Beware the Black Hat

Don’t get caught with the black hat. It could cause trouble. In a useful article posted at Commerce Times, Janet Meiners Thaeler explains that deceptive SEO (search engine optimization) companies use black hat or unethical techniques to get sites to the top of search engine rankings.

Only problem is, she says, such tactics may get a site banned from search engines.

I highly recommend reading the entire posting. In the meantime, here are three of Thaeler's top 5 deceptive SEO practices:

1. Putting too many keywords on a website. "f a website repeats words or phrases so often that it's unnatural to read," she explains, "it's called keyword stuffing and could get the site penalized."

2. Overuse of bolded text or too many links. "Not only does this look terrible," she says, "but it also doesn't build trust with people or help your search engine rankings over time."

3. Hidden links. "Sometimes these links are hidden in the code of a site or in the footer of a website," Thaeler says. "They code the site to hide the links or they are the same color as the background so you can't see them. The links are often unrelated to the site but even a huge list of related links that are hidden can hurt you."

Like I said, it's worth reading her entire post. Meanwhile, make sure your SEO company is an ethical one. Do your homework.