Updated 3/30/2021
In many ways, search engine optimization, or SEO, can feel like a moving target. Are you curious about the dark side of SEO?
We call it black hat, and as you can guess, it’s not recommended by Google and straight lace marketers alike.
However, doing so could land your website in hot water and facing every webmaster’s worst nightmare—a Google penalty.
In this post, I’ll go over 29 major black hat tactics, how to spot them, and most importantly, how to avoid them.
What We’ll Cover:
This section covers everything from link schemes and link farms to blog comment spam and google bombing. Learn all about the various keyword stuffing black hat SEO techniques marketers use.
Content scams include duplicate content, cloaking, comment spamming, article spinning, and more! Discover how to deal with things like hidden text, doorway pages, and bait and switch techniques to ensure your site doesn’t receive any penalties.
Black Hat SEO tactics in this section are referred to as SERP Spam. SERP stands for search engine results pages and includes techniques such as rich snippet markup spam or automated queries, that cheat Google’s crawling system.
Vicious tactics to improve your own website’s rankings include negative SEO, URL injection spam, and domain squatting. These black hat techniques target other businesses and competitors, giving website owners an unfair competitive advantage.
What is Black Hat SEO?
Black Hat SEO refers to using a set of practices that violate a search engine’s terms of service in order to increase a site’s rank.
It’s not intended to meet user expectations; it’s intended solely to game search engines.
Quite frankly, it cheats the system.
While there are plenty of ways to legitimately improve your site’s visibility, black hat tactics are adopted mainly because doing it the right way is often expensive and time-consuming.
See, if there’s one thing we know about SEO, it’s that it takes time. It’s not an overnight success story, and getting to the first page – let alone the first spot on the first page – can take months and months of adhering to SEO best practices.
Using Black Hat techniques is a way to bypass the time and creep up to the first page much faster.
Seems nice, right? Wrong.
Just like it sounds, Black Hat SEO is cheating. And when you get caught, you have to deal with the consequences.
Those consequences include penalties from search engines (or being banned from them completely), a tank in rankings, and a general blow to your website’s reputation.
The best way to make sure you’re not caught meddling in the dark side? Familiarize yourself with as many black hat practices as possible, and avoid them at all costs.
While this is by no means a comprehensive list of black hat techniques, they have definitely earned a bad for themselves in the SEO world.
Watch the Video or Read the Article Below
Black Hat SEO Tactics: Link Building Techniques
1. Link Schemes
Links – both internal and external – are one of the most important aspects of SEO.
So naturally, people have come up with a myriad of ways to manipulate those links in hopes of increasing rank.
This is a big no, and a big sign of black hat SEO.
Google outlines the following examples of link schemes:
- Buying or selling links that pass PageRank. This includes exchanging money for links, or posts that contain links; exchanging goods or services for links; or sending someone a “free” product in exchange for them writing about it and including a link
- Excessive link exchanges (“Link to me and I’ll link to you”) or partner pages exclusively for the sake of cross-linking
- Large-scale article marketing or guest posting campaigns with keyword-rich anchor text links
- Using automated programs or services to create links to your site
- Requiring a link as part of a Terms of Service, contract, or similar arrangement without allowing a third-party content owner the choice of using nofollow or other method of blocking PageRank, should they wish.
Google also states that the use of “unnatural” links – links that weren’t editorially placed or vouched for by a site’s owner – are also prohibited.
How to Spot It
Links that look unnatural or unrelated to the content on the page are likely part of a link scheme.
And of course, if anyone reaches out with an offer to exchange a link or buy one from you, just say no.
How to Avoid It
The best way to ensure you stay on the good side is to simply follow white hat SEO link building best practices.
A focus on creating high-quality content and building relationships with as many industry experts and thought leaders will naturally lead to acquiring more reputable links.
For more tips on how to build links, check out our full guide here.
2. Link Farms
Link authority is one of the factors Google uses to rank sites. It’s not just the quantity of links, but the quality of those links Google considers.
But building backlinks is one of the tougher parts of SEO since you have to convince others that your site is worth linking to.
Black hat SEO firms capitalize on this struggle, offering to sell links at low prices with the help of link farms and spam websites.
A link farm is a site or series of sites created with the sole purpose of link building.
Each website in that “farm” links out to sites in order to increase that site’s PageRank.
As you likely know, Google considers links to be an indicator of a website’s overall quality and authority on a given subject. Each link acts as a vote in favor of that website.
Except, of course, if those links are manipulated or come from disreputable sources, which is often the case with link farms.
Link farms rarely go unnoticed by Google, and should in no way be a part of any white hat SEO strategy. Instead, focus on creating the highest-quality content possible in your niche and promoting it to your audience and similar thought leaders.
How to Spot It
The best way to be sure a site isn’t part of link farm is to check its PageRank before linking to or accepting links from that site. Typically, a link farm will have a huge number of links and a very low PageRank.
Checking this will require the use of a tool like SEOQuake.
You can also identify a link farm by looking at the site’s content.
It will probably look like an online directory. The difference is that link farms generally have no categories or screening process; it’s open to any and every business who submits a link.
If you come across a directory site that looks like a free-for-all for all kinds of brands, it’s likely a link farm.
Additionally, if a page is chock-full of randomly linked text, it’s safe to assume they are paid links.
How to Avoid It
Encourage links from high-quality sites and avoid come from sites you deem unethical.
While you can’t remove existing links yourself or stop someone from linking to you if you find any that are questionable you can ask the site owner to remove the link.
Nowadays, paid links are associated with low-quality links, which means you need to disengage from anyone offering to sell you backlinks. Focus your strategy on building high-quality links from scratch.
3. Sneaky Redirects
As the name implies, there’s aren’t your average redirects (which, for the record, are usually used for good reasons like moving to a new address).
The sneaky ones, on the other hand, are used to once again manipulate search engines. They usually contain a bunch of keywords, and quickly redirect to the real, quality page.
Essentially, search engines are shown one piece of content while users are redirected to something entirely different.
Like doorway pages, they’re meant to show a different page to search engine crawlers than what a user would see when they visit your site and are a direct violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.
How to Spot It
On their own, sneaky redirects can be tricky to spot. (They’re sneaky, remember?)
Luckily, Google has a handy tool called Fetch as Google.
Using it allows you to view your website content as Google does. If it’s different than what users see when they visit, you like have a sneaky redirect problem.
How to Avoid It
Use your redirects right.
That means using them during a website transfer, migrating to HTTPS, etc.
If you suspect anyone on your marketing team may be using sneaky redirects on your site, follow the steps above to check and remove any unnecessary redirects.
4. Private Blog Networks
A private blog network (PBN) is a network of sites built primarily to send link juice back to one site.
They’re meant to build a massive amount of links from high-quality sites. Often, a site pays a PBN in exchange for those links. On the surface, it sounds pretty great.
But the sites participating in PBNs generally are rarely updated and don’t feature much internal linking. Those are red flags for Google.
And if Google catches your site participating in a PBN, they’ll hit you with a penalty.
How to Spot It
Again, these aren’t always the easiest to spot.
To determine whether or not a site is part of PBN, it’s best to check all sites related for similar backlink profiles, site design, duplicate content, etc.
If there’s a lot of crossover between sites, they may very well be a PBN.
How to Avoid It
Make sure you know where you’re links are coming from, and keep open communication and a close eye on any consultants or outside sources you may be working with.
As with all the tactics on this list, always make sure anyone you’re working with is aware of and fully adheres to Google Webmaster Guidelines.
5. Excessive Links in Footer
Including too many spammy or unnecessary links in the footer of your page is another no when it comes to SEO.
For best results, links should be used naturally throughout the page to provide additional resources on a relevant topic.
Spammy footer links exist simply to stuff as many links on the page as possible – often ones unrelated to the content of that particular page, or “unnatural.”
And, because they’re placed in the footer, they’re value is already seen as low; most people aren’t looking at the footer of a page for relevant, related links and they rarely get many clicks.
As pointed on Moz, too many links in the footer often result in too many links on the page overall.
How to Spot It
This one’s pretty easy to pick out.
If you see a page with a massive amount of links and no apparent reason for them, they’ve probably crossed the line of excessive links.
How to Avoid It
It’s still okay to include links in your footer, so don’t be scared away completely.
When adding links, be sure to make sure they’re relevant to the content on the page, useful to the user, and organized in a clean, clear way.
6. Blog Comment Spam
If you run a blog, it’s almost inevitable that you’ll come across some form of comment spam.
This can come in the form of an actual comment, or a Ping, which are generated when someone links to your blog from theirs.
Though you do want to collect as many comments as possible on your blog, you want to make sure they’re legitimate comments from users who are reading and engaging with your blog – not from spammers trying to generate links.
This black hat tactic involves the use of scripts or other software to leave links in the comments sections of various blogs. The idea is to generate backlinks and deliver authority back to your site to increase your rankings.
However, this type of spam can damage the reputation of your website since comment spam is almost always comprised of low-quality content that is unrelated to the blog topic.
Google, as we know, is not a fan of bad or low-quality links, and if your site is full of them in the blog comment section, Google will think you’re knowingly letting them live there.
How to Spot It
Some spam comments are obvious. They’ll be grammatically incorrect, unrelated to the post at hand, or very clearly pushing another link.
First, make sure you examine any links provided to make sure they’re relevant to the topic at hand.
Also make sure the author’s name is an actual name, not the name of a website or a few keywords stuffed together.
Ultimately, if a link is provided, ask yourself if it’s one that other readers would find relevant. If not, it’s likely spam.
How to Avoid It
There are plenty of third-party integrations available to help control comment spam or other types of malicious spam. Consider using an anti-spam tool or turning on your comment moderation option.
If you’re using WordPress, the plugin Askimet comes pre-installed by default. Others available include Anti-Spam by CleanTalk and WangGuard.
Outside of spam filters (and in addition to), you can manually approve comments.
7. Over-Optimizing Internal Links
Optimization is a good thing.
Over-optimization, not so much.
Link over-optimization happens when you add too many keywords to your anchor text. Usually, it involves way too many links all optimized with same target keyword pointing to a specific page.
How to Spot It
Do all of your links look the same? Do they include the same target keyword?
They’re probably over-optimized.
How to Avoid It
The best way to avoid this one is to diversify your anchor text.
Make sure you have more than one keyword you’re trying to target and vary which you use in each link.
Also, make sure you’re not linking too much to your top-level pages (homepage, About Us, Products, etc.). If the majority of your links do, it can hurt your rankings.
8. Linkbait and Switch
Linkbait itself isn’t necessarily bad.
Linkbait is content designed to attract viewers and create links. This kind of content, when done right, is usually content that is so in-depth or unique (think industry research, new tools, evergreen content) that it will create links on its own merit.
But there’s a dark side to linkbait, called the bait and switch. This happens when you attract users with a linkbait article and gain a lot of links, but later switch that article with something else.
For example, if you create a piece of content based on something controversial (political, celebrity) drama, it will likely gain a lot of links based on its timeliness.
But fast forward a few weeks, and that subject may no longer be relevant. Because there are so many existing links, you simply switch out the old content with a new article to keep the traffic coming.
This is wrong for so many reasons, most of all being that the new article may be entirely irrelevant to users and their search query. And if there’s one thing Google hates, it’s poor user experience.
How to Spot It
If a link you click on leads to something unrelated, you probably got the ol’ bait and switch.
How to Avoid It
Plain and simple, just don’t do it.
Keep your links intact, and if you do decide to redirect a topic, make sure it’s to a very similar one on your website.
9. Trading Products for Links
I don’t need to tell you this one’s a little shady, right?
It’s pretty straightforward – you tell someone you’ll give them a product in exchange for a link back to your sight.
Kinda unethical, and not the kind of thing Google goes for.
How to Spot It
Unlike many tactics on the list, this one’s pretty obvious.
If someone offers you a product in exchange for a link, don’t do it.
And absolutely don’t offer to do so yourself.
How to Avoid It
Again, this is a just-don’t-do-it situation.
If you want to earn links, do it the right way.
If you have a product you want to be reviewed or linked back to, try participating in influencer marketing. Pick a list of influencers, send them product samples, and if they like it, ask for a review or mention on their channel.
10. Google Bombing
Google bombing is a black hat technique typically involving an organized linking campaign to manipulate and increase the rank of a webpage in the search results.
Essentially, a group of websites linking heavily to certain pages using similar anchor text.
The most famous incident of this may be the “miserable failure.” Back in 2006, if you typed ‘miserable failure’ into the search bar, your results would pull pages about George W. Bush.
How to Spot It
If you type a query into a search engine and get an unexpected result in the SERps, it may very well be part of a Google bomb.
Note that Google has cracked down significantly on Google bombs, and we’re seeing far less high-profile cases of Google bombing.
How to Avoid It
Again, this one comes down to a clean link building strategy.
Never link to sites that aren’t relevant to your own, and check that your incoming links are from reputable sources – and at the very least, related to your niche or topic at hand.
Black Hat SEO Tactics: Content Scams
11. Keyword Stuffing
Keywords are arguably one of the most important aspects of SEO. They tell search engines what your page is about so it can be ranked for the right search terms.
Due to their importance, it’s no surprise that black hat SEO practitioners may try to include as many keywords and phrases in the title and meta description as possible.
Keyword stuffing refers to stuffing as many keywords as possible into a page, either in the actual content or the page’s code. The goal here is to artificially maximize visibility and organic traffic.
When it’s in the page content, it can be relatively easy to spot, and usually results in an unnaturally long and awkward sentence.
It might look something like this: If you have a MacBook computer, come to our Macbook Computer store for all the MacBook computer accessories you’ll ever need at the best prices you’ll find for Mackbook computers.
Not pretty, right? Google doesn’t think so either.
So people are starting to get a little more creative with their keyword stuffing.
Sometimes they would stuff it into the code. Sometimes they would use variations of the main keyword in white text on a white background. Sometimes they would use repetitive text hidden with a CSS display:none attribute (also known as invisible text).
All of it’s considered stuffing, and all of it is sits firmly on the black hat side of SEO.
How to Spot It
You’ll probably know this one when you see it.
You’ve likely come across a web page in which the keyword was unnaturally distributed throughout the web page.
Big blocks of text which list cities or states a site is trying to rank for are a big red flag, as well as a keyword or phrase repeated unnaturally throughout a page.
How to Avoid It
Instead of trying to stuff your keyword into as many places as possible, focus instead on optimizing it in the right places.
Choose a target keyword and a few secondary ones, and use them naturally throughout your page. Your objective should always be on creating meaningful, relevant content, and your keywords should never appear forced.
Google’s gotten really good at deciphering page intent, so it’s no longer necessary (and certainly not recommended) to over-optimize your pages for a keyword.
Instead, make sure you optimize your content for human visitors, not just for search engines.
12. Cloaking
This is one of the riskiest black hat techniques out there.
Cloaking happens when a website displays different content to a search engine than it does a searcher. The point is to pack the version shown to the search engine full of related keywords in hopes of increasing rank.
The Google Search Console defines cloaking as “the practice of presenting different content or URLs to human users and search engines. Cloaking is considered a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines because it provides our users with different results than they expected.”
In other words, one piece of content is meant for Googlebot to crawl and the other is meant to entice users to click.
For example, let’s say a user types “sea anemone” into the search bar, clicks on a search result that appears to be related to marine biology, and ends up on a skincare website.
That’s not okay. What is okay is tailoring content to different users based on country (or language), serving targeting ads, and device (mobile vs. desktop users).
The difference here is that when you’re cloaking, you’re doing it with the intention of manipulating a search engine, not with the intention of better serving users by showing them slightly different content.
This also happens when webmasters disguise the use of keywords by writing them in white ink on a white background.
How to Spot It
Cloaking isn’t always easily detectable, and usually requires the help of a tool.
Luckily, there are plenty of those on the market like Dupli, SEOTools, and WebConfs, among others.
How to Avoid It
Again, make sure you or anyone working on your site strictly adheres to Webmaster Guidelines – cloaking is strictly prohibited.
Google does note that if your site uses technology it may have difficulty accessing (think JavaScript, Flash, etc.) you should adhere to their recommendations to ensure it isn’t mistaken for cloaking.
Instead of possibly incurring a penalty from Google Penguin, opt for creating web pages that aren’t misleading. They should accurately reflect what’s in the description on search engine results pages.
Cloaking is often a technique used when a site is hacked. If you suspect that may be the case, read more about how to detect a hacked site here.
13. Irrelevant Keywords
Just like they sound, irrelevant keywords are ones unrelated to your website or the topic at hand on specific pages.
They’re used, of course, to increase a page’s chances of ranking. But if that page is ranking for a keyword unrelated to the content, it won’t go over well with Google (or readers, for that matter.)
How to Spot It
You can check which keywords your site is ranking for in Google Webmaster Tools, or use a tool like Moz’s Keyword Checker.
If you see you’re ranking for a keyword you didn’t intend and that isn’t relevant to the connected page, you’ll know to investigate further.
How to Avoid It
When choosing your keywords, always think about it from the user’s perspective. The ones you want to rank for should always match the ones your customers are actually using.
Remember, the focus has switched towards natural language and longer keyword phrases. Make sure you’re using the keyword tools available to you via SEMRush and its Keyword Magic Tool to find relevant keywords.
14. Hidden Content
Using hidden text on a site may seem very outdated, but surprisingly, this type of black hat SEO practice still exists.
Hidden content refers to any text or links on a page that are intended to be – you guessed it – hidden from viewers.
Its ultimate purpose is to hide certain pieces of data without affecting the user experience.
For example, if you wanted to add more keywords for search engines without actually incorporating them into the copy, you could disguise the text by making it the same color as the page’s background, setting the font size to zero, or placing the text behind the image.
Either way, your page will show up in rankings for keywords that don’t reflect what your page is really about. Thus, visitors will be disappointed and your rankings will suffer.
Hidden content comes in a lot of forms, including:
Since Googlebots prioritize users above all else, they can easily spot hidden content from a mile away.
How to Spot It
When looking for hidden content, Google recommends looking for any content not easily visible to you visitors.
In the case of white text on a white background, you can simply highlight the page to reveal anything hidden.
Truly hidden text will require a little help from a tool like Spam Detector, which scans a webpage for any activity that could be considered spam by a search engine.
How to Avoid It
First and foremost, make sure all text and links on the page are clearly displayed. Avoid any colors that may fade into the background or using exceptionally tiny fonts.
14. Malicious Content
Google defines malicious content as “Distributing content or software on your website that behaves in a way other than what a user expected is a violation of Google Webmaster Guidelines.”
Mailicious content ranges in severity, from the slight annoyance of unwanted pop-ups to doing actual damage through viruses. Examples of malicious content include:
- Changing or manipulating the location of content on a page, so that when a user thinks they’re clicking on a particular link or button the click is actually registered by a different part of the page
- Injecting new ads or pop-ups on pages, or swapping out existing ads on a webpage with different ads; or promoting or installing software that does so
- Including unwanted files in a download that a user requested
- Installing malware, trojans, spyware, ads or viruses on a user’s computer
- Changing a user’s browser homepage or search preferences without the user’s informed consent
How to Spot It
Unfortunately, malicious content isn’t always obvious.
When it comes to sites collecting sensitive information (think banking or any site that requires payment information), examine the content closely for any unusual offers or information in exchange for a download, etc. If they’re promising something that sounds too good to be true, it likely is.
Also beware of things like shortened links (hackers will often use these to conceal the real destination of a URL), links that pop up in unsolicited emails, and any links with suspicious characters.
In the case of less damaging malicious content like unwanted download requests or landing on an unrelated page, there’s not much you can do to prevent it, but you’ll know it when you see it.
How to Avoid It
Assuming you’re not a hacker, you likely aren’t using your site to push malware attacks and viruses.
The thing to keep in mind here is that you should never include and misleading information on your page. So if you advertise “SEO hacks” in your search results description, don’t send users to a page about the social media services you offer.
15. Article Spinning
Article spinning takes plagiarism to the next level.
This Black Hat SEO tactic involves developing a manual or automated way of reworking content just to sidestep the “duplicate content” label.
Generally, a marketer will take one topic and re-create, or ‘spin’, it into multiple different versions. Blog posts, web pages, and landing pages can be paraphrased using synonyms and grammatical variations to create new, unique pieces of content that are ready to be picked up by search engines.
This is done to get around the duplicate content issue. But that doesn’t make it a purely white hat practice.
It’s important to note that this can be part of a white hat content strategy and is a huge part of content syndication (encouraged and okay).
It becomes a problem when those new versions are created with little value or relevance added, and are churned out simply to spread links back to your website across various other sites.
Article spinning falls under the black hat SEO category because it doesn’t bring any real value or present any new insights to the user. The word order may be different, but the ideas are the same.
How to Spot It
Unless you happen to read multiple articles by the same person or site across the web, it may not be easy to manually spot a spun article. In some cases, people will use bots to spin articles. These can often be detected by the language used; if it’s not understandable or contains unnatural language, it could be spun.
How to Avoid It
Follow the proper rules of content syndication. While creating posts around the same topic is okay, make sure each is unique and offers value to the reader.
Also, don’t post about the same topic on multiple websites; instead, try to vary the content you put out.
17. Scraped Content
Scraped content is a fancier term for plagiarism. And as always, plagiarism comes with consequences.
When marketers or webmasters take content from another site, it’s considered scraped content.
It can mean copying and republishing a site’s content completely or modifying it slightly for your use.
A major part of scraped content is that it generally doesn’t provide that much value to users, as it often exists without additional content or resources on the page.
How to Spot It
To check if your content has been scraped, I recommend using a tool like Copyscape.
How to Avoid It
Don’t take other people’s content. Period.
Make sure everything on your page offers your own spin on an idea or topic. If you do reference outside work, always give credit.
Again, the best offense is the best defense here. Actively use the tools listed above to check the web for any dupes of your own content. If you suspect someone has copied your work, reach out to them directly.
18. Duplicate Content
Similar to scraped content, duplicate content refers to having multiple pages on site with the same copy.
Essentially, it’s any copy that appears in more than one place on the internet.
According to a study administered by SEMrush, duplicate content accounts for roughly 46% of the duplication problems that are holding sites back.
The most malicious form is, of course, scraped content taken from a site without the site owner’s knowledge.
It’s no secret that non-unique content is never good for SEO. Not only is it unethical to copy and paste someone else’s work onto your site, but content theft could have a detrimental effect on your rankings.
Google is not keen on seeing the same content scattered across different domains partly because it’s harder for the search engine to distinguish the original from the duplicate. That’s why pages with the same information don’t tend to rank.
Often, duplicate content happens inadvertently when site templates are copied (think large retailers with similar categories and sub-categories). Luckily, there are a few ways to deal with these issues.
How to Spot It
Duplicate content can also be checked through the use of tools like Siteliner and Copyscape.
How to Avoid It
To ensure you don’t get penalized by Google, pay close attention to the uniqueness of your web pages and steer clear of copying content without attributing credit to the author.
When it comes to copying and plagiarism, just say no – even when it comes to your own content.
If you are using a template for your site or want to avoid small duplicate content issues, try using the rel canonical tag to point search bots to the right URL.
19. Content Automation (Auto-Generated Content)
Content automation uses tools or programs to generate content automatically.
This isn’t always bad, and advances in AI have made automation much more attainable and reliable for certain tasks. Email automation, for one, is an incredibly effective factor in an email marketing strategy.
Where it goes wrong is when automation is used solely to manipulate search rankings and provides little or no help to users.
Google lists the following examples of blacklisted automation practices, among others:
- Text that makes no sense to the reader but which may contain search keywords.
- Text translated by an automated tool without human review or curation before publishing
- Text generated through automated processes, such as Markov chains
- Stitching or combining content from different web pages without adding sufficient value
How to Spot It
You’ll probably know it if you come across auto-generated content.
It likely won’t have any format or style and no pictures, headers, etc. It also probably won’t match up with your search intent and offer little information or insight on a topic.
How to Avoid It
Remember the golden rule of content: it should always be written with the reader in mind.
Any attempt to appeal only to search engines will more than likely backfire, and that certainly applies to content automation.
Along those lines, never rely on a tool or bot to write your content.
20. Clickbait
Clickbait typically comes in the form of a headline meant to attract visitors and entice them to click a link – and it’s definitely a grey area.
While a well-written, exciting headline is something we should all strive to produce more of, the problem with clickbait headlines is they’re often misleading to the user.
Here’s what usually happens. A reader sees a headline like “George Clooney Spotted in Hot Dog Eating Contest – 200 lbs. Gained!” They click through only to find pictures of George Clooney at lunch in a baggy sweatshirt.
It’s marketers deliberately over-promising and under-delivering, and Google’s having none of it.
How to Spot It
Clickbait is often recognizable by phrases like “You won’t believe it” or “You’ll never guess what happened next.”
It’s often attached to less-than-reputable news sources, but even big brands aren’t immune to it.
How to Avoid It
If your headline doesn’t clearly represent – and instead exaggerates – what the content of your page is about, it’s probably clickbait.
Don’t make false claims and don’t overdeliver, and you should be okay.
21. Bait and Switch
This black hat SEO technique requires a little trickery.
Imagine crafting a piece of content that gets a ton of traction. You notice that other sites are beginning to link to it and it’s officially ranking for one of your target keywords.
Now that you’ve attracted these links, you switch out the content for something more closely related to your products and services. You started off with clickbait to drive conversions and then updated the messaging to keep the momentum going.
While deploying this tactic may keep your rankings up for a few days, search engines will take notice almost immediately and cause them to plummet.
Much like link bait and switching, this method involves showing a clickbait headline or link and directing them to an unrelated page.
This one is often done by hackers who attempt to use another site’s authority or PageRank to increase their own.
Check out this example from Search Engine Land of a Bitcoin site masquerading as a gaming site:
You’ll also often encounter this one when a site owner writes a page around certain keywords, gets the page to rank, and later switches out the content with something else entirely.
How to Spot It
This one’s another that isn’t so hard to spot. If the article you click on ends up being related, whether it’s an unrelated piece of content or a website unrelated to what was preseneted in the SERPs, it’s likely a bait and switch scam.
How to Avoid It
As always, be very clear about what you’re representing in the SERPs. Don’t try to rank for keywords unrelated to your content, and don’t try to piggyback off the traffic of another page by switching out the content.
22. Social Network Spamming
Social media spam is, as the name implies, spam that happens on social media channels – Facebook, Instagram, YouTube – you name it.
Sometimes it’s in the form of bots which automatically comment and promote for you, or from overzealous self-promotion.
You’ll often find social spammers using tactics like bulk messaging, sharing excessive and unwanted content, leaving fake reviews, and even spreading malicious links.
How to Spot It
Though are there are certainly exceptions, social spam usually gives itself away through the methods mentioned above – oversharing, leaving unrelated comments, or shameless self-promotion.
You’ll often see spam that contains a link and an unrelated message or comment. Whatever you do, don’t click! Instead, report the suspicious activity to the social channel you found it on.
How to Avoid It
The best way to avoid social spamming is to understand how to use social media properly. Often, those new to social campaigns unintentionally find themselves spamming simply because they don’t have a clear strategy or end goal in mind.
Most social algorithms will weed out posts from accounts with little engagement or interaction. If you find your posts aren’t gaining traction, you may want to reevaluate your strategy.
23. Low-Quality Guest Posting
A few years ago, Google cracked down on what it calls low-quality guest posting, officially adding it to its list of scraped content.
This one kind of goes along with article spinning. Content syndication is good, but creating endless articles that offer little value to the reader for the sake of a guest blog link is not.
How to Spot It
These ones are easily recognizable by, as you probably guessed, the overall lack of quality.
They may be rushed (or even unintelligible) and offer little insight or value to the given subject.
How to Avoid It
Don’t go into guest posting blind, and always do it with high-quality content on hand.
Remember to research the blogs you want to appear on and screen them for quality, then create original content tailored to your target audience. Remember, it’s okay to take a topic you’ve covered and create a smaller version, just be careful where and how much you syndicate it.
24. Doorway Pages
Doorway pages are pages created solely for search engines, with the intention of ranking high for specific queries.
Generally, these pages hold no real value to the general public and are often stuffed full of keywords and no real substance.
Some examples of doorways pages include:
- Having multiple domain names or pages targeted at specific regions or cities that funnel users to one page
- Pages generated to funnel visitors into the actual usable or relevant portion of your site(s)
- Substantially similar pages that are closer to search results than a clearly defined, browseable hierarchy
How to Spot It
Doorway pages are generally categorized as “hub” pages. They don’t act independently, but instead serve as a funnel to lead users to other pages.
You’ll see these often in ecommerce sites, with pages optimized for a certain product category that leads users to other pages for more specific product information.
This adds one more step for the user, which often results in a lessened user experience. And if there’s one thing Google hates, it’s a poor user experience.
How to Avoid It
As always, make sure every page you create has unique, valuable content to the user.
Don’t make “throw away” pages intended to lead users to the real money pages that hold no value of their own. If you think you have any of these on your site, you should work on removing or revising them to provide clear value.
If you’re focusing on producing high-quality, long form content, you shouldn’t have any problem with doorway pages.
Black Hat SEO: SERP Spam
25. Rich Snippet Markup Spam
Rich snippet spam happens when the rules listed in Google’s Rich Snippet Guidelines are broken.
Google isn’t taking the issue lately, and in 2017 started sending manual penalty violations to those participating in spam.
The violation reads like this:
“Markup on some pages on this site appears to use techniques such as marking up content that is invisible to users, marking up irrelevant or misleading content, and/or other manipulative behavior that violates Google’s Rich Snippet Quality Guidelines.”
How to Spot It
As Google notes in its message, snippet markup spam is most noticable by the use of irrelevant content misleading content in the snippets.
How to Avoid It
First and foremost, follow the guidelines provided by Google when marking up your data. If you’re unsure how to implement, consult an outside source or developer for guidance.
If you do get hit with a penalty, Google recommends updating or removing existing markup and submitting a reconsideration request.
26. Automated Queries to Google
As an absolute, Google doesn’t allow the sending of automatic queries to its system, without it’s approval beforehand.
This is mainly done through the use of third-party tools like WebPosition.
Straight from Google, they say: “Sending automated queries consumes resources and includes using any software (such as WebPosition Gold) to send automated queries to Google to determine how a website or webpage ranks in Google search results for various queries.”
How to Spot It
Many tools are upfront about their use of automated queries, and you may want to think twice about using them.
How to Avoid It
Check your tools carefully.
Though many claim they are purely white hat and only seeking to help Google crawl sites more efficiently (see the Greenlane example below), they could still find themselves under fire from Google.
Black Hat SEO: Vicious Tactics
27. Negative SEO
Negative SEO is the practice of using black hat SEO techniques against other websites, with the goal of decreasing their rank.
And in the SEO world, it’s about as low as you can go.
Negative SEO attacks often include:
- Building spammy links to your site
- Site hacking
- Duplicating and distributing your content
- Leaving fake, negative reviews
How to Spot It
A few ways to spot a negative SEO attack include:
- Links from websites with a penalty
- Links from private blog networks (PBNs)
- Over-optimized keywords in link anchor text
- Off-topic links
- Hacked Google Search Console
- Copied content across the web
How to Avoid It
The best thing you can to avoid a negative SEO attack is to be proactive and monitor your content and backlinks.
It’s also a good idea to set up email alerts through for Webmaster Tools to be alerted when you receive a penalty, when your pages aren’t indexed, when a malware attack occurs, etc.
Always keep an eye on your backlink profile, and run periodical checks for duplicate content on Copyscape.
28. URL Injection Spam
A URL injection means that someone has hacked your site and created new pages, usually with bad links or spammy keywords.
Additionally, these pages sometimes contain redirects which send users to unrelated pages.
How to Spot It
URL injections are notoriously hard to spot, and often your first sign of a site hack could be an alert from Google or an alert in your search console.
If you use WordPress, you can try running a WordPress security scan to search for malicious code.
How to Avoid It
Unfortunately, there’s no sure-fire way to avoid a URL injection.
Make sure you’re taking all precautions you can such as using complex passowrds, using HTTPS, and installing security tools.
29. Domain Squatting
Domain squatting means buying and registering similar to another business or trademark to block someone else from registering it.
Usually, the purpose is financial gain. If you own the domain name someone else wants, they’ll likely pay more for it then you did initially.
How to Spot It
If you’ve filed the proper paperwork and claimed a business name, but someone else owns the domain, it’s probably domain squatting.
How to Avoid It
There are a few things you can do to prevent someone from stealing your name domain. The first is simply to act; if you think you may want a specific name, even if you don’t need it right now, buy it anyway.
And while you’re doing that, go ahead and purchase any similar names that could easily be confused with yours.
You also have the option of purchasing Protected Registration from GoDaddy, which helps you hold on to your domain name.
Wrapping Up Black Hat SEO
There’s no shortage of black hat tactics out there, and the reality is that bad SEO techniques never prevail.
Engaging in these practices will inevitably cost your website its reputation and cause significant harm to your rankings and credibility.
The best way to steer clear of anything that could compromise your standing with Google and other search engines is by focusing on the user experience and adhering to Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.
Stay away from the tactics above, and you should be firmly on the white hat side of SEO.