There was a time when using black-hat techniques such as negative SEO, link schemes, cloaking, content automation, and sneaky redirects were so common.
In fact, using these techniques were the norm and be implemented as a shortcut to rank in search results.
Luckily, that time is gone and now search engines have become more careful and immediately banish the websites that apply such unethical tactics to gain visibility in Google.
Hence, it proves the black hat SEO is not at all sustainable, and you should never consider it for your business ever!
Since Google advances its algorithms every year, SEO is constantly evolving and becoming smarter with time, which directly impacts on-page SEO as well.
But do you know its downside?
It takes a lot of time, patience, effort, and investment!
You need to craft a well-structured strategy, killer content, multiple off-site initiatives, and adapt to the changing landscapes.
Well, the best part is, its payoff is extremely huge and real.
I won’t bore you with all the reasons that why white-hat SEO is effective and black-hat is dangerous because you all know that well. Instead, I am moving forward to some important on-page tactics that Google hates but people still apply them for quick ranking.
Remember, if these tricks are also part of your strategy, then immediately cut them out today!
Keyword stuffing
Do you know what makes SEO an effective strategy?
The technique has made extremely content-driven than ever before.
Google loves to see content that looks engaging, insightful, and beneficial to the audience. But let me tell you the fact, these things were not important 10 years ago.
Yes, it’s true.
People loved to follow keyword stuffing in content which was then visualized as the most commonly used black-hat technique. People applied the trick because it was easy, never required a proper plan, and surprisingly it worked too!
Even today, people use this trick to rank their websites. That’s how this process goes
- People search keywords according to their niche
- They create content to define their niche
- Incorporate the same keywords in the content and stuff all the pieces with repeated keywords
- Use these keywords again in meta tags
When people used the trick frequently, search engines put an end to this in 2011 after the launch of the Panda algorithm.
That’s the reason, creating engaging, well-researched, and relevant content is the key. Using the right set of keywords 2-3 times in your content is enough to rank your pages as compared to stuffing the content with repeated keywords.
Linking to irrelevant sites
Internal linking is the most important strategy in on-page SEO. That’s the reason, make sure all the links on your website are exactly relevant to the content you create.
Your added links should provide additional information to the audience and shed some more light on the topic, instead of adding irrelevant links that don’t even define the concept of your post. Your main purpose is to rank your content that proves helpful for the audience.
Because the fact is, search engines prefer strong and high-quality backlinks that seem natural and relevant to your website.
But on the other side, when you insert a lot of external links or unnatural & irrelevant links that do not fulfill your content requirements, then you are definitely triggering search engines to penalize your website. These unnatural link practices can harm your ranking and disturb overall results quickly.
Therefore, the addition of including relevant external links in your site can make your profile stronger and sends Google a positive signal that the site is sharing useful information for the audience.
Content swapping trick
Content swapping was another common trick applied by black-hat practitioners about a few years back. They tried to trick Google by incorporating the procedure
- Create some compelling piece of content for search engine
- Wait until search engine bots crawl the site and index the content
- Ensure that their site is searchable and indexable
- Close the site immediately once it’s indexed by Google
- Swap content quickly
Since content swapping is forbidden by search engines, so even in the Panda update days, search engine indexing was not so quick or effective. So as a result, black hat practitioners find ways to manipulate Google’s algorithms.
However, those algorithms have greatly evolved now and quickly cripples the ranking of your website that has been closed from its indexation.
Content swapping has always been an easy method to get penalized by search engines. That’s the reason, it’s recommended to create engaging and compelling content that adds significant value to your subject and helps you stay away from this harmful trick that has dangerous consequences.
Posting on Web 2.0 blogs
Despite their extreme popularity and demand in the SEO world, ‘web 2.0’ blogs, are not at all a healthy practice. The strategy was followed by black-hat SEO practitioners and has never received much appreciation from Google.
The fact is, they don’t do much to rank your site or create any positive impact. People tend to create 2-page blogs on different sites like Tumblr or WordPress subdomains and then infused them with a lot of website links to make them rank-able.
Posting on web 2.0 blogs is not worth your effort if you are expecting long-term results. Instead, you should focus on white-hat techniques, such as submitting articles on high-quality websites that have increased domain authority or posting blogs on your own site.
Cloaking
Cloaking is one of the oldest black hat techniques that has been frequently implemented by even white-hat professionals. But believe me, its results are bad.
In this technique, the content displayed to the search engine spider was totally different from the content displayed to the random audience.
Black Hat SEO Spammers have utilized the trick for several reasons.
- To manipulate Google and receive high rankings.
- To rank some specific page in Google.
- To trick the audience into visiting a site that looks different from the description.
That’s why it has been recommended to avoid the technique at all costs. This couldn’t just ruin your overall rankings but also harm your reputation badly.
Optimized for desktop only
Mobile optimization was not a big concern of SEO professionals in the past few years. However, we cannot deny the fact that it has become a fundamental tactic today.
In 2016, Google announced that it is making mobile optimization necessary for all the websites. So, if your website is not optimized for mobile, you are not likely to rank anywhere in search results.
After that, there has been a lot of conversation around the topic. Recently John Muller also confirmed that Mobile-first indexing is going to be an imperative part of SEO Techniques. If there is something that exists on your desktop but not on mobile versions, then your site won’t be able to rank anywhere. So, if you want to boost results, you should focus on mobile indexing first by including all the elements on both desktop and mobile versions.
Targeting keywords for Google, not for users
In the good old days, SEO professionals included some inappropriate and irrelevant keywords in their website site content just to gain maximum ranking and visibility.
As a result, when people arrived on the site, they never converted instead got frustrated since the page was totally irrelevant and they were not able to gain the information they were looking for.
The fact is, only high volume and relevant keywords can bring natural traffic to your site, but targeting keywords that are not even appropriate to your niche could cause serious harm.
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Conclusion
In the end, I must say that trends in on-page SEO always change and evolve for better results. You should never expect them to stay still.
Google always releases its algorithm updates one after another, and continuously motivate SEO professional and digital marketers to explore new trends and opportunities to boost rankings of their site organically.
Google believes in innovation; it prefers originality instead of shortcuts. That’s the reason, it has made some popular on-page optimization techniques a past story and now considering advanced tricks to rank the sites.
Now marketers can no longer consider cloaking, negative SEO, keyword stuffing, or content swapping. If you are implementing the right techniques to grow, you are more likely to get ranked.
Some past SEO techniques were extremely tricky, manipulative, and unreliable that even lacked growth, positivity, and long-term sustainability.
Even today some true SEO professionals are easily applying a lot of tricks through content stuffing with different links and keywords.
But the problem is, these tricks are not bringing real value and benefits.
If you want to deliver true value and excellence, it’s time to keep up with the latest SEO trends that actually benefit your website and boost its rankings in search engine results.
Have you ever tried these tricks? If so, I am sure, you must experience negative results.
Did I miss any trick in the list? If so, let me know in the comments and share your thoughts about the tricks that have been applied by the marketers. Read more: Google 3 Packs
