Black Hat SEO
Author: Cari Haus
Like
it or not, the search engine optimization (SEO) strategies implemented
by your webmaster may impact more than your company’s keyword rankings.
Black Hat SEO, as unethical search engine optimization practices are
generally called, can have negative consequences for your company’s
public image as well.
A relatively recent
case in point would be the doorway pages utilized by automaker BMW.
Google penalized the BMW site for using doorway pages, which trick
search engines by showing them different content than what is presented
to users. BMW got a lot of free publicity out of the deal, but probably
not of the type they were hoping for. BMW quickly removed the doorway
pages from their site, and more than likely, someone behind the scenes
got their hand slapped too.
If your company
is intent on building not only a brand, but a stellar public image, the
last activity you’ll want to engage in is Black Hat SEO tactics.
Although there are some gray areas, certain practices are widely
considered unethical and could tarnish one of your firm’s most valuable
assets, your company image.
Black Hat Techniques to Avoid
Building
doorway pages into your site is forbidden with just about every search
engine. Doorway pages, which are really “”fake”" pages or “”spider
food”" that cater to search engine algorithms but are never seen by
users, have one primary goal: to trick search engines into higher
rankings. They should be avoided at all costs.
Placing
invisible text on your site can also get you into trouble with search
engines. An example would be putting black text on a black background
on your site. This practice is also unethical. Keyword packing or
stuffing, which involves putting long lists of keywords on your site
without anything in the way of content, can also get you banned from
the search engines.
If your webmaster or SEO
firm is engaging in any of these tactics, beware. Your site could be
penalized by the search engines for these tactics, and any gains that
result from them early on could be more than offset by the cost of
being de-indexed by the search engines, not to mention the black eye
that unethical practices could give to your company.
Link
farms and linking schemes with the primary intent of manipulating
search engine rankings, as opposed to providing valuable content on the
web, can also get your site dropped or banned from Google. Google also
has a very dim view of duplicate content, which involves the promotion
of two or more nearly identical sites.
Black
Hat SEO is simply not worth the risk. Your best choice will always be
to engage an SEO firm whose ethics reflect the stellar image your
company has or is striving to achieve.
About
the author: Cari Haus retails Amish log furniture and log beds on the
Internet from her website, http://www.logcabinrustics.com/