An important component of search engine optimization is off-page optimization. This attempts to promote websites externally. The goal is to obtain positive signals, such as those provided by links from other websites. Every link from another website to your own website is considered a recommendation by Google. This is not prohibited as long as no black hat SEO methods are used. Black hat SEO involves measures designed to achieve a good ranking as quickly as possible – measures intended to manipulate the ranking.
Black Hat SEO – What does it mean?
The term “black hat” comes from the hacker scene. A “black hat” hacker is someone who uses techniques for base motives to manipulate computers. Through manipulation, they attempt to obtain other people’s data that the hacker can use. Also known as cybercrime: investigating high-technology computer crime.
Black Hat SEO, or Black Hat SEO, is therefore all measures that help to place a website in the first place in the short term using all means possible.
Black hat SEO measures:
Hidden Content
Classic black hat SEO involves creating invisible text or links. This method was used at the very beginning of search engine optimization. Today, according to Google guidelines, this method has little success. Hidden content uses relevant keywords placed in white font on a white background. This can be used to deceive search engines into thinking that content is relevant to the topic. Links are also hidden in the same way.
Keyword stuffing
Keyword stuffing simply means over-optimizing keyword density. Placing a large number of keywords in a text to make it appear relevant to Google. This method dates back to the early days of search engine optimization, but is no longer effective. Websites with keyword stuffing are immediately filtered out by various Google updates and warned by Google.
Article Spinning
One of the classic black hat SEO techniques is the automated creation of text using software. Existing text is modified by the software to eliminate duplicate content. The resulting text is not relevant and far from unique. Therefore, it is of poor quality for the search engine and even less so for the reader.
Doorway Pages
Doorway pages are search engine-optimized pages that are invisible to users. These pages are filled with Google-relevant keywords. However, the user never sees them, as they act as intermediate pages that redirect the user directly. The goal is to promote these pages through backlink building to improve their rankings. Currently, this method is no longer widespread and is rarely used. Google also directly penalizes such pages because they violate guidelines.
Cloaking
Cloaking involves creating two different websites under the same URL. However, this URL represents one web page for both the user and the search engine. A script can be used to distinguish whether the website contains a search engine robot or a user. The script accordingly shows the search engine robot a page with text and a high use of keywords. This is different for the page displayed to the user. The page typically contains multimedia content, and since the elements are invisible to the crawler, SEO texts are used here.
Unnatural link building
A very well-known black hat SEO trick is buying links that aren’t naturally generated. These backlinks are simply purchased to increase link popularity. However, Google places great value on valuable links with high-quality content. According to Google guidelines, buying generated links is a violation and will result in exclusion from the index or a loss of ranking.
Black Hat SEO vs. Gray Hat SEO vs. White Hat SEO
Grey Hat SEO
Grey hat SEO is the gray area between black hat SEO and white hat SEO methods. This type of optimization is the most commonly used SEO method, as white hat SEO takes too long and black hat SEO often leads to spam or results in short-term success.
White Hat SEO
White hat SEO is the complete opposite of black hat SEO, as these methods adhere strictly to Google guidelines and thus lead to sustained increased visibility and traffic. White hat SEO is therefore the complete opposite of black hat SEO.
Black Hat SEO
As already mentioned, black hat SEO involves manipulative SEO measures that usually violate Google’s guidelines. It can achieve success in search engine rankings in the shortest possible time and with minimal effort.
How well does search engine spamming work?
What are PBNs?
PBNs, or private blog networks, serve precisely this kind of black hat purpose. A black hat SEO buys many domains with different names and locations (in other words, they use numerous different “handles” whose sole purpose is to conceal the actual owner of such a domain). This is done so that Google cannot determine who is actually behind the domains. By purchasing expired domains with high SEO value (good backlinks or overall good linking and corresponding reputation), additional domains are then purchased and integrated into the PBN. Pages are created that link to each other in such a way that a specific page can be profitably and quickly maneuvered to the top ranking position.
For these domains, the imprint is specifically obscured so that Google doesn’t recognize any connection between the domains and the actual target page. Furthermore, the domains are hosted by different providers to demonstrate geographical separation.
The winner of XOVI’s “biggest SEO competition” used precisely these methods to win the competition and thus a Smart. Years later, Rankboost remains at the top with an offer that is completely out of place. Other participants who invested considerable energy over many weeks in creating excellent content were snubbed by such a measure.
Such PBNs are used to spam the Google index with information.
What is Google doing to combat black hat SEO?
Until now, Google was pretty powerless against such practices, and such obfuscation methods offered little opportunity to detect these sites.
If a PBN is properly set up, the imprint will be “forgotten,” because if it’s displayed as an image, Google can read it. This allows Google to identify and potentially downgrade pages without an imprint. The same applies to pages with an image imprint. Things get more complicated if a deliberately fake imprint is used.
Sooner or later, the black hat SEO community will have to come up with new and different methods. In any case, these methods will have to be rethought because Google never sleeps.
Google’s strategy is clear:
The penguin looks for links from networks. Panda 4.0 evaluates content. Payday Loan 2.0 anticipates particularly “spammy” search queries. These extensive updates were only recently released (May 2014). The corrections to publisher sites (reducing PageRank to make them less important for backlinks) must be seen as a preparatory measure for a strike against PBNs. (By the way: If you want to get to know the entire Google zoo, i.e., see which animal represents which update, you can find a decent article about it here.)
Who benefits from Google’s measures?
The beneficiaries of this wave of penalties will be websites that practice “proper” SEO. It will be fascinating to see how these measures affect competing websites. If Google’s measures work, they should achieve a better position. Until now, websites that specifically avoid manipulation and provide good content have been disadvantaged compared to black hat SEO. If Google succeeds in implementing these measures in other languages and continues to send a clear message against PBNs, the websites optimized by SEOs who focus on strong content will benefit, as will every user of the Google search engine who receives better content. Let’s hope that Google doesn’t suffer any collateral damage in this experiment and that we soon read about numerous unfairly penalized networks.
Black Hat SEO is on the verge of extinction
As early as September 2014, operators of private blog networks (PBNs) reported that Google had begun deindexing these networks. This marked the beginning of Google’s concerted efforts to combat black hat SEO. According to the Search Engine Roundtable, thousands of PBNs have already been penalized. Numerous operators of such sites are already reporting the decline of their networks. Is black hat SEO on the verge of extinction?
2016: The end of Black Hat?
With Google Realtime Penguin (Google Penguin 4.0), Google has heralded the end of black hat SEO—or so it was initially thought. In fact, at the beginning of 2017, there were still many industries and sectors that function perfectly well with black hat techniques. Quite the opposite: Penguin 4.0 even offers the possibility of launching targeted negative SEO attacks on domains, specific pages, or directories. Thanks to the Penguin 4.0 algorithm, these attacks are no longer detected as quickly. Penguin 4.0 thus heralds the urgent need for link risk management. Further information: Ranking Factor Backlinks Realtime Penguin 4.0 – The end of black hat, or is it just getting started?
What does black hat SEO look like in 2025?
Black hat SEO tactics that should no longer be used in 2025, as Google will immediately expose them. Among them is cloaking. Cloaking is a method in which a normal page redirects to a spam page. These cloaked sites are penalized by Google and can lead to exclusion from the index and a loss of ranking.
Keyword stuffing is also a method that is no longer worthwhile in 2025. While the right keywords are essential, many website operators have the wrong idea about keyword placement. Instead of strategically placing keywords within the content, pages are crammed with keywords. This makes the text harder to read and diminishes the context. This method of gaining rankings violates Google’s guidelines and leads to drastic ranking losses.
In addition to keyword stuffing and cloaking, link buying and link exchanging are among the black hat SEO methods uncovered by Google in 2022. The resulting penalty has a strong negative impact on rankings. Quick link-building measures predominantly involve dubious purchases of links on various platforms. However, to ensure long-term visibility, this strategy is only effective for a short time. When building backlinks, you should always rely on high-quality sources with good domain authority. Quickly generated links generally have nothing to do with your own domain, spread spammy content, and even damage credibility. Link exchanging also falls under the category of black hat SEO. Multiple sites link to each other and can profit without much effort. Google penalizes sites that engage in direct link exchanges on a large scale.
Ultimately, using black hat SEO measures is no longer worthwhile. As already mentioned, Google uncovers such measures and penalizes them immediately. This harms the ranking of your own pages and can even lead to exclusion from the index.