It’s not uncommon for a business to hire “someone who knows someone” for SEO help.

We get it.

When you’re not in the web or tech industry, SEO can be a really confusing and daunting task to take on.

The scenario

You hire “someone” for a steal of a price. Way more “affordable” than the professionals you’ve researched. You carry on doing what you do best in your business. In the beginning, you might see an increase in traffic. However, after a while, you notice your client leads have dropped off. Next thing you know, you notice your web presence is next to nothing.

What happened?

“Black hat” SEO techniques.

What are black hat SEO techniques?

Black hat SEO techniques are used to get a site ranking higher in search results at an unethically quick pace. Black hat SEO techniques are the magic weight loss pills of the search industry. They promise you quick, positive results, but ultimately become a nightmare.

Why? Google knows. Bing knows. Yahoo knows.

Your website can be penalized in search engine rankings, sometimes indefinitely.

What is a Google penalty?

A Google penalty is an action taken against a website every month by their web spam team. Penalties are given for two reasons: manipulative SEO methods (black hat) or poor user experience to those who visit your website.

Penalties can be given manually by the Google web spam team or they can be given when algorithms update. In some instances, your entire website may be penalized or only specific pages.

Additionally, your site could be removed in entirety from Google’s index, but most commonly, drop 10-100 positions in the search results.

Why pay for that “affordable”, but unethical SEO strategy when it’s only going to hurt your business? It’s only going to cost you in the long run.

What are considered black hat SEO techniques?

Keyword stuffing

Filling your content full of keywords in an unnatural way. If your content sounds like a broken record, consider it keyword-stuffed.

Bad content

Google and humans alike want useful, quality content. Content copied from other websites, misleading content or using “invisible” text on a page will quickly get you added to the black hat removal list.

Paid links

Links that are purchased in order to rank higher are easily detectable by search engines. Paid links like are the shady influencers online that don’t tell you about their sponsored promotions.

Blog comment spam

Google has updated its algorithm recently to discount any links added to blog comments. Though commenting on blogs can be considered an engagement technique, comments with links to your website is considered spam.

Want to find out more black hat SEO techniques? Check them out here.

There are many unethical SEO techniques out there and we highly encourage you to research the strategy your SEO offers you. Though an experienced professional can be an investment for SEO, it’s certainly worth your money in the long run. When done the correct way, a good SEO strategy can take your rankings to the next level at a patient pace!