The internet has made it possible for anyone with motivation and a willingness to work to make money – an incredible amount of money. Unfortunately, devious people who want to cheat the system often resort to what is known as “black hat” techniques when implementing SEO. Along with this have come an endless supply of guides and products promising instant results and high rankings that are “undetectable” by search engines, offered by marketers on internet marketing forums, and advertised as foolproof. While you may think twice about using such tactics, particularly if the seller “guarantees” that you will never get caught, stay away – far, far away. In using black hat techniques for SEO purposes, you WILL get caught. And, it could very likely mean the end of your business.
Just consider it for a minute. If black hat SEO techniques worked (and most are easy to implement), everyone could get to number one easily. However, Google and other search engines are much “smarter” than people give them credit for. While you may experience a “honeymoon” period where your website ranks highly, it will not last, guaranteed. In fact, those who do use these devious “tricks” or tactics will likely find that success is very fleeting indeed, and will probably last only a few days.
What are some of the most common black hat techniques used in SEO today? Keyword spamming, title tag stuffing and title tag stacking. With keyword spamming, a webmaster may use the target keyword on page hundreds of times, only they will do this in a way that is invisible to the human eye by making text match the background of the page. Title tag stacking involves “stacking” multiple title tags one on top of the other in order to rank for numerous keywords. These are just a couple of examples; there are literally dozens of “cheat” tactics that are used to attempt to deceive the search engines.
Now, back to the forum peddlers who promote methods of garnishing a high ranking without getting caught using these black hat techniques. Do you believe that if an individual truly unlocked the secret to getting a page one ranking that worked, he/she would share it with the world for a few bucks a pop? Not likely; in fact, any smart individual would want to keep such a secret from getting out, so that every other website on the web wouldn’t be competition! That so-called “guru” would be building hundreds of affiliate sites in popular niches, just sitting back watching the cash roll into the bank account. Add to that the fact that the more these purported “experts” hawk their wares, the more likely the odds of being caught by Google, and you can see that this is an investment you DO NOT want to make.
The truth is, there is no “magic bullet” to getting high or even #1 rankings with black hat techniques or otherwise. Why waste your money on false promises – only to get caught and subsequently penalized when the search engines find out? When it comes to SEO, stick to the tried and true tactics that are legitimate and effective.