So I always hear this term thrown around and people talk about all these blackhat tactics for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and how they can be super dangerous, but I've never actually met anyone who specializes in blackhat SEO tactics so does anyone here actually do or know anyone who does? 52 💬🗨
IllusWheel Depends on what your definition of black hat is.
Buying/bartering links, putting together a Private Blog Network (PBN)? Both are relatively common and since they violate webmaster guidelines could be considered black hat.
Hiding text on a page is black hat but since it isn't very effective few attempt in now.
Hacking other sites would definitely be black hat but I would assume few people would participate in that here.
Automated link generating software, definitely black hat, since it would be considered dodgy in almost all circles few here would admit to it although I suspect many have tried.
Would using spinning software be considered black hat? Probably, again considered relatively dodgy so few would admit to it despite fairly broad use. bbax Well, almost everything that you do to influence your ranking is against the guidelines and is considered black hat SEO. Reaching out to someone asking for link? Black hat. Doing guest posts? Black hat.
Probably the wrong place to ask this as most SEO users here are against backlinks at all either because they don't understand it, lack budget to afford or a combination of both.
I work a lot in finance, casino and such niches and rank websites TOP 3 there. In those niches proper black hat SEO is mandatory because everyone is doing it and spending lots of money on it. So Private Blog Networks (PBN)s, cloaked pages/partial cloaking, footer/onpage link injections (hidden or not), SAPE, tiered link schemes (meaning where Tier2/Tier3 is better than what many use for their Tier1) and others. Been there, done that.
If you're genuinely interested in all this, you can drop me a PM with some questions. Don't want to write about it here as it will get jumped by "SEO users" calling it bad, you will get banned, it will not work for long and so on. Don't need that shit 😀
As for some resources, then yeah, blackhatworld is going to be better for these things. But a lot of the stuff isn't public to not get the loopholes fixed by Google. gaop That's a good question. Allow me to reply in a historical context.
Black and grey stuff used to be much more common ten or fifteen years ago, as it was easier to DIY, more beneficial, and search engines were much blinder to it.
As search algorithms became more advanced, shady practices became easier to spot, and adjustments were gradually added to battle and punish lots of known tactics.
That said, some people still use practices that are frowned upon. I believe that for some a short term boost can be beneficial as a starting point. I heard of cases where people do shady shit for a short lived site, or just remove stuff once a penalty becomes obvious.
I have no idea what the newer tactics are, so I might be just living in the past here.
threedogdad I get what you mean but Blackhat is more widely used than ever. Most are learning some form of it right out of the gate and often as a "best practice ". 15 years ago most entry level SEO users didn't even know what it was beyond keyword stuffing.
gaop I guess it somewhat depends on your work environment and the people you know. These days, I mostly get my info from people that would never consider harming the brand they work for in a million years. threedogdad That may be the case for you, and that's great as long as you can still compete in your vertical. And I think that a significant portion of modern 'SEO users' would feel the same way, but if I was to look at their site strategy and tactics I'd see some level of gray-blackhat all over because they don't understand that what they were taught right from the start was not white hat SEO.
rhss I've worked on a few black hat campaigns in the past 6-12 months and there are a lot of new techniques that are effective.
Black hat is a very broad term, and in reality most SEO users are using black or grey hat tactics (and some wouldn't even know).
Anything spammy isn't going to work (like 5k links for $5), but Private Blog Networks (PBN)s, Click Through Rate (CTR) and other techniques are still effective if done correctly.
In saying that, it's nolonger possible for a novice business owner to go out and rank their website using black hat techniques, it's quite technical and you must be 100% on the techniques you use or you could see penalties. babarleroy there is no such thing as black or white SEO.
socialmediahammer Exactly. To a large degree, concepts of black and white hat presupposes that Google is some moral authority and that we swear allegiance to them. F Google.
threedogdad Almost everyone does in one form or another. The sad part is that most seem to think it's all whitehat because they don't actually understand SEO and are just following some guide they read. Blackhat has it's place and can be very useful but you need to fully understand what you are doing – 99% of the posts on here make it clear that most people have no clue which makes me very sad for their clients.
NoindexDK There's old school black hat stuff that doesn't work anymore, and there's modern black hat stuff that works. Just like there's negative SEO that works and negative SEO that does not.
Outdated black hat stuff: • Keyword cloaking • Automated Link spam generation (quantities) • Bot Click Through Rate (CTR) manipulation • SAPE • Etc
Black hat stuff that still works: • Hacked Link injection • User behavior emulation • Real user manipulated CTR • Autogenerated tier linkbuilding • Fake image copyright claims • Etc
.. I started to create a list of outdated and modern negative SEO, but decided to not include it. People should spend their time on building SEO that works, instead of targeting others.
The truth is that both Black Hat SEO and negative SEO still works – a lot. The thing is that unless you actually create and test the ideas yourself in small SEO labs, you don't hear about it unless Google uncovers the technique and publish a "warning" against it.
Or sometimes you hear of a "white hat good guy SEO" publishes insider knowledge about blackhat techniques that he found out and probably has lost positions to. But the things that you don't hear about, still exists.. and works.. and no – most of it is not listed on Blackhatworld (dot) com ;)
ugohome Image copyright claims?
Researcher
blackhatworld.com
In this tactic, you will have to check local news sites (for example). You will have to find an image that doesn't have any source given (which is of course not from a royalty-free site)
The second thing you will need, which most Black Hat SEO users have, is a fake lawyer site. The website will be fully developed and will look like it belongs to a real advocate (because you will need a custom domain email later)
Once you have your domain and email ready, you will write an email to the author (of that particular news/blog where the unsourced image was used) You will be acting as an advocate for a client who owns the image (hypothetically) There is no client, there is no owner of the image, it'll be just a bluff.
You may write that, My client wants to sue the *website name* because of unauthorized use of his image. But we have advised him to not pursue any legal action and give you a chance. Our client will not pursue any legal action if you give credit to him (here you will add the website for which you want to create a backlink)
(It's better if you target the author who is a contributor) Instead of risking any legal action, the owner will instantly give you the backlink (mostly do-follow) and it'll be from a high Domain Authority (DA), high traffic site.
This is the Image Copyright Black Hat SEO technique.
Disruptedone Yup, there are a ton of blackhat tactics that work if you perform them in moderation. You won't see much talk about them, which is fine, they can lead to penalties, but that's the thing, don't make it obvious.
I think it's a bit hypocritical how a lot of guides out there frown upon black hat, but almost everyone is doing it. If you've got the funds, and you want growth, why wouldn't you buy backlinks from high quality blog posts on certain sites? Why wouldn't you buy an expired domain that has high quality banklinks from reputable sources, and redirect the traffic to your site? Why wouldn't you own a Private Blog Network (PBN)?
The list goes on, and on, and on, and those are all valid tactics that can be used, you just have to be smart about it and not get penalized. Essentially, even black hat is a lot of work, it's not instant, a shortcut, or cheap, but sometimes it's absolutely necessary. SmileLouder Google is a joke. They constantly rank blackhat sites with fake content and fake links. What's worse though, in my opinion, is that they give "big" sites a pass to rank #1 with crap content.
Every online magazine has turned into a dollar store Wirecutter, trying to rank for everything under the sun without actually putting in the work to create great content. And Google doesn't do anything, they rank it anyway. LoginLegend I used to do it a couple of years ago. I did make pretty good money back then. Getting penalized is something that most likely will happen. That's why you build sites in bulk. Spread them over several IPs. When you start to get too many banned domains, bump that server and get a new one with fresh IPs.
