Comments on: Search Engine Optimization: Avoid “Black Hat SEO” Tactics

By: Alisdair Johnston

Alisdair Johnston — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 08:05:57 +0000

There are also requirements for Project Managers with web understanding, and this could also be attributed to the extra projects which web design companies and SEO companies are now facing.

By: Patrick Hare

Patrick Hare — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 23:16:10 +0000

Every once in a while people inadvertently trip up a filter here or there, either by having text that is too close to a background color, long lists of similar items on the same page (like printer ink part numbers), or meta-refreshes that look too much like doorway pages. For the most part, people who are trying to SEO their own sites tend to avoid using black hat tactics, but every once in a while we come across someone who still tries cloaking, link spam, or other tactics. Even when they don’t get penalized, their sites don’t get more movement than if they’d followed best practices.

By: Patrick Murphy

Patrick Murphy — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:25:57 +0000

Thanks for the list. The amount of times clients come to me with some of these ideas . . . Do you think there are people still doing this? Cheers.

By: D. Tolken

D. Tolken — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:40:26 +0000

Yes unfortunately this is something that will always stay with us; the rules just change constantly on what’s ineffective and what works. If black hat brought you a top 3 position on a multimillion-dollar niche, would you do it? Is it illegal in the literal sense? No, but I guess it depends on how you sleep at night. Personally we don’t look at black hat at all, even though many clients have requested it. If you focus your attention on doing good (and really know what you’re doing), you will reap the rewards. . . .

By: Miles

Miles — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:14:00 +0000

I’m not too sure about Yahoo and Bing’s pride in offering quality search results. Their results are pretty spotty in my opinion. That is why Google still has 80% of search. I think Black Hat is close to being completely ineffective on Google, but I still see sketchy sites on Bing and Yahoo frequently.