Black Hat search engine optimization is customarily defined as techniques that are used to get higher search rankings in an unethical manner. These black hat SEO techniques usually include one or more of the following characteristics:

* breaks search engine rules and regulations

* creates a poor user experience directly because of the black hat SEO techniques utilized on the Web site

* unethically presents content in a different visual or non-visual way to search engine spiders and search engine users.

We should avoid Black Hat SEO

Typical practices that a Black Hat will use, and WILL get your site banned from Google eventually are:

1. Hidden Text

One of the main ways Google ranks your site is based on the content of the site itself, therefore large amounts of keyword rich content should get you ranked quite well. A black Hat will add large amounts of text to a webpage but make it invisible to the user, this is because the text will often not make much sense and make a well designed website look terrible. Text can be hidden by using white text on a white background, using javascript to hide the text and also using cascading style sheets to hide the text.

2. Keyword Stuffing

This is normally used with the above technique. Google ranks a site depending on how relevant to a keyword it thinks it is, therefore if a keyword appears a lot of times it is likely to be relevant. However keyword stuffing normally consists of gibberish made up of the keywords to fool the Search engine into ranking it higher.

3. Cloaking / Doorway Pages

This technique will also be used with keyword stuffing, and is similar to hidden text but more advanced. Pages are created that are only visible to a search engine, these will often be filled with keyword rich content and therefore get a page ranked highly. Regular suffers will be redirected away from these pages to the original page the webmaster wants you to see. This is done using either IP redirecting or based on the HTTP referrer request. As with all computer networks Google has an IP address, or in Google’s case a lot of IP addresses, a Black Hat can deliver content to the user based on an IP address so if they see it as one of Google’s spiders it will deliver the keyword rich content. The other technique is to only deliver the original content if you have come from a major search engine using the HTTP referrer request. This will mean you lose small amounts of traffic from traffic from directories but it is made up by the increased traffic from the search engines.

4. Unnatural Link Building

Another popular Black hat technique where the Black Hatter will build thousands of back links to your site using various techniques, quite often this can be seen using Yahoos Link too to view the links, if a site is relatively new but has thousands of back links then there is a chance it will be a from Black Hat techniques. The link building techniques used typically are:

* Comment Spamming - The Black Hatter will spam thousands of Blogs with your link.

* Forum Spamming - As above but with forums.

* Link Farms / Link Exchange Programs - Though exchanging links is not really Black Hat some companies will install code onto websites that exchanges links with thousands of other websites, they will also generate thousands of “micro sites” which have thousands of links within them. Micro sites tend to be keyword stuffed sites used primarily for link massive link building.

There are two categories of SEO methods. Black hat SEO and white hat SEO.  Either one of the methods can help you gain a higher ranking status on some of the most popular search engines. But, one is more likely to get your website banned from search engines entirely, and according to recent information, your website may not be safe for long.  If you haven’t guessed it, the potential bad seed in this batch is the black hat SEO.

White hat SEO is not going to trick the search engines. When you use white hat SEO methods, you can ensure that you are in fact playing by the rules and should be safe from trouble with your website. Websites that use white hat SEO tend to be very helpful to users, search engines and webmasters themselves.

Black hat SEO is the method that tries to trick the search engines by means of unsavory ways gain higher search engine rankings. Some of the methods used in black hat SEO methods include cloaking, hidden texts and doorway pages. Search engines such as Google have announced that they will penalize websites who use these methods when detected.

You may be wondering why black hat SEO methods are blocked if they work so well to get higher rankings, right? Well, they may work well initially, but in the long run most of the black hat SEO methods are being detected and punished by search engines. These methods have not been approved by Google and other search engines, and they can be frustrating to those who are relying on Google and search engines to provide them with good, relevant search results.

You may get away with black hat SEO methods for a while, but chances are good that you will get caught and when you do, it will not be pretty. Even if you think you know people who have used these methods, or continue to use them on their websites and have nothing but good results, you should remind them that it is only a matter of time before they are banned from search engines.

What might be effective right away to gain good rankings on search engines, will cost you a lot more in the end if you end up getting your website banned from Google entirely. Black hat SEO methods are similar to those of cheating in school. You may get away with it for a while with good results, but eventually you will get caught and then all of the hard work that went into building your online business and website will be wasted.

Using white hat SEO methods may be more time consuming and expensive right away, but if you are diligent and determined, your website can be effectively ranked on Google and other search engines. If you are unsure what methods may be considered black hat SEO, you might want to seek out a professional before you attempt to use them.

SEO marketing is yet another controversial marketing tactic that can become very effective in the short term. But it’s not recommended as a reliable, long-term search engine strategy due to the risks involved. As you may already know, most marketers reject anything that goes against the traditional or ethical route. The same holds true for black hat techniques to rank high on the search engines. But what is black hat SEO marketing anyway? You may probably notice that forums, and even search engines experts like Matt Cutts, do not recommend SEO black hat techniques for many logical and obvious reasons. Among the public reasons why, the term black hat is associated with cheating and short cuts. Short cuts and cheating your way to top ranking on the top 3 search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN is deceiving, and even against policy rules on most of the search engines. When it comes to the law in the United States of America, black hat SEO is not illegal (yet) at the time I’m writing this, which is why some marketers consider doing it. But among many of our studies, the reality is that most marketers dislike black hat SEO and the majority just doesn’t approve the practice. Some black hat SEO techniques include: • Keyword stuffing – This involves posting a lot of nonsensical keywords into your website for the sake of ranking high for those keywords, without regard to the relevance of the content. • Doorway Pages – These phony pages are invisible to the web surfer, but lures the search engine spiders into thinking the sites are relevant. • Invisible text – This involves using font color identical to the background color, aiming to be seen by the search engines but masking the keywords from the human eye. If you start a business ethically, practice white hat SEO, and do what search engines like you to do – it’s not fair for another site to outrank you by just purchasing a domain name and in 2 weeks be in top of the top 3 search engines as a result of applying black hat SEO. Especially if it took you several months to be on page one! Despite its bad reputation, you can make lots of money with black hat SEO. But can you make a consistent living from it? If you stay under the radar, it could skyrocket your earnings! However, it is not recommended because it’s a short-term strategy that entails higher risks of getting banned by the search engines. Since most people are accustomed to doing the right things, the traditional practices shared by most search engine marketers is white hat. But since white hat may take longer to take effect and white hat marketers usually do not make any money as fast as black hatters do, they become frustrated. These frustrations are the ones that bring even more frustration when they see someone else having success by cheating their way into the search engines. Hence, some marketers are lured into the dark side. Can you make money by applying black hat SEO techniques? Yes. Is it easy to achieve results with black hat marketing? It could give you a short-term search engine boost, but it could get you banned. So the short-term results you’re getting may not be worth the risks involved. Is black hat SEO cheating and unethical? Yes it is. Many people cheat at some given point in time, and most people do like short cuts despite the risks. It’s up to you to decide whether it is for you or not!