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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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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