Black-Hat SEO

March 26, 2006

Black-Hat SEO: A general term for search engine optimization practices that concentrate on manipulation of search engine algorithms to enhance rankings, or those that are deemed unethical by the Internet Marketing industry. Unethical search engine optimization techniques have been defined within the search community as violating the search engine’s terms of use / guidelines, heavy leveraging of technology to influence and mislead search engines, providing separate content to search crawlers and users, spammy techniques (such as keyword stuffing, hidden text, use of doorway pages, etc.), and other techniques that may get one delisted or penalized by search engines.

Note that Black-Hat SEO techniques are not illegal. Rather, the ethics are debated heatedly. However, use of these techniques may risk one’s brand.