity in search engine listings. Keep in mind, many of the tactics discussed below have valid and legitimate uses.

Keyword Stuffing

Keyword stuffing is the most commonly abused tactic currently. Keyword stuffing is the intentional overuse of a particular term or phrase in hopes of achieving higher search engine rankings for that term or phrase. The best way to avoid this is to fill your page with text that was written naturally and do not over use your target phrase. Often keyword stuffing leads to sentences sounding funny or awkward. Many instances of keyword stuffing appear at the bottom of a web page with a term or phrase repeated over and over, or with slight variations to the term.

Hidden Text

Hidden text is setting the color of text the same as the background of a webpage. Additionally, this can be used in conjunction with keyword stuffing. By having your text and background the same color, the text or repeating phrases is invisible to human visitors but not search engine bots. Search engines now look for the color of the text and compare it to the color of the background. Some webmasters create a colored image and set it as the background to the page to avoid being detected; this tactic does circumvent the search engines, as they are not able to tell the color of an image, however, your competitors will be quick to report you to the search engines if they find you are using this strategy.

Cloaking

Clocking, in short, is intentionally displaying different information to human visitors than to search engines. There are numerous ways of cloaking content, and not all have been determined "black-hat". A fairly reliable way of measuring black-hat verses white-hat cloaking is to ask yourself, "am I intentionally trying to trick the search engines?" Would you be willing to share you tactics with the search engines themselves? Black-hat cloaking will work for a short time, however, you run a high risk of having your domain banned permanently.

Doorway Pages

Doorway pages are "landing" pages added to a website to specifically target a keyword or phrase. Often these doorway pages have no value to visitors and only exist to capture the attention of search engines. Doorway pages are generally created with software and/or added to a website automatically.

Redirects

Redirect pages have several white-hat purposes, however, when used as a black-hat tactic - often combined with doorway pages - they serve as a red flag to search engines. Redirect pages take a visitor from one page to another automatically. For example, a redirect page could send a visitor from a doorway page (with little or no valuable content) to a sale page with a product or newsletter signup.

Duplicate Sites

While this is not often used, it was popular for a very long time and deserves to be mentioned. When affiliate programs were first gaining in popularity, webmasters would create several copies of the same sales page in hopes that quantity over quality would prevail and they would make a sale from one of their many websites selling a product. With the advancement of search engines, they are now able to find excessive duplicate content and rank it accordingly.

Interlinking

A difficult tactic to track is "interlinking". Interlinking is building several websites (sometimes dozens or even hundreds) and linking them together to build a network of links. This tactic does have some white-hat merit, remember, black-hat is the intentional deception of the search engines. Just because you have several websites linked together does not make you a search engine spammer - the internet is built on linking sites together.

As you can see, many of these tactics are sneaky and deceptive. They are considered black-hat for a reason and search engines take them very seriously. Use of them could lead to a competitor or visitor reporting your website as search engine spam, if such a thing were to happen, your site could disappear from the popular search engine results instantly - regardless of any legitimate optimization you have done in the past.



Jacob Madison is an internet marketing professional specializing in high-return growth and advanced marketing tactics. Find out more about him at http://www.jacobmadison.com




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Black Hat, White Hat - Gray Hat

Internet marketers and the ongoing struggle to make money online. There are more and more people going on the Internet to seek their fortunes.

It is almost like the old "Gold rush days" of California. I am sure we all remember those days. You do not need anything more than a computer and a connection to the Internet to become a Internet marketer.

The promise of being your own boss and making a lucrative income awaits everyone willing to give it a try.

There are a few things that Internet marketers need to know in order to begin their new careers. If you sell anything on the Internet, you will probably have a website.

Visitors to your site are considered traffic. You must generate a lot of traffic to covert the visitors into actual sales. This is where SEO enters into the picture.

SEO is all about search engine optimization. People on the Internet will find you through the major search engines when they use keyword searches to find the information they are looking for.

Your website, forum posts, articles, etc. should be using SEO so the search engines can index your website and then rank it so it can be found correctly when people use the search engines to find relevant information.

For a while now, there is a battle going on within the Internet among marketers that use SEO. Black Hat SEO is to use optimizing practices to fool the search engines and the use of other traffic generating techniques that are questionable or unethical.

Generally stated, the Black Hat SEO techniques are used to fool the search engines into believing a website is very relevant to the keywords searches when in fact the promotional site may only be a blatant sales tactic.

White Hat SEO is the opposite of Black Hat practices. The White Hat SEO marketers play by the rules. They want their sites to be relevant and fair, offering solid information on their sites.

White Hat SEO individuals count on the sale of their products or services after real trust has been established first.

There is now a lot of gray area in-between the black and the white because nothing is really black and white. Remember the first time you began to play in your new sandbox? Someone probably told you not to get dirt mixed in with the sand. How long did it take before the sandbox began turning a shade of gray?

Call them the Gray Hat SEO practitioners. Today, there are many. White Hat SEO requires a lot of patience, without any solid traffic coming into your promotional website for some time. For someone new in the marketing game, asking them to be very patient for traffic is a lot to ask.

The competition for traffic is very tight. It is not easy trying to make a dollar and stay within the White Hat rules of engagement. The lure of certain questionable methods in order to gain more exposure will sometimes be employed.

Admittedly, the lines between white and black can easily become blurred. When there are questionable traffic generating techniques available to use that get results, then quite often, some of these methods will be adopted as marketing tools.

The search engines want everyone to employ White Hat SEO so their visitors can find relevant information on what they are searching for. This is why they are called "search engines".

With more marketers fighting for exposure, questionable SEO tactics will always be used by some. In the end, it will be up to the Internet marketer to find it within them to monitor themselves, play by the rules and learn as much as they can about proper SEO methods.



Alojate.com is the premier web hosting company in Mexico, offering a range or services for all business needs.
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Black Hat, White Hat and Gray Hat SEO

Search Engine Optimizers (SEO) can wear many different "hats". The color of the single hat is determined by the SEO philosophy and the methods, that is used to optimize websites. We usually speak of:


Black Hat SEO

White Hat SEO

Gray Hat SEO


As an affiliate it is important to understand the difference and the risks between the single SEO Hats.

Black Hat SEO

Black Hat SEO is also known as SEO spamming, and is when someone creates websites that have little or no value, that are intended to trick the search engines into offering irrelevant or low-quality search results.

Black Hat SEO will heavily leverage technology and automation in order to create tons of poor quality sites, and gain inbound links from other websites (link spam). Once the visitor has arrived to the website, the owner of the website will often use some kind of cloaking or redirect to show the visitor a sales page of the products, that is the really goal of the Black Hat SEO technique.

Black Hat SEO are all about getting fast results. The method they use to optimize their websites will often get the website to the top of the search engines very rapidly, but when the search engines catch-on, the website will very often crash or get banned.

I do not condone Black Hat SEO for affiliates, because it is very risky SEO business, and it can especially damaging, when it is used on a website, that you have invested heavily resources in.

White Hat SEO

White Hat SEO focus on building quality content first and SEO second. White Hat SEO may use technology and automation to build their websites too, but they use it to accomplish different goals. They write content for people, not search engines. White Hat SEO tend to rely more on their content and marketing skills to achieve a top ranking, rather than automated programs.

White Hat SEO understand that good search engine rankings takes time and don't try to rush results. White Hat SEO are able to get more inbound links from other websites, because their content is considered valuable. They go by the philosophy CONTENT IS KING.

When you use White Hat SEO tactics you run absolutely no risk of being banned by the search engines and visitors who come to your website will also be more likely to convert.

Gray Hat SEO

A lot of SEO fall into the Gray Hat category, and there are many shades of gray. Some Gray Hat SEO tend to use more questionable tactics and take greater risks. Gray Hat SEO is all about risk versus reward. Some Gray Hat techniques may be frowned by the search engines, but are not necessarily against their rules, while other techniques may be more risky and should be used only after careful consideration.

What SEO hat should you wear ?

The hat that you decide to wear should be determined by your goals and objectives. I would never recommend anybody to use any black hat SEO strategies, because these strategies are short-lived and will almost always get you banned in the search engines.

Everybody should strive to be a white hat SEO and focus on writing quality content. However it may make sense for you in some instances to use Gray Hat SEO tactics to gain a competitive advantage. But when using Gray Hat SEO tactics it is very important, that you measure the risk and reward of each strategy, and determine for yourself, if some of these Gray Hat SEO strategies makes sense for your websites.

But it is important that you never take too big a risk with your most valuable websites, and here it is much more valuable, that you make a more safe and long term SEO strategy for these websites.



About The Author

Morten Hansen has been working with the internet business for several years. If you want to Get a 100% FREE newsletter with hundreds of Internet home business tips and tricks or want to read about some of the most profitable affiliate products on the internet visit my website www.OnlineMoneyTips4you.com




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Cheaters Never Win - Black Hat SEO Techniques Will Only Punish the Innocent Client

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is a crucial part of internet marketing. Through the use of a particular keyword or keywords, major search engines will drive traffic to your websites. You are actually "optimizing" your websites in the rankings of the search engines. The more traffic you have, the more profit you stand to make. Unfortunately, you cannot just plug keywords and links in where ever you want all across the internet. There are rules that have to be followed for SEO. You can market your websites the white hat way by following the rules or the black hat way by breaking the rules.

The use of black hat SEO often involves tactics that are illegal. If you take the black hat route, you run the risk of getting your websites banned from the major search engines, such as Google and Yahoo. You can also get yourself into quite a bit of trouble by breaking the law. It is always better to avoid black hat SEO because if you get banned from search engines, you might as well shut your website down. If your sites are not ranked in search engines, the chances of anyone finding them and doing business with you are very slim. When it comes to profitable internet marketing strategies, stay away from black hat SEO.

If you want to get the most out of SEO, stick with white hat SEO. This type of SEO follows the rules. You will be able to market your websites using natural SEO strategies, such as article marketing. Article marketing is a big part of white hat SEO. By submitting articles that link to your websites to different article directories, you will drive more traffic to your sites. The links to your sites will be in the form of a keyword or phrase. Not only are you going to increase traffic and sales, you will steadily increase your search engine rankings. Just make sure that you submit articles on a regular basis. In order for article marketing to be successful, it has to be consistent.

The world of internet marketing has become a competitive, fast-paced atmosphere. If you want to be truly successful, you have to follow the guidelines that search engines have in place. Avoid black hat SEO and stick with white hat SEO. Remember to carefully choose your keyword when you are planning an article marketing campaign. If you optimize your search engine rankings with natural SEO tactics, you will benefit the most in the long run. It might be tempting to take short cuts that fall into the black and gray areas. But slow and steady wins the race and that is what marketing is all about. Winning the most traffic and gaining the most profit.



Check then double check your SEO teams work. Ask questions, this is the only way to both assure you profit, and are not penalized from your internet marketing campaigns. There are many fly by nights out there. How long have they been in business? Do they have happy clients? What are the standard techniques they plan to use in your internet marketing campaigns? Can you view some paste work online? Ask these questions and more to make sure you get what you pay for and wont suffer from negative code work later. In need of an SEO/SEM expert to help with your internet marketing campaign? Call today for a free live phone consultation. No videos no hype, just real world examples with plenty of knowledge to share.

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Ethical SEO Verses Black Hat SEO

Ethical SEO is one of the most important or lets just say it is the single most important aspect. SEO is very often referred by ethical SEO or black hat SEO.

SEO has evolved into a field that has a lot of demand today. Everyone wants their website to rank within the first 10 results of the major search engines for the most competitive keywords. Today the websites have doubled-tripled but they are competing for the same space.

This has led to services that promise ranking in the top ten in all the major search engines instantly.SEO as such cannot deliver results instantly ever. SEO works on all aspects of your website elements to get your website prepared for competition.

Any instant results or promises of getting your website to rank within the top ten results should set the alarm bells ringing. Believe me no one can promise you top rankings for a specific keyword which is highly popular and competitive. Every site is different and SEO experts work on the USP for each website, some keywords may work for you and some may not. Just because you do not rank for a very popular keyword, it does not automatically follow that your website will not be successful in attracting and retaining visitors. It is in fact very possible to set up your website for success without ranking on top for all the popular keywords. A successful ethical SEO strategy is all about implementing a SEO plan tailored for your website only. SEO experts will not ever ask you to get into any of these instant ranking schemes especially if they have been in the field for quite some time. These promises are usually made by individuals or companies who are not here for the long haul but are flyby night operators.

Before embarking on a SEO project make sure you do a thorough reference check on the SEO company/individual. Black hat SEO may be successful for a bit but if your website gets caught you will be out of the search engines index within no time. Getting your website back in the search engine index is quite a challenging task. More often than not, website owners are not aware of the kind of work the SEO company did for them. Undoing work that you may not be aware of can be a painful task.

If you want your website to gain visibility fast, the best way to do so would be to start advertising on Google, Yahoo! In the meantime keep working on making your website search engine and user-friendly (meaning ethical and well planned SEO work).

Most of us have a social networking presence; try to make the most of your social network connections. They will certainly help you gain visibility. Ethical SEO is all about a SEO strategy that involves focused planning so that your target audience becomes aware of your website. It is about improving SEO, about working on optimizing the SEO performance, about analyzing current results in order to make faster and focused progress. It is about making your website search engine and user compliant.



Ranjana has over 8 years of experience as an Internet marketer. She has worked with top corporates, small shop owners, car dealers, gift sites and websites offering a variety of products/services. Visit SEO Best practices for your regular dose of internet marketing techniques.




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Good SEO - Why is Good SEO Better Than Its Evil 'Black Hat' Brother

Good SEO should be long term, white hat and not completely dependent on Google AdWords.

With the rise of today's technology, a number of bad and dodgy practices have come into play that can seriously put your website at risk from being banned in the search engines - no questions asked. The constant shift of techniques and 'state of flux' the search engines remain in makes it difficult to differentiate between good and bad SEO.

Bad SEO techniques are still pretty easy to spot. The technique is known as 'black hat SEO' and it puts your website on the front line to be shot down by the big G if you are caught exerting these techniques.

The old school black hatters will know the techniques to get short wins to increase search engine rankings - definitely not good SEO, and something I can't talk about in this article due to editorial guidelines.

So what is Good SEO?

Well, you should start by thinking about your users, and the visitors to your website. If you build the website for people, write interesting and informative content for real humans and not robots, then you are on the right track with developing a long term, organic web presence.

Good SEO takes time, which is why a number of website ideas tend to lose faith and move over to other practices to get the quick fix results - like paid advertising for example.

Think about getting your keywords in the content, adding frequent updates and have a good amount of high quality inbound backlinks from relevant websites - all good SEO.



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Have Search Engines Made Black Hatters Out of Us All

For folks who have been working in search engine optimization a long time, the question posed above makes perfect sense.

It wasn't that long ago when sites could exchange reciprocal links, buy links on link directories, post liberally to authoritative sites like Wikipedia, and build web page content meeting a specific level of keyword density to improve their search engine positioning. Do any of these things today, and these practices could cause your site to be penalized by the major search engines, preventing your site from ever being found.

Now it seems, almost any tactic used to help the search engines properly interpret a site's content and relevance to a given industry can potentially backfire if deemed as "over-optimization." In search engine optimization parlance, what many SEO firms cite as "white hat" SEO practices arbitrarily are treated as "black hat" SEO by search engines.

The search engines, most notably Google and of late, Yahoo, have created a game of cat-and-mouse that has turned the science of search engine optimization most definitely into an art.

It's not as simple as taking an SEO checklist and methodically making changes to a site according to prescribed formulas. By today's standards, following any specified formula is likely to cause your site to become ensnared in a search engine's over-optimization net.

It's not a matter of SEO firms sliding in practice over time from white to gray to black hat. Legitimate SEO practitioners understand pretty well what the black hat methods are and avoid them easily. Rather, it's more about the search engines working extra hard to maintain control over their search results, or as I would call it "managed chaos."

The upshot is that any company that relies on search engine positioning to generate traffic to their site needs to be extremely diligent in monitoring its site's position as well as documented changes in search engine algorithms. You'll never stay ahead of the game; rather, just try to stay in it. The trick is to be able to identify when a sudden drop in position is the result of a new, permanent over-optimization penalty or a temporary snag in search engine rankings.

For instance, recently a change on Google labeled the -6 penalty caused sites that had been performing on the first page of Google to drop 5 positions (i.e. from No. 1 to No. 6). Google engineer Matt Cutts has since explained on his blog that this penalty was an unintended consequence of some recent anti-spam programming, but that the search engine is working to undo the damage for legitimately optimized sites.

The average marketing person managing his or her company web site along with their other duties likely doesn't have time to stay on top of which search engine changes are important to their site's continued positioning. And, in the grand scheme of things, it may not be the best use of their time even if they could. It's difficult to determine how and when to make optimization changes when you're operating in the vacuum of managing only one site.

Perhaps that's where the biggest value lies in working with an experienced SEO firm. It might seem that you're paying more than if you had an in-house person take care of your search engine optimization, but you're gaining expertise for which you are not directly paying.

By working with multiple clients, SEO firms get a feel for what works with the search engines. They may uncover a positioning problem with one client and then develop a strategy to preemptively help your site. It's about applying lessons learned, modifying SEO techniques as search engines make adjustments, and keeping that white hat from being labeled as black.



Angela Charles is president of Pilot Fish, an Akron, Ohio web design and search engine optimization firm that specializes in business-to-business web sites.




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How To Easily Protect Your Business From Black Hat SEOs

A lot of Hawaii businesses were in panic mode. Big time. Their Google rankings were dropping. Fast. And their SEO wasn't giving them straight answers. The truth came out eventually, but only after a lot of angry calls and emails. Their SEO, who had a sparkling reputation for ranking results until now, was doing Black Hat optimization and using spamming to get those rankings.

Those businesses got burned and there was little they could do to fix it. It was especially bad because Google isn't too receptive to the argument that 'My SEO was doing it, not me.' Those SEO clients got hit hard and there wasn't much they could do about it. So the question arises - what could they have done BEFORE this happened to prevent the nightmare they were in?

What Can You Do To Protect Your Business From Black Hat SEO?

Was there anything they could've done beforehand to protect their businesses? Was there any way they could've identified this Black Hat SEO early on and not hired him from the start? Short Answer: Yes! Here's how you can easily protect your business from living the nightmare that those businesses did.

First, we should make it clear that we can't tell you how to detect every Black Hat SEO out there. That's just not possible and it would take a series of articles to fully go into this subject. However, the techniques this Hawaii SEO used could've been spotted very easily. And it could've been done before those businesses even hired the guy.

Like a lot of less honest search engine optimization companies, this man depended on spamming to get rankings. He'd post comments on blogs and forums all over the Web, including in them links to his client's business in the post.

This can bring short-term results, but those links lose their value over time, sometimes all of it after a while. Google doesn't approve it either. At best, it's building your SEO house on sand, instead of rock.

How To Detect Link Spamming Quickly & Easily

If you suspect there's a problem with your SEO right now, all you have to do is check the backlinks your site has currently. If you're in the position of checking out an SEO before hiring them, you can check backlinks for some of their current clients. Here's what you do:

1. Go to a backlink checker like this one: http://www.iwebtool.com/backlink_checker

2. Enter the URL of your site or site of client of SEO you're considering

3. Check out the sites they have links from.

4. If a lot of them are from blog comments or forum posts, that's a big Red Flag. Especially if the blog(s) or forums' subject isn't related to the subject of your website. You might want to even click through and check out the link to confirm a possible problem.

This isn't going to catch every bad SEO out there, but it will give you a very valuable way to safeguard your business from many of them. If those Hawaii businesses had done this they could've saved themselves a lot of grief. The saddest thing about this case?

That SEO is still in business. I feel sorry for his current clients, but I'm sure those short-term rankings look very good right now. They'll find out soon enough. Don't let it happen to you.



Author Jonathan Cook is an SEO Consultant in Honolulu Hawaii. Contact us today for a No-Obligation Consultation on your SEO. Any use of this article must contain the above link and credit.




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How to Get Blacklisted by the Search Engines - Black Hat SEO Techniques

Black Hat SEO is a real problem as more and more SEO companies are set up every day. Just as a reminder, Black Hat SEO is to be opposed to White Hat SEO. Black Hat search engine optimization can be defined as the practice of using unethical techniques to make your search rankings go up.

Here is a list of the bad techniques that would get you blacklisted by the search engines.

Cloaking

As a general rule, websites designed for ease of use by visitors will attract search engine spiders. That doesn't stop some less than reputable individuals from disguising their pages in an attempt to gain an unfair advantage. What you see is most definitely not what you get.

The information presented to the search engine is not the same that the human visitor gets to see. One example is to put in some text the same color as the background. In this way, the spiders but not the human eye can pick up keywords. This enables the website owner to present well written content but give the search engine the impression that the copy is filled with keywords, thereby attracting searches for those keywords.

Rest assured though, that if the offending site were holding a high search engine position, it would be spotted, reported and banned from search engines.

Duplicate Sites

Search engines would prefer to find unique content throughout the net. When affiliate schemes first became popular, some web owners would post duplicate sites in an attempt to outrank the site being promoted and siphon off sales from the original. Subsequently, the search engines now have procedures in place to stop duplicate sites. Sites that may have been altered slightly to avoid detection can be spotted by competitors, reported and banned.

Keyword Stuffing

The easiest to spot and most common example of "black hat" methods, keyword stuffing relies on targeted keywords being placed en masse on a web page in the anticipation of being picked up and indexed by the search engines. Usually found written in a tiny font size at the bottom of a web page in order for the main content to make sense.

Link farms

Link farms have evolved from the strategy of building inbound links in order to raise search engine rankings. Sites have been built specifically to provide links, which are not particularly relevant to the site concerned.

Search engines expect links between websites to be based on relevant content. Sites that build links of no relevance, purely for the sake of search engine optimization, can be banned from search engines, maybe for life.

Doorway Pages

Probably the easiest way to get blacklisted and lose even genuinely earned rankings, doorway pages are appended to a website, giving no value to a visitor. The page exists solely to attract search engines to the targeted keyword or phrase. These pages are usually mass-produced and posted automatically by software.

Redirects

Used in connection with doorways, redirects automatically move the visitor to a genuine page. Illegal methods are constantly being devised to beat attempts by search engines to detect this practice. The search engines do generally catch up with them and ban the sites. If not, competitors do pick up what's going on and report the offenders.

What color is your hat?

Many of these practices are blatantly in use today. Some webmasters tread the thin line between illegality and shady practices. Search engine rankings can still be achieved by operating a "black hat" strategy. Generally though, any gain is at best temporary and offenders do face the prospect of being blacklisted by the search engines. SEO agencies that operate legitimately and provide good seo services, will not tolerate competitors getting an unfair advantage and will report offenders. Some bans can be permanent, but even in cases where a site is only banned for a temporary period; it is increasingly difficult to get back up the ladder.



Romain is a manager at White Hat Media. A SEO Company expert in Search engine marketing and Pay Per Click management.




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How to Identify Black Hat SEO

Black hat SEO methods may sound tempting for a quick surge of traffic but will probably get you in trouble - maybe bigger trouble than you bargained for. Just look at what recently happened to US retailer whose SEO company didn't help them excel with Google but instead got them in some hot water. They said they didn't know what their SEO company was doing. As a business owner or someone responsible for marketing and e-commerce at your place of work, you need to be sure that you know what's happening with your website so that your website doesn't fall off the face of the Google earth unexpectedly due to what's perceived as inappropriate SEO tactics.

Black hat SEO really doesn't pay off. Search engine algorithms are continually tweaked to help them stay 'honest' in letting the cream rise to the top. It's best to start as you mean to go on, even if it takes a bit longer to rise to the top of the search engines. So, how do you identify black hat SEO methods so you're sure to avoid them?

Avoiding Black Hat SEO - Tips:

Be careful about dealing with SEO companies who make outlandish promises. If they're telling you that you can buy your way to the top with paid links, this is a red flag.

Look into the reputation of the SEO company that you're talking to. Make sure they're known as legitimate and have good testimonials from real clients to back up what they tell you.

Be sure your website navigation is transparent. No doorway or cloaked pages. No hidden text in an attempt to keyword stuff, and so on.

Ask to see your reporting. The single most important thing you can do as a website owner is regularly review your traffic reports. A good indication of black hat SEO is, for example, an excessive number of high PR backlinks from non-relevant sites.

Effective SEO, especially in a competitive niche, can be like a full time job and that's probably why you want to get some help. Hire an expert SEO consultant but look for transparency in their methods. If something doesn't sit right, ask questions. It doesn't hurt to brush up on basics of white hat and black hat SEO so that you can carefully monitor what's happening with your business. Search engine optimisation is an evolving world and a reputable subject matter expert can help your company make the most of it through proven and ethical strategies that work.



Oracle Digital are dedicated to helping others learn about SEO. You can visit our website and learn all about Search Engine Optimisation.




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How to Spot Black Hat SEO

The term search engine optimization (SEO) rings a bell for many who are familiar with the tricks that change online search results to generate traffic for successful websites.

From the point of view of a Web content provider, SEO is considered a Web marketing tactic used by several, often legitimate, marketing departments and agencies. The goal of SEO is to increase the volume and enhance the quality of visitor traffic. It's all about ranking!

However, it can also be used for a different and sinister purpose more popularly known as black hat SEO. Malware writers are now riding on this widespread technique to infect the systems of unsuspecting users. Here's a quick guide for spotting websites using black hat SEO for malicious intent:

Exact keyword matching is a common attribute of websites utilizing black hat SEO. Sites that contain all the common terms have outstanding chances of being on the top of the search results lists. These sites appear at the top because their content matches all terms. This makes it an effective method used by cyber criminals to spread their "wares." The best examples of this kind of attack happen at Christmas, Easter, or when events of general interest occur like the unexpected death, marriage, or birth of a child of a celebrity.

Carefully observe links. Take note of the URLs of the links you click. If the URL on your address bar changes without any prior notification, this is a clear sign of suspicious activity within the Web page you accessed, which can redirect you to other malicious pages.

Using anonymous search engines apart from the commonly used Google, Yahoo, and Bing can also lead unsuspecting users to malicious Web pages. Alternative search engines can also be compromised by cyber criminals in order to serve malware, depending on certain keywords. In other cases, alternative search engines may also deliver unfiltered results, mixing malware sites with legitimate ones.

Be wary of sites that are specifically designed to host or link ads. In most cases, the site itself may not be malicious but redirections from it can lead to spam sites and outright malicious FAKEAV or Fake Antivirus links that will reveal its true nature in the end.

Today's threat landscape has grown increasingly complex and black hat SEO will definitely continue to persist as a technique to infect systems. User awareness is key as well as using multilayered Internet security software and defense against malicious URLs, spam, and black hat SEO exploits.



Maria Christina Cruz writes for TrendLabs Malware Blog on different internet security topics like black hat or poisoned SEO.




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Search Engine Optimisation Black Hat or White Hat SEO

If you are looking around for a search engine optimisation company to carry out some SEO work on your website, then make sure you choose the right colour hat. There are a large number of companies that adopt a fast and unethical approach to SEO, known as black hat SEO, while there are a smaller number or companies that implement ethical SEO work, known as white hat SEO. The key to choosing the right colour, which is obviously the white, is as follows...

Before you even think of taking on a search engine optimisation company, the first thing is to shop around and see what is out on the market. The same principles would apply if you were to buy a new computer. You would look at a few models, prices and what each model has to offer. If an SEO company was to offer a service that would guarantee you top ranks, there is a very good chance they are wearing a black hat. No SEO company can guarantee top ranks since they have no direct control over the search engines and their ranking algorithms. They can however mention that top ranks are highly achievable due to their previous success with other clients.

Be sure to look at a companies' portfolio page (if they have one on their website or simply ask them) and carry out some research on their clients. This can be done by looking at the client's website performance within the search engines for the selected keywords they have been optimised for. Another good idea would be to write a courtesy email to the client asking for a reference on the SEO company they have used to optimise their website.

The most important giveaway on a black hat SEO company is the way they would describe their services. If a company cannot go into detail on how they carry out their work (meaning they are very vague), and this involves justifying each step of their work, then it would be best to avoid their services. A proper SEO firm will be more than happy to explain their services in detail and justify their reasons for using such techniques. If you cannot quiet understand the techniques they use then be sure to do some research on the internet and read SEO articles that explain each technique. If you find that their work fits along the lines of your research and that it is all ethical, then they are a company you should put on your list.

A last point to mention, a company should stress the phrase 'patience is the key to success with SEO'. If a company claims that they can achieve results very fast, then it is time to start running. In theory, SEO that is carried out correctly on a website will take time until the results start to show (most cases 3 to 6 months but could be longer).

Would you like to know what could happen to your website if you hire a black hat SEO company, regardless of how big or small your website is in terms of brand recognition? An example would be the story of the BMW German website. They hired a black hat SEO firm to carry out some work on their website and that resulted in their site being banned from the Google ranks. So it is best to do your research on SEO by reading articles such as this one and question a companies approach on search engine optimisation. This will ensure that you have selected the clean white hat and that your website will not be tarnished from the black.



David Touri works for SEO Sydney Search Engine Marketing [http://www.seosydney.com.au/about_seo_sydney.html], the SEO Consultants. He has worked on various projects and offers search engine optimisation in Australia [http://www.seosydney.com.au/ethical_search_engine_optimisation_services.html].




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SEO - The Difference Between Black Hat and White Hat SEO

A discussion of black hat and white hat SEO is as pointless as a discussion of the difference between black and white witchcraft. In witchcraft, the minute a technique is used to control the outcome of a situation it is known as black magic. The same can be said of SEO. A technique used to manipulate the search engines is known as black hat SEO. The problem is that white hat SEO does precisely the same thing so it is not any less "dirty" than black hat in some ways

An SEO tactic, technique or method is considered "White hat" if it conforms to the search engines' guidelines and does not attempt to deceive it. White Hat SEO is not just about following guidelines, but is about ensuring that the content a search engine indexes and subsequently ranks is the same content a user will see.

White Hat advice is generally summed up as creating content for users, not for search engines, and then make that content easily accessible to their spiders. It is more about user friendliness and accessibility rather than about tilting the odds seriously in one's favor.

Black hat" SEO employs more deceptive methods to try to improve rankings. The search engines usually disapprove these methods. This can range from text that is "hidden", either as text colored similar to the background or by redirecting users from a page that is built for search engines to one that is more human friendly. As a general rule, a method that sends a user to a page that was different to the page described in the search is called Black hat. Search engines can and do penalize sites they discover using black hat methods, either by reducing their rankings or eliminating their listings from their databases altogether. Such penalties can be applied either automatically by the search engines' algorithms, or by a manual review of a site.



Anthony Gregory is a SEO and website promoter, he can be contacted at sales(at)brilliantseo.com

Car Insurance Mobility Scooters Copywriter




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SEO Expert Guide - Black Hat SEO - Activities to Avoid (part 810)

In parts 1 - 7, you learnt how to develop your proposition, identify your key words and optimize and promote (for free) your site and pages on the world's search engines. You were also introduced to our mythical Doug (who sells antique doors, door handles, knockers, door bells or pulls and fitting services) in Windsor in the UK.

There are some search engine optimization and promotion techniques I did not cover, as they are unethical. In this part of the guide, I outline this techniques, so you can recognize and avoid them!

(a) Search Engine Ethics

Borrowing from the wild west, white hat SEO generally refers to ethical techniques, whilst black hat SEO is unethical techniques. Search engines are designed to help people find genuinely relevant results for the key words they enter, in a ranked order. Relevancy is a mixture of the "authority" of the site generally and the specific relevance of the page content to the search made. Anything which undermines this (ie. by creating false impressions of authority or relevance) is unethical because it undermines the key purpose of search engines.

Black hat practitioners tend to see search engine optimization as a war, and search engines and SEOs as the enemy, to be beaten by means fair or foul. White Hatters tend to view search engines as friends, who can help them get business.

(b) Hidden Page Text

Blackhatters create hidden text in page code (not intended for humans). At a simple level, this could be white text on a white background. The text is generally hidden because it does not fit with the rest of the page content but does help with search engine results. This by definition means that - as a human searcher - you are likely to be disappointed by the result when you land on this page.

In their Guide for Webmasters, Google implore you to "make pages for users, not for search engines. Don't deceive your users, or present different content to search engines than you display to users. " The guide goes on to specifically recommend you "avoid hidden text or hidden links". If you want to avoid being blacklisted by Google, then I would recommned you pay attention to this advice.

(c) Buying Inbound Links

In their Guide for Webmasters, Google ask you to "avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you'd feel comfortable explaining what you've done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, 'Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn't exist?'"

You can find on the web links from PR8 sites on sale for $200. From our earlier exploration of PageRank, you'll understand why such a high price can be supported. As you can imagine, Google and others frown on this activity, as it undermines the whole principle of democracy that underpins PageRank. Buying votes? Unethical!

The consensus in forums is that Google look out for unnatural linking patterns, including substantial cross linking, sharp growth in backlink numbers and same anchor text in most links. I would advise you avoid this sort of activity altogether!

(d) Use of Link Farms and IBLNs

In their Guide for Webmasters, Google say "don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or 'bad neighborhoods' on the web as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links."

In practice, Google identify 'bad neighbourhoods' by devaluing back-links from the same IP subnet. Where a site is simply a link farm site (that lists loads of links to other sites, in exchange for links back or money) Google will eventually identify it as a 'bad neighbourhood' and remove the links from it's index.

Independent Back Linking Networks (IBLNs) are a network of sites that all directly or indirectly link back to your site in such as a way as to promote it through the search engine rankings. The way IBLNs get around Google's IP monitoring is by using a completely different web-hosting plan for every site you want to link back directly to you.

This is very time-consuming and will cost you a lot of money. It is also not fool-proof and (if detected) can lead to Google simply wiping out all the direct referrers from their index (the sites they find flagrantly built simply to link to your main site) or, worse, dropping your entire IBLN - including the main site your were trying to optimise for. Don't be daft - keep it clean!

(e) Use of Cloaking Pages or Sneaky Redirects

In their Guide for Webmasters, Google recommend you "avoid 'doorway' pages created just for search engines, or other 'cookie cutter' approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content."

When Doug reads this, he begins to understand why doorknockers.com fails to rank higher in the search engines. That domain simply redirects to a different site (with a regular business name) which also fails to rank well in Google. This poor business-owner has clearly become an unwitting and almost certainly innocent victim og Google's policy to catch out Blackhatters.

He also understands why having his content on antique-door-knockers.com will be preferrable to redirecting people to a domain based on his company name (Doug Chalmers Limited).

Next we turn to tools you can use to monitor your ongoing optimization effectiveness...

Navigate the guide

Previous:

SEO Expert Guide - Paid Site Promotion (Marketing) (part 7/10)

Next:

SEO Expert Guide - Ongoing Monitoring of Results (part 9/10)



David Viney (david@viney.com) is the author of the SEO Expert Guide; how to get to the top of the search engine rankings and stay there.

Find out more about David's SEO services or purchase the full copy of the book from the SEO Expert site.




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Should You Use Black Hat SEO

There's always a lot of talk about black hat SEO and white hat link building etc, but what do these terms really mean?

Well, to me, white hat represents:

Links from normal and reasonable promotion methods

while black hat SEO is trying to game the system and fool the search engines.

My personal belief, which I have proved correct time and time again, that the most effective method of SEO is great content and plenty of it, is becoming more widely held, but people still think that they can create a poor site, backlink the heck out of it and make a million. And then when they fail, they blame the 'evil' search engines.

And then they complain when their rankings hit bottom, well before they've made a penny.

There's always some doofus who believes that ANY link building at all is black hat, but this is plainly ridiculous.

No search engine, no matter how tyrannical, would expect someone to create a business online and not promote it. It's the methods of promotion you use, that Google doesn't like. Normal (and with any SEO discussion, this is opinion borne out by experience) link building includes:

Article Directory Marketing

Article Syndication

Video Marketing

Social Bookmarking

Social Media Promotion

This list is by no means exhaustive, it's just giving you a taste of the difference between normal and unethical marketing, which would consist of things like:

Blog commenting where the comments are spam

Forum profile links (many will deny this, but it makes forum owners' lives hell)

Playing on people's loneliness or compassion to convince them to fill in CPA offers

The list is endless. Pretty much anything that can disadvantage someone else will be considered 'black hat'.

While all is fair in love and war (and business) there's a very good reason to not indulge in black hat SEO and only use 'white hat' techniques.

Longevity.

You're building a business here. You wouldn't start a company in the real world and only put enough infrastructure in place for it to last 18 months. Well, you don't want to make websites that will plummet in the rankings once your links have been devalued or your site has been found out to be terrible or your method has a short shelf-life.

Please note this well. The vast majority of the time when people complain that Google has slapped their sites, it's not true. It's merely a combination of:

A poor site

The QDF (quality demands freshness) paradigm that gives new sites and pages a temporary boost. Once this ends your rankings may fall, especially if your site/page doesn't offer value.

Sometimes it's because of a new algorithm, but Google will NEVER punish quality. That would be stupid and it's against everything they stand for.

Publish quality sites, write great and helpful content and promote yourself ethically and within Google's guidelines and you'll find that your sites maintain their high rankings.



If you'd rather learn about ethical marketing practices, visit my website and learn affiliate marketing and how to build a website to further your career, because you won't get far without one.




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Stay Away from Black Hat SEO

If you are a serious online entrepreneur you probably have a website and want to see it at the top of the search engine results. You know that SEO - search engine optimization - is what it takes to see your dream come true, so you decide to hire a company. You browse the web and read: "top 10 position guaranteed". That's exactly what you've been dreaming for, that's exactly what you should not buy!

No one, but no one could ever possibly guarantee you a top ten position in the search engines. There are no secret SEO techniques; no magic tools that can make your site reach the top over night. There are, however, some tricks. Many so-called SEO firms still use them, to make money fast. But their techniques will only hurt your site. Let's say your site will, indeed, appear in the top of the search results for a while. With a little bit of luck it will even stay there longer. But once the search engines discover it, they will seriously penalize it. Using tricks to fool the search engines is called black hat SEO - and if you want to have success in the long-term and promote a serious online business you should stay away from black hat SEO techniques. In short, here is what you should avoid:

Stuffing your pages with keywords. Don't stuff your web pages with keywords or text of the same background color. Guess what? Search engines can detect that and the result will be catastrophic for the website. For example getting banned out of Google.

Invisible text. That's about the same with keyword stuffing. Even though the invisible is not keyword rich, it will still be considered "spammy" by the search engines. What's the use of invisible text anyway?

Doorway pages. Don't use them. Doorway pages are "fake" pages, customized for a particular keyword or phrases and programmed to be seen solely by the search engine spiders and not by visitors. This is bad SEO. All the philosophy behind search engine optimization is related to improving user experience. Building web pages no one will ever see is not an unethical approach to SEO. Google, and all the other search engines, have strict policies against doorway pages.

Linking farms. Again Google: Google does not like artificial linking (link farms and link stuffing). Linking to spam sites may get your site penalized.

In conclusion, using any techniques considered spammy and unethical by the search engines could damage your site. Many of these techniques might work in the short-term but, unless you want your site flagged or banned, do avoid them. On the other hand, black hat SEO raises questions when it comes to the general credibility of your online business and website.

Instead of going for black hat SEO, fix your site and optimize each page. When you do it, don't think solely about the search engines. This should be your second thought. Your main concern should be whether the visitors find the site useful or not. Bottom line: optimize your website for the users and the search engines, using ethical tools.



Scott Lindsay is a web developer and entrepreneur. He is the founder of HighPowerSites and many other web projects.

Make A Website in minutes with HighPowerSites or Build A Website with BuildAGreatSite.

Start your own ebook business and Resell Ebooks with BooksWealth.




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