3 Black Hat SEO Tactics to Avoid

When it comes to SEO, there is a smart way to do it and a not-so-smart way. The smart way—known as white hat SEO—will help you obtain sustainable results, while the not-so-smart way—otherwise known as black hat SEO—will only succeed in getting you booted from the rankings. Though you may be anxious to get results, you want to avoid black hat SEO tactics at all costs. A San Francisco SEO agency shares three of the most detrimental black hat SEO techniques a business can use and why you want to avoid them. 

Have you ever navigated to a website looking for information only to discover that the page you wanted to read is completely illegible? It is overstuffed with search terms and even if you could read beyond the location-centric phrases, it still provides no valuable information whatsoever. This technique is referred to as keyword stuffing and though Google changed its algorithms to penalize keyword stuffers, a surprising number of businesses still do it. If you want to rank well for a set of keywords and phrases, avoid stuffing at all costs and just use them naturally. Your visitors and Google will thank you for it. 

Hidden text is just as bad as keyword stuffing. In fact, it might be worse, according to the San Francisco SEO agency, as this technique often involves stealing the text from another, more successful site and pasting it into the backend of another. Companies do this in the hopes of ranking just as well as more successful sites. While these thieves—as that is essentially what they are—may see an immediate boost in rankings, they’ll quickly be penalized for their actions by being kicked from the results entirely. 

Most companies online have realized the importance of content, but many are unwilling to work for their content. This is why article spinning made its debut. Article spinning is the act of taking someone else’s content, or even a single piece of original content, and changing the words up just enough to be recognized as unique by Google. Fortunately for all the hardworking copywriters out there, article spinning was quickly put on the black hat list, and now websites that use spun content are penalized. 

If you want to rank well in Google, you need to work for your rankings just like everyone else. While black hat tactics might get you short-term, immediate results, you will be found out and booted from the rankings. Avoid that fate entirely and earn your rankings fair and square, with the help of a San Francisco SEO agency that utilizes only white hat SEO techniques.

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