Don’t Fall Victim to Black Hat SEO in 2015
Do you know how Google sees your website?
Do you outsource your businesses SEO? Do you know what methods your experts(?) are using to help you move up the Google rankings? If you don’t you may soon find your website losing traffic and falling from the first page of the search results. Needless to say, no one other than your mother will look for you beyond the first page of Google.
Google is on the offensive against sites using black hat SEO methods to increase their rankings. The campaign first started with Google’s “Penguin” and “Panda” updates starting in 2012. It has steadily grown through many algorithm updates and an entire algorithm change known as Hummingbird. 2015 appears to be the year that Google finally eradicates all sites using black hat SEO methods.
Google’s algorithm has become ever more sophisticated and Google is becoming less ambitious about announcing changes. If you’re day job isn’t online marketing it is easy to fall victim to black hat tactics. So, let’s talk about what black hat SEO is and how you can avoid it.
What is Black hat SEO?
Black hat SEO is a term used to describe SEO tactics that go against Google’s terms of use. These techniques can change over time as Google makes changes to their search engine. Typically black hat can be summarized as any SEO practices that are unnatural or make use of automated software.
Ultimately Google wants to reward quality brands that increase their rankings through a mix of natural content, links, mentions or business reviews. Going out of your way to “fabricate these” in any capacity is a huge mistake. Sooner or later, Google will catch you. When they do, punishment will be swift and severe.
What to do to avoid Black Hat SEO
If you want to fully steer clear of black hat SEO there are a few practices you should seek to avoid:
• Any form of “mass backlinks” or purchasing links in general. DO NOT PURCHASE LINKS!
• Low quality, spun or duplicate content (Always produce unique content that is relevant to your business)
• Unrelated keywords – Placing keywords for the sake of boosting your rankings. All text should be natural. Write for your audience, not SEO.
• Purchasing any social fans on Twitter, Facebook etc.
• Content littered with keywords/phrases – See third bullet point.
• Any SEO expert who makes “radical claims” that they will boost your website up the search results for little cost.
• Any claim of overnight results – Ethical SEO cannot be achieved overnight and typically takes weeks to months before you see results.
• Cheap SEO – This will help to knock out most pretenders and Black hat practitioners. SEO is a long-term and very evolving job; expect any cheap SEO to be making use of automated software.
Remember, when hiring an SEO company ask them how they go about their business. If they’re using Black Hat tactics, in the end the loser will be you. For once Google discovers your site has benefited from Black Hat shenanigans you will fall from the SERPs with lightning speed. Getting back to the top is not an easy matter, nor is it quick. You can expect to spend big money and countless hours repairing the damage. Reparations can be anything from re-writing pages of your site to disavowing thousands of useless, but harmful links. Once you’ve done all that work, you have to ask Google to reconsider your site, a process that can take months.
So to borrow a phrase from Nike, “Just (Don’t) Do it”.