SEO is the most essential part of Digital Marketing for every business to bring traffic organically. But some business tries to take short cuts to gain higher positions on SERP in a short span. There are very few Black-Hat SEO tactics we can use to gain positions initially. But, you cannot be reliable to implement the same tactics for long term sustainability.
This blog post will drive you through a few of those Black hat SEO tactics you need to avoid in 2020 as Google Algorithm keeps changing quite often and they are more likely to penalize you if in case your website doesn’t meet those algorithm standards.
Here are those 7 Black-hat SEO tactics to avoid in 2020Avoid Keyword Stuffing on META Tags
Adding keywords on Meta Tags is fine but stuffing keywords more than needed is not a good signal for search engine crawlers. It may cause a negative impact on your site SERP ranking in the long run.
What needs to do?
Write META tags for Humans not for bots. Be creative, make sure that you include the keyword in the phrase that is readable by humans. You may use the keyword once on the Title tag and twice inside descriptions.
Avoid Using Scraper Sites
Scraper sites are a kind of method to steal and mirror the content from other sites for unique content to manipulate users. These sites are often filled with ads, used to promote a practitioner’s main site.
What needs to do?
There is no need to have such practice, though it might give some quick boost when a user doesn’t spend enough of time on-website page and exit then there will be a drop in ranking on SERP.
Don’t Referrer Spam
Pointing multiple fake referrer URL redirects will lead to spamming. it is used to pollute a site with fake statistical data to attract bots.
What needs to do?
Identify such fake referrals using SEO tools and try to disallow links from the Search engine console. Try to get referrals from a website with a similar niche and with Higher domain authority.
Do not use Automated Google Queries
Using software to send automated Google queries to rank higher for a specific keyword can ban your site. This could be considered to inflate the number of searches for specific keywords.
What needs to do?
Run a well-targeted paid campaign on social media for a long time for brand awareness. Or launch a contest to increase search queries on Google.
Avoid Excess use of Rich Snippet Markup Spam
We all know that Google likes structured markup data. But if you try to use markup data on irrelevant rich snippets, it might get you manually penalized by Google. As it will be treated as a spamming technique to rank on SERP.
What needs to do?
Keep only relevant snippets on your site. No need to markup every content on your site. Just make sure that other tags such as H1 & H2 tags are used in the right place.
Avoid Over-Optimized Alt Description
ALT description is for images, if you stuff too many keywords on ALT description then it can be considered as spamming as these tags are usually not given much importance by users at first yet if you’re trying to manipulate the space then it is not a good sign for search engine crawlers. Thought Google has announced using H1 multiple times doesn’t really affect much. But you need to make sure that it is used more wisely in places where it is most needed.
What needs to do?
Add only relevant things on the ALT description to avoid keyword stuffing and remove unwanted multiple Header tags on a single page.
Do not list on Spammy Directory
Listing on directories is an age-old method to get quick backlinks effortlessly. Though these backlinks are useful, we need to understand that the Quantity of back-links doesn’t really matter to rank higher on SERP. All it matters in the quality of backlinks. So, if you list your website on any low-quality directories it could harm your position on SERP.
What needs to do?
Do not over-emphasis on building back-links from Directories. As most of directory submission websites are outdated and have low domain authority due to its being open for muti niche business listing.
