Black Hat SEO or Why Google Does Not Rank You

Google is good at what it does. You type in your query. Google finds all sites related to your search terms, ranks them according to probable relevance, and presents the sites to you. Works like a charm. Or at least it did until the bad guys in the Black Hats showed up on the SEO scene. "Black Hat SEO" refers to unethical techniques designed to fool Google or the public.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) used to be easy. Heck, at first, no one even gave a consideration to SEO. The search engines knew that if you are writing about a certain topic, then words that describe that topic will show up on your page. So they cataloged all the words on each page, checked for frequency of repeated words and their variations, and returned the sites that ranked highest.

From that simple formula, webmasters learned to cheat. The first people to use each new improper SEO technique were rewarded with better rankings, albeit temporary rankings. They would rank higher until Google caught up with them. Google would drastically lower their ranking as soon as it realized what was happening. Rankings have been known to plummet from Page 1 to Page 50 in a day.

As far as achieving a permanent high ranking for your site, all Google asks of you is honesty. Create a site about whatever you want. Write on any topic. Sprinkle keywords that match the most popular search terms. Add pictures and videos. You can do anything you want. As long as you go about it ethically, Google will like your site.

Most of the bad things that you can do involve bait-and-switch techniques. There are many ways to do this. You can use misleading links, several kinds of special pages, any kind of text that a user normally can't see, improper keywords or META words, etc. Whether you are trying to fool Google or the public, these things will get you in trouble. Even relatively innocuous things like putting too many titles on a page can hurt your rankings.

If you run a reputable site, you can still get in ranking trouble with Google if your site connects in any way with anything that can hurt, harm, or annoy your visitors. If Google allowed disreputable sites, the public would quickly learn to avoid Google.

Another category has to do with overusing Google's resources. Those nifty SEO programs that you bought to submit your site or check your current ranking consume large chunks of Google's resources. Google does have a policy against anything robotic or automatic in this regard. If all you have to do is push a button, then pushing that button will probably hurt your ranking.

A final group concerns any kind of copied or duplicated content, whether it is yours or not. There are several ways to do this. You can use robots to collect or harvest text, programs to rewrite or reformat text, or the old cut-and-paste method. All are bad, and all can get you banned. 

Future articles will examine these dishonest techniques in more detail. For now, just keep on the straight and narrow, and you will be king.

Visit ToMakeASite.com for more commonsense advice on how to make a site.