What is Black Hat SEO and how to avoid it

What is Black Hat SEO?Spy icon from Business Bicolor Set

If you’re unsure of what “SEO” means Click Here for a full explanation but for the purpose of saving time, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, and is a commonly used technique employed to give your website more traffic.

Black Hat and White Hat SEO are two different types of techniques used to generate more traffic to your website. White Hat SEO uses rich, relevant content and titles to make sure that anyone who is trying to look for your company, will find it without using bait and switch techniques or keywords that are irrelevant to your company’s goals.

If you’re wondering what “Black Hat SEO” is, let me clear it up for you in a way you can understand. Have you ever gone to a website and been barraged with unwanted or offensive pop-ups? That website uses tons of Black Hat SEO techniques to get you to click on websites that you don’t want to or normally would never visit to boost page views.

Why should I avoid Black Hat SEO?

Black Hat SEO is the sleazy used car salesman of the internet world. They promise you massive results if you pay them a lot of money to SEO your website, and use sketchy techniques like the one mentioned above to simulate that. You may get tons of “views” of your website, but not a single one of those views is an actual customer looking to learn more about your company, they are victims of pop-ups and hidden links. You want every view of your website to be a potential customer, and Black Hat SEO will pretty much guarantee that none of your views will be.

How can I spot a scam?

You should avoid an SEO company if:

  • They make grand promises and ask for an unusual amount of money.
  • They talk a lot about “Keywords” and “Hidden Links”
  • They create content on your website that doesn’t quite make grammatical sense
  • They appear to use bots or generated sentences to achieve their goals
  • They do not tell you your website’s “Bounce Rate” (The average bounce rate is between 26-40%, if yours is higher than 60% you should be concerned)
  • Their answers to your questions are vague or confusing, while you may not understand everything your SEO Company should be transparent and try to help you understand what they are doing for you.

It can be very difficult to tell if your SEO Company is scamming you

Most Black Hat SEO companies are good at what they do, and you probably won’t know if you’re paying for actual results for your websites until it is too late. So it is very important to rely on an SEO company you trust.

If you are unsure if you are being scammed by your SEO Call us at (858) 481-1365 or E-mail us at dan@swssupport.com for an evaluation and more information.