Stay on the Right Side of Search Engines

How to Avoid Black Hat SEO Marketing

A report in the New York Times by David Segal highlighted some of the major problems which can be caused if companies adopt frowned upon SEO tactics in their marketing. In the article the recent incident involving J.C Penney’s was discussed, clearly pointing out the fact that Google will penalize any company which is found to be acting in a way that they see to be cheating the search engine.
Although black hat SEO marketing is not essentially illegal it is not an area which should not be toyed with lightly.  J.C Penney’s hired a company to help increase the performance of their website, and without apparently realising it were part of a campaign which involved the careless method of multiple paid backlinks.

Paid Backlinks without Reason

The company managed to create thousands of backlinks and J.C Penney’s found that they were coming on top of the Google SERP for everything from jeans to rugs. As a result of this there is no denying that they would have had an increase of sales. 
A study which was carried out by Chictika network revealed that the number one slot in search engine results attracted double the amount of the result which ranked in at number two.  In fact the report showed that the top position gained 34.35% of all the traffic.  This is a significant figure, especially when you compare it with number five on the list, which is rewarded only 6.19%.
When this incident came to light, which was a few months after the campaign began, many frowned upon SEO marketing strategies were in place.  Links had been posted all over the Internet.  Usually this would be seen as legitimate, until you look at them in context.

Black Hat Back linking

Links to dresses were placed on websites which had nothing to do with clothing.  There were numerous incidents where a link was placed on a site where there was no connection what so ever with any of the apparel that is found in the huge chains stock.
This was a form of link trading.  Website owners can be paid in cash and points to place URLs to other locations on the Internet.  They allow them to be put on their website, and each time a visitor clicks on it and gets diverted the website owner receives payment.
Although this is not illegal Google see this as spamming which goes against their ethics when it comes to delivering genuine natural results for Internet users.  Google have slapped J.C Penney’s and other companies found to be acting in a similar way by effectively dropping their websites out of the search engine results. 
According to the New York Times the large retailers were once found to be number one, by February 10 they were positioned at number fifty two, which will have serious effects on the revenue brought in from online sales.

Adopt Long Term SEO Techniques

There are many companies who will simply take charge of SEO marketing strategies without informing the company who has hired them of the plan and techniques which they will use.  As in the case of J.C Penney’s this is a grave mistake which could result in the exact opposite of what you are hoping for.  Instead of securing a position at number one in the SERPs you could find that you are banished out of the rankings simply for the actions taken by the black hat SEO Company.
At SEOTrafficLab we will discuss all of our methods and SEO strategies in detail with you and train your team on the latest effective techniques.  We understand how important the reputation of your business is and ensure that we deliver only excellent advice and assistance from our team of SEO experts.  To discuss how we can come up with a long term SEO strategies with your team contact us about or SEO Consulting service contact our team on 0800 84 999 33 or email us at sales@seotrafficlab.com