I am sure almost all of you must have experienced search engines cough up SEO results that are less than satisfactory and almost unbelievable. Many of these services offer unbelievable results, at unbeatable prices and offer unmatchable guarantees. Unfortunately, these red herrings are hardly worth the effort and such results can seriously damage your website’s high page rankings in the long run.

SEO and Black Hat
Almost everyone knows that SEO is not an exact science. Since no one knows the exact constitution of the SE algorithms, no one can actually guarantee top search engine rankings. One must also keep in mind that SEO services involve a long-term process, an ongoing process really and desired results can take anywhere from a few weeks to several months to show up. So beware of services or experts that guarantee top page ranks without traffic, because this is not going to help you or your business in any way.

Such unethical SEO has been termed as Black Hat SEO and is a highly damaging technique. You, as a webmaster, much avoid using these techniques because Search engines do not like being manipulated or fooled. Using White Hat SEO is sure to help you garner top spots as well as drive targeted traffic to your website.

Does Black Hat SEO Actually Work?
If you are only interested in momentary results and fleeting success then Black Hat may be considered as an option. However, I would strictly recommend avoiding it, because it will eventually catch up with you and get your website penalized or banned from the search engines. As a webmaster, you need to focus on long term benefits and success rather than short term. So, if you are still unsure whether black hat SEO actually works or not then let’s briefly review some of the most commonly used black hat techniques.

Cloaking – One of the most common practices to earn top page ranks in short time. An automated script works to deceive the search engine spider to show a different website page from what is seen by a human visitor. Cloaking leads to more pages views and thus increases page rankings in SERPs.

Invisible text – Links disguised as hard to read or invisible texts redirect visitors to other ad sites. Effective for pay-per-click but unethical as they trick the user to visit an ad site that he/she doesn’t want to visit at all.

Doorway pages – Another Black hat trick to achieve top position on SERPs. Redirects are a common example. These are sites that have no content and redirect visitors to the destination page instead.

Spam – Blank web pages are considered spam. These are created to increase the page rankings and are disguised to look like pages that contain information required by the visitors. Most of the times they show a variety of ads and can be very annoying.

Truth be told, all the above techniques are successful in bringing unprecedented changes to your site’s rankings on SERPs once applied. Black hat SEO techniques are a short cut to achieve success and drive better results faster. Also, search engines like Google charge penalty to websites that use black hat SEO techniques and sometimes even ban them.  If it seems too good to be true, it probably is – and you should avoid it. You should always consult with a professional search engine optimization services company before moving forward.  Check out Google’s Webmaster Guidelines to understand what the search engines are looking for.

Joel McLaughlin