What is the Black Hat and why you should avoid it

In the world of digital marketing it is essential that companies opt for ethical and transparent practices when promoting their products or services online .

However, there are those who resort to dubious techniques, with the aim of increasing traffic to their website or improving their position in search engines; such practices are known as Black Hat.

In this article we will seek to explain in detail what the Black Hat implies and why it is crucial to avoid it to ensure the success of your business, or content, online.

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What is the Black Hat?

The Black Hat is made up of a series of tactics used in digital marketing with the aim of deceiving both search engines and users, in order to increase the visibility and traffic of a website.

These practices are considered unethical, since they violate the rules established by search engines, which can have serious consequences for the content that a company seeks to position.

In other words, Black Hat involves manipulating search algorithms and creating deceptive content in order to drive traffic to the website .

Black Hat SEO practices that you should avoid at all costs

Below, we present a list of these practices that you must take into account, and prevent your site from losing authority and visibility in the main search engines.

1. Keyword stuffing . It consists of repeating keywords excessively in a text, which is considered unnatural and detrimental to the user experience.
2. Duplicate content . Posting plagiarized content hurts a website's ranking and is discouraged by Google. It is important to use original content and to properly specify whether or from what source the shared content is taken.
3. Automatically generated content . Using automated tools to generate content may seem convenient, but the quality and naturalness of the text are compromised, which negatively affects the positioning of the page.
4. Spam in comments . Posting irrelevant links in blog or forum comments with the aim of gaining backlinks quickly is considered spam and can lead to penalties.
5. Cloaking . Showing different content to visitors, and to search engines, with the aim of tricking and getting a higher ranking for non-existent keywords in the text.
6. Abusive use of structured data . Providing inaccurate information in structured data in order to mislead search engines and users.
7. Link manipulation and payment links. Buying links or manipulatively creating links to improve rankings violates Google's guidelines and may result in a penalty.
8. negative SEO. It focuses on hurting the ranking of competitors through practices such as leaving negative reviews or creating unnatural links to your site.
9. Link farm. They are pages with numerous links of no value to the user, whose main purpose is to build links to increase the ranking of a page.
10. Misleading redirect. Redirecting users to a different URL than the one displayed to search engines, which can lead to misleading or dangerous content.

Consequences of the Black Hat

The long-term consequences of Black Hat SEO can be serious for your website and your brand.

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penalties

You may face penalties from search engines. These penalties can range in severity, from lowered search results positions to complete de-indexing of your website.

They can also be applied automatically by search algorithms or manually by people in charge of the company.

Bad reputation

Using Black Hat SEO techniques can negatively affect your online reputation, as your site may be considered spam and classified as unreliable. What could lead to a decrease in the visibility of your website and a loss of trust on the part of the users.

Image detrimental to the brand

In addition to the bad reputation that you will get in search engines, making use of these bad SEO practices can generate a bad image of your brand , since users may have a negative experience when visiting your site due to low-quality content, duplicate information or excess links.

This bad experience can affect your business goals in the medium term, as users may associate your brand with unethical practices and avoid doing business with you. 

In conclusion

Although Black Hat SEO is not illegal, its use of unethical and deceptive techniques can seriously damage your website's reputation. Instead of taking refuge in these practices, it is important to focus on a solid SEO strategy that provides valuable and useful information to users.

Written by Moises Hamui Abadi : I am an entrepreneur, founding partner of Viceversa and SoyMacho. After being in charge of several digital businesses and advising several other businesses; I decided to form MHA Consulting, a digital marketing consultancy dedicated to growing and empowering digital businesses in more than 7 countries and generating more than 1,500 million pesos.

If you want more information on this topic or you are looking for other options to profile your ideal client, at MHA you will find the solution you need. Schedule a call.