What is Black Hat SEO? The practice of tailoring a website to deceive users and search engines in an attempt to rank higher in search results and gain more exposure.
This practice is one of the SEO techniques, but it is highly likely to violate the webmaster guidelines.
As a result, it is easy to receive penalties and lead to index deletion and a significant drop in search rankings.
On the other hand, SEO methods that comply with webmaster guidelines are called “white hat SEO”.
If you implement this method, it is easy to be evaluated by Google.
To make this a good situation, avoid black hat SEO and focus on building a user-friendly site.
Based on this point, this time, I would like to explain the points that are easy to understand for beginners, focusing on the definition of black hat SEO and the difference between black hat SEO and white hat SEO.
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What is Black Hat SEO?
What is Black Hat SEO? The practice of tailoring a website to deceive users and search engines in an attempt to rank higher in search results and gain more exposure.
For example, suppose a user is viewing a web page.
Let’s say that the web page has content that is controlled by CSS so that it is not visible to the user (such as skipping it from the screen, making the text color the same as the background color, etc.).
In this case, it is hidden content.
Hidden content is invisible to users but can be detected by search engines.
In this way, the act of adjusting content to deceive users is “black hat SEO”.
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Features of Black Hat SEO
One of the characteristics of black hat SEO is low user convenience.
Also, it will be a violation of the guidelines for webmasters, and it will take a certain amount of time for the violation to be judged.
- Low user convenience
- be a penalty
- It takes a certain amount of time for search engines to evaluate
- Easy to receive good evaluation temporarily
Low user convenience
Black Hat SEO is user convenience is low.
For example, copy the content of an external site, create a site with exactly the same content, and publish it.
In this case, the user visits each site and sees the content once seen again on the other.
If so, you won’t get useful knowledge because it’s the same information.
As a result, it is useless for users.
In this way, low user convenience is one of the features of black hat SEO.
be a penalty
Black Hat SEO is Penalty.
For example, let’s say you want to rank higher for a specific keyword.
At this time, stuff that specific keyword (SEO keyword) into the title name and content content.
If so, it will be keyword stuffing.
As a result, you will be penalized for violating the webmaster guidelines .
In this way, penalties are one of the features of black hat SEO.
It takes a certain amount of time for search engines to evaluate
Black Hat SEO is It takes a certain amount of time for search engines to evaluate.
For example, post only a link to your own site in the comment section of a blog post on an external site.
I do this in a number of blog posts on external sites.
In this case, comment spam violates the guidelines and will eventually be penalized.
However, it takes a certain amount of time, such as weeks or months, for Google to detect this comment spam.
In other words, it does not mean that you will be penalized immediately after implementing comment spam.
In this way, one of the features of black hat SEO is that it takes a certain amount of time for search engines to evaluate.
Easy to receive good evaluation temporarily
Black Hat SEO is Temporarily receive a good evaluation.
For example, buy backlinks on specialized sites.
In this case, you will gradually get paid backlinks to your site.
If so, it will be evaluated gradually, and the search ranking will rise gradually, or the search ranking will rise at once.
The ranking may stay high for a while.
However, purchased backlinks are basically a guideline violation.
As a result, you will eventually be penalized and your search ranking will drop.
In this way, it is one of the features of black hat SEO that it is easy to receive good evaluations temporarily.
By the way, purchased backlinks do not always result in a temporary increase in search rankings.
The difference between black hat SEO and white hat SEO
Black hat SEO is about tweaking your website to deceive users and search engines, and gaining a reputation.
In addition, it is characterized by low user convenience and penalties for violating guidelines.
White Hat SEO, on the other hand, aims to create a website that is easy for users and search engines to understand and get a good reputation.
In addition, it has features such as high user convenience and easy evaluation (no penalties) because it complies with guidelines.
In this way, there is a big difference between black hat SEO and white hat SEO in terms of purpose and features.
How to do black hat SEO
Black Hat SEO is not recommended as it has a high risk of violating guidelines.
But what kind of behavior is illegal? A detailed list is provided in the ” Specific Guidelines ” section of the Webmaster Guidelines.
With reference to the specific guidelines, I would like to introduce the main points of how to do black hat SEO.
- Install low-quality backlinks
- Show different content to users and search engines
- Publish low-quality content
Install low-quality backlinks
To create low quality backlinks, Excessive reciprocal linking.
In addition, we will install paid links purchased from specialized sites and links (self-produced links) to low-quality sites created by ourselves.
In addition, we distribute widget links and comment spam (post only links to your site in the comment section of other sites).
Doing so will make it easier to increase the number of low-quality backlinks that violate the guidelines.
As a result, the possibility of receiving a final penalty increases.
In this way, installing low-quality backlinks is the point of black hat SEO.
Show different content to users and search engines
To present different content to users and search engines, cloaking.
It also inserts content invisible to users by placing hidden text and hidden links.
Additionally, it does bad redirects and bad markup (abusing structured data markup).
Doing so violates the guidelines because it deceives users and search engines.
As a result, the possibility of receiving a final penalty increases.
Thus, showing different content to users and search engines is the point of black hat SEO.
Publish low-quality content
To publish low-quality content, Disregard user convenience or publish content with extremely low user convenience.
- Content whose only purpose is to induce (link) to important pages
- Sparse content with only a few lines
- Content that is unnaturally stuffed with keywords and is in a context that is difficult for users to understand
- Content that is exactly the same as other pages
- Content with malicious behavior
- Create pages with only reciprocal links
Such content is low quality content that violates our guidelines.
As a result, the possibility of receiving a final penalty increases.
Thus, publishing low quality content is the point of black hat SEO.
What to do to avoid black hat SEO
If you do black hat SEO, the risk of penalties is high in the end.
Therefore, we recommend that you take SEO measures by avoiding acts that violate the webmaster guidelines.
- Consider user convenience
- Do natural link building
- Make your site easy for search engines to find/understand
Consider user convenience
For user convenience, Consider trends in your top competitor sites.
For example, search by SEO keyword and see the trend of the title name and content content of competing sites that are displayed at the top.
Then incorporate that trend into your web page.
This will create a web page that contains the information the user is looking for (the user’s search intent).
As a result, users will be satisfied with the content, which will lead to the avoidance of guideline violations.
Thus, considering user convenience is the key to avoiding black hat SEO.
Also, make sure your page contains content that is invisible to users but detectable by search engines. ( Providing different content to users and search engines )
This is not a measure that considers user convenience, but a measure that emphasizes being evaluated by search engines.
In other words, it is black hat SEO.
In order to avoid this, it is important to finish the content with the user’s convenience as the top priority.
Do natural link building
For natural link building, Utilize SNS.
For example, you can post affinity tweets with a link to your web page to your followers on Twitter.
In addition, add a hashtag related to the content of the tweet and post it.
In this case, more users will be more likely to click on the link to the tweeted web page.
This increases the likelihood that they will peruse and refer to the content of the linked page.
As a result, the number of natural backlinks increases, which leads to the avoidance of violations.
Thus, natural link building is the key to avoiding black hat SEO.
By the way, you can set up SNS buttons on the web page, collect lists by registering yourself for free, and distribute e-mail magazines to those lists.
These also promote natural link building.
Make your site easy for search engines to find/understand
To make it easier for search engines to find Set up an XML sitemap.
In addition, we increase the number of high-quality pages by marking up links to pages with a tags that include href attributes, normalizing duplicate content (duplicate URLs), and considering search intent.
In addition, use keywords that are in demand by users, accurate phrases and context, and make the content easy to understand, such as title names and hierarchical structure.
That way, you can help Googlebot crawl.
As a result, the site is easy to find for crawlers and easy to understand.
Thus, making your site easy for search engines to find and understand is the key to avoiding black hat SEO.
Summary: Avoid Black Hat SEO and Focus on Building User-friendly Sites
Avoid black hat SEO Focus on creating a user-friendly site.
To that end, we avoid acts such as publishing content that is not flimsy or that is a complete copy of other sites.
In other words, avoid the behavior described in the specific guidelines.
Then, we will proceed with SEO measures in accordance with the guidelines for webmasters.
That way, your site will be user-friendly.
As a result, the user experience is easier to improve, so it will be easier to be evaluated by Google.
On the other hand, black hat SEO increases the risk of penalties leading to index deletion and a significant drop in search rankings.
To avoid this bad situation, avoid black hat SEO and focus on creating a user-friendly site.