Last Updated on 31/07/2025
If we go back ten years, people assumed that manipulating Google’s algorithm and using false tactics could help them rank their page at the top. Competition in the digital world has increased rapidly, and people have employed ineffective SEO tactics to rank their websites.
Google’s algorithm was less advanced at that time; however, with time, Google’s algorithm changed so drastically that it could also detect minute web spam.
The wrong tactics can give your site a temporary boost, but this is not as effective in the long run as it sounds.
The long-term and ethical way to increase your website’s rankings is by using white-hat link-building techniques.
What is Black-Hat Link Building in SEO?
Black-hat link building is a practice that violates search engine guidelines to artificially increase your website’s ranking in search results, bypassing the organic search process.
It involves using black-hat link-building techniques and manipulating Google’s and Bing’s Webmaster guidelines to build links. Black-hat link building is an unethical method of search engine optimization, as it involves the use of illegal tactics for link building.
If you use black-hat tactics continuously, they will cause more damage to your presence in the SERPs than they will improve, and they can lead to your website being penalized or even permanently deindexed.
- Website owners work hard to maintain the spirit of Google’s basic principles and guidelines, providing a better user experience and ultimately enjoying a better ranking than those who seek loopholes in the algorithm to exploit.
- If you think a site is abusing Google’s Quality Guidelines, you can file a spam report and help Google improve its spam detection systems.
Black-Hat SEO Techniques you need to abstain from
1) Keyword Stuffing
It is a practice of loading a webpage with keywords, phrases, or numbers to manipulate a website’s rank in SERPs. These keywords appear continuously in a list or group. This results in a poor user experience and can negatively impact your site’s ranking. It is better to focus on creating meaningful content that uses keywords appropriately, rather than out of context.
Examples of keyword stuffing include:
A List of phone numbers without substantial added value, blocks of text that list cities and states that a webpage is trying to rank for, and repetition of the same words so often that it sounds unnatural, as shown in the above example.
2) Cloaking
It is a practice of showing different content or URLs to users and search engines, which violates Google’s guidelines.
Examples of cloaking are:
Showing a page of HTML text to search engines while showing photos to users, inserting text or keywords on a page only when the user agent requesting the page is a search engine, not a human user, etc.
3) Sneaky Redirects
When a visitor is sent to a different URL than the one initially requested, that is known as a redirect. If you are moving your site to a new address, it is a good idea to redirect from one URL to another; however, some redirects can be deceptive to search engines.
Some display content to users that differs from the content made available to crawlers.
Suppose you redirect a user to a different page to display content that is not available to a search engine crawler. When a redirect is executed by this method, a search engine may index the parent page rather than follow the redirect, while users are redirected to the target.
Sneaky redirects are deceptive as they attempt to show different content to users and Googlebot. It takes a visitor to a destination different from where they expected to go.
Examples of sneaky redirects include:
Users may receive a standard page on a PC, while cell phone users are redirected to a completely different spam domain; users are shown one type of content, while search engines are shown something else.
Some redirects are legitimate, such as redirecting users to an internal page using JavaScript or 301 redirects.
4) Link Schemes
All those links that aim to manipulate a website’s rank in Google search results violate Google’s guidelines. Such links are a part of a link scheme. All practices that manipulate backlinks to your site are also part of the link scheme.
Some examples of link schemes that can impact your site’s ranking in SERPs:
- Buying backlinks, exchanging money, goods, or services for links, or sending a free product in exchange for links are all ways to acquire backlinks.
- Excessive link exchanges like ‘ Link to me, and I’ll link to you. ‘
- Use automatic services to form links to your site.
- I am taking a link as part of the terms of service or contract.
- Creating unnatural links.
Some examples of unnatural links that violate Google’s guidelines :
- Broadly distributed links in the footers of many sites.
- In advertising, payment is received for content with links that pass PageRank.
- Links with optimized anchor text in the content distributed on other websites.
- Low-quality or keyword-rich links are embedded in widgets that go across various sites.
- Forum comments with links in the post or signature.
If you believe a site is using link schemes, you can notify Google.
5) Scraped Content
Copying content from other high-ranked websites with the assumption that increasing the length of content is a good strategy rather than focusing on the uniqueness of your content.
Users will not consider your copied content to be of any practical value. Sometimes it can also result in copyright issues. It is better to focus on creating content that is distinct from other websites.
Examples of scraping include:
- Websites that copy content from other websites without adding any original content.
- Websites modify the copied content by using synonyms and republishing it.
- Sites that embed content like images or videos from other websites without any practical value to the user.
6) Abusing structured data markup
Structured data, such as rich snippets and schema, enables you to change how your content is displayed on SERPs. Reviews schema markup is one of the most common and popular structured data types.
Black Hat SEO, also known as Link Building, involves providing incorrect information in structured data to deceive search engines and users. Google has a specific set of guidelines that apply to all structured data.
We must follow the guidelines to enable structured data to be eligible for inclusion in Google Search results. Websites that violate our content guidelines will be ineligible for SERP results. To maintain a good quality search experience for users.
Disregarding their normal optimization processes can result in Google penalties; consequently, you should investigate how some Colorado SEO companies operate their business, as they are considered pioneers in this field.
7) Doorway pages
Doorways are websites or pages that users create to rank for the same search queries. It can lead to multiple pages in search results, which is not a good user experience.
Examples of doorways:
- Users create web pages primarily for the sake of search queries, rather than to meet a user’s actual needs.
- Generating pages targeted at specific regions or cities that funnel users to a single page.
8) Creating pages with malicious behavior
Installing software on our websites that behaves out of context for users, such as malware, trojans, ads, viruses, etc., is a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. Anything that manipulates content on a page, downloads files to a user’s device without their consent, or violates Google’s Unwanted Software Policy is considered malicious behavior. Google’s guidelines aim to give users the most relevant search results and keep them safe on the web.
Conclusion
We have given an overview of Black-hat link building and its techniques. You should never use black-hat link building to increase your website’s rank. We should always focus on creating content for users, not search engines, and follow white-hat link-building practices.
Don’t forget to check out these:
Frequently Asked Questions
What is black hat link building?
Black hat link building uses unethical techniques for driving traffic to your website by manipulating search engine algorithms.
What is white hat link building?
White hat link building utilizes techniques that align with Google’s or other search engine guidelines.
Check out more on white hat link-building
How do backlinks help SEO?
Backlinks are essential for SEO as they represent a vote of confidence from one site to another. They signal to Google that another resource finds your content valuable enough to link to it.
