Internet Marketing: The Dark Side
Introduction
Like any forms of marketing, internet marketing has its dark side where people try either to con others from their money or use underhanded tricks to draw visitors to their website or affiliate page. Such methods are generally termed 'Black Hat': an expression originally used in the computing community for someone who compromises the security of a system without permission from an authorized party, usually with the intent of accessing computers connected to the network. Though in the field of internet marketing it's used for someone who wants to artificially inflate their rankings in search engines or to entice visitors to their pages and websites by underhanded means.
Most of these 'Black Hat' methodologies are used to try and artificially inflate a page's ranking or to make that page appear for a range of keyword search terms that's actually beyond the scope of the page itself. Below I am going to list a number of 'Black Hat' methodologies and how they work. I do this not to recommend these techniques, but so that you can recognize them when you come across them and avoid them. Also if you are in an SEO program or have hired an SEO expert then if any of these techniques are recommended to you you know that you should avoid that person or company. These are the things that search engines are looking for to downgrade your website and if you employ them, then you may get success in the sort term, but in the end your on-line business will suffer.
Black Hat Marketing Techniques
Keyword Stuffing
Just as for AdWords Campaigns keywords are an essential part of web page design. After all, the keywords on your web page are what the search engines use to find your pages. So any set of words that are repeated throughout your web page become the keywords for that page. However, if your website targets a very broad keyword with a lot of competition (eg mobile phones) then you'll find it near impossible to achieve a top ten ranking on that keyword. If you target a very niche keyword or keyword phrase (eg mobile phone fliphones) then you'll find top ten placement much more achievable. As many webmasters simply write pages without thinking about optimization their web pages may be targetting the wrong keywords. Others may have chosen a keyword from a list, but this is the wrong keyword for their site. Because keyword optimization is difficult and requires constant tweaking many web-page optimizers turn to brute force out of frustration and begin to load the page's meta tags and content with a particular keyword or keyword phrase in a repetitious manner; a process known as 'Keyword Stuffing'. Unfortunately such steam-hammer techniques make these web-pages unreadable to humans. As such the web page is worthless and this unreadability raises a red flag to search engines.
This brute force apporach may earn you a higher page ranking in the short term, but as the search engines are now focussing more strongly on human readability and accessibility in the sites they index this will get you banished from the search engines' index. Also, you wil get a bad reputation amongst users for writing meaningless pages.
Hiding Text
This is the process of stuffing keywords and phrases into text areas that cannot be seen by the user. Usually this is done by making the text the same colour as the background or to make the text so small that it is unreadable by humans. Recently webmasters have been using the CSS "Z" positioning technique to place text on a lower plan behind images (thus shielding them from user view). Another technique is absolute positioning, where text is placed off the visible boundary of the main webpage content. Again this used to work to gain a web page good rankings but the search engine algorithms have been improved to detect pages that make use of hidden text for the purpose of rankings.
Doorway Pages
Doorway Pages, also known as 'landing pages', 'bridge pages', 'jump pages', and 'gateway pages', are web pages that are specifically designed to appeal to search engine spiders that are looking for pages to index. Essentially these are pages intended to give content with high keyword density to search engine indexing spiders. Their whole purpose is to be indexed by the search engines but if an user clicks on a link to them they are automatically re-directed to a different pages that has sales materials on it. Doorways are particularly easy to identify as they generally contain no content and are not designed to be useful to users.
Cloaking
Content that is served up to a search engine spider that differs from content presented to a users' browser is a technique commonly known as cloaking. This is often a ploy used by sites supplying llegal warez, pornography, male enhancement pills, and Viagra (to name a few) to users.
Link Farms
Link Farms are simply a directory of web pages with little or no content that contain hyperlinks that point to every other page in the directory. Most link farms exist for the purpose of spamming the search engine indexes (spamdexing) in order to help sites gain higher search engine placement.
I should say, however, that link farms are separate and different from legitimate links directories and links pages within your website. The key is to not overload the page with just links and to limit the number of links per page. It's suggested you categorize links if you're linking to several dozen sites and wrap link text within the body of a sentence.
Pop-ups and Pop-unders
Pop-ups and pop-unders are a known technique used by traffic service websites that guarantee you'll receive X number of visitors form their service. With pop-unders, a window loads a web page behind the page you are currently surfing (think of it as a reverse pop-up). When a user clicks away (closes) the current website, you're site is displayed behind it. Although not necessarily Black Hat Marketing, pop-unders are not the most effective way to gain traffic as your site may garner a negative impression from its visitors. Pop-ups are even more insidious in that they float to the front as the user opens the URL of your website. Pop-ups are generally intended to sell something directly to the site's visitors. This is why all web browsers now contain software to block both pop-ups and pop-unders.
This is a very crude technique that only acts to alienate your site's visitors. Avoid at all costs.
Spam
Spam is defined as 'the abuse of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited bulk messages'. While the most widely recognized form of spam is email spam, the term is applied to similar abuses in other media: instant messaging spam, Usenet newsgroup spam, Web search engine spam, spam in blogs, mobile phone messaging spam, internet forum spam and junk fax transmissions.
Spamming is economically viable because advertisers have no operating costs beyond the management of their mailing lists, and it is difficult to hold senders accountable for their mass mailings. Because the barrier to entry is so low, spammers are numerous, and the volume of unsolicited mail has become very high. The costs, such as lost productivity and fraud, are borne by the public and by Internet service providers, which have been forced to add extra capacity to cope with the deluge. Spamming is widely reviled, and has been the subject of legislation in many jurisdictions.
Spam can be considered as the ultimate in Black Hat marketing as it's very easy to do and has little or no cost associated with it. However spamming is also the most annoying feature of the internet today and if you want to build a sustained interent business DON'T SPAM! Once labeled as a spammer, you risk taking a serious blow to your reputation, not to mention any legal issues that can ensue. Be very wary of any SEO expert that offer website promotion through blast emails. Ensure that any email going out with your web url are being targeted towards users with a general interest in what you have to offer and that it's not unsolicited email.
Conclusion
Now you have a list and description of the various SEO practices that you should avoid at all cost. If any SEO expert or firm suggests any of these techniques to you they are not trustworthy and you should stop using them immediately. Basically you should only use what are termed 'White Hat' or honest techniques. Stay focused on what's important and conduct your business practices in an honest and ethical manner and you'll soon find your website taking a turn for the better.