What is black hat SEO?

Black Hat SEO:
SEO tricks for the fast lane?

In SEO jargon, a distinction is made between “white-hat” SEO and “black-hat” SEO, i.e. good/permitted or evil/not permitted methods.

What Google does and does not allow is clearly defined in the Google Webmaster Guidelines. Google also communicates via blogs and interviews, including the“Google Webmaster Central office hours” on YouTube.

In addition, criminal and commercial law must always be observed.

Secret formulas for successful SEO?

Getting new websites to rank well in the search engines can sometimes take months or even years. How nice would it be if there were legal, secret ways to speed this up a little?

There are still ideas among customers about magical SEO tricks and formulas, such as how often a keyword should be placed exactly where mathematically. As if there is a fast lane for insiders, if only you know how. – Unfortunately, it no longer works the way it did 10 years ago!

Web users don’t find a content great because a text shows the search term 10 times in a row, but because the content is engaging and exciting and answers the open question in the best possible way. And what the searcher finds good is also interesting for Google.

The old tricks don’t work anymore, Google is learning every day. This is because Google’s own business model is extremely dependent on search results truly satisfying users.

Google can now read websites with the latest technologies almost like a human being and can often recognize bad content. Even loveless AI texts can be unmasked better and better.

If the content is appropriately good and rare (like a post about a newly discovered edible mushroom), websites can rank even if the page is full of “SEO errors” and doesn’t even have a correct title in case that rare post is searched for.

Automated websites, content through AI

Meanwhile, certain AI programs can create long websites including content with just a few commands (prompts), how convenient.
This sometimes ranks well in the short term.
Quick money for SEO copywriters.

Google has no interest in cluttering up its search index with content that may be formulated in a different way but has the same content.

Google does not prohibit AI per se, but Google does not want to show automatically created websites in the index; you can create automatic content better yourself anyway.
Google makes this clear in its usage guidelines.

Such websites are usually loveless, superficial and answer even simple contexts with text deserts.
As readers can now see through such pages, they simply skip to the next search result.
Google measures this user behavior (mainly via the company’s own Chrome browser) and downgrades the page accordingly as inferior, even without AI recognition (which is also getting better and better).

Nothing speaks against AI support in the planning and formulation of content.
But without human input and the contribution of personal experience, the content remains boring and impersonal.
Google simply has no commercial interest in such content and will ignore it in the long term.

You should always ask yourself the same question: why do you want to have a website online?
Is it just for rankings?
Isn’t it about making real contact with your target group?
What customer wants to communicate with vending machines?
Unkind, impersonal content rubs off on your company.
The customer moves on.

Cheating for the fast lane

In addition, there are still attempts to cheat Google by trying to trick the Google algorithm, which evaluates the content of a website for suitability as a search result.

For a long time, the number of backlinks played a role. The temptation was great to set up hundreds of websites as an agency, whose content then linked to the websites of their SEO customers. A lot of money could be made from backlink “success”, because customers knew that backlink acquisition can be expensive. Google now recognizes such link farms or private blog networks well and these links are no longer included in the rating of a website.

Where does it get criminal?

Trying to trick Google is usually “forbidden” by Google, but is not legally criminal as long as you experiment with your own content. A gray area.

“Black-hat” SEO also knows methods of ranking higher by deliberately damaging disliked competitors. The idea behind this is that if they rank worse as a result, you automatically rank better in comparison.

Competitor websites are assigned bad backlinks, for example, via backlink purchases from so-called “link farms”. Or you try to leave bad fake reviews.

Criminal or commercial law is quickly violated here. Hands off!

What if an agency really has a new, secret “ingenious trick”?

The “black hat” SEO scene is active and is playing a cat-and-mouse game with Google. Such tricks can bring short-term success. Even the smartest algorithm is just code, and code can be outsmarted.

If you only want to have a website active for a few weeks for a marketing campaign, you can try this. By the time Google notices the cheating and blocks the website, you may have profited, so the thinking goes.

By the way, the intended way to push brand new websites into the search results pages is via search engine advertising (SEA).

However, most web projects are designed for the long term. Cheating against Google never pays off in the long run. As a result, you will have burned a lot of money if Google simply ignores your tricks in the meantime or even ranks the website lower for a long time or even bans it from the search index. Just don’t. Rather invest the time and effort in good content that interests users.

What is TBA-Berlin’s position on this?

So, even if we are sometimes asked about a “fast lane” and “can’t something be done”:

TBA-Berlin offers and recommends exclusively “white-hat” SEO measures and focuses on high-quality content and long-term strategies.

Where is the border to Black Hat SEO

  1. A good guide is whether you would be comfortable explaining your approach to a competing website owner or a Google employee.
  2. Another helpful test is to ask yourself the following questions: “Is this beneficial to my users? Would I do it if there were no search engines?”
    (Source Semrush)
Carl D. Erling, Berlin, CTO
Carl D. Erling, CTO