- October 8, 2018 -
Black hats vs white hats.
Everybody knows it was the way to tell the bad guys from the good guys in a typical western movie...most of the time.
Remember Tim Mix (way back to the silent movies) and John Wayne? Tex Ritter. The Lone Ranger.
Their hats were white or some shade of gray...but for the most part, not black.
It all started with the short 12-minute film The Great Train Robbery (1903.) A group of gangsters hold up a bank, rob a train, and eventually receive their comeuppance.
The gangsters all wear hats, some lighter than others.
But there’s one moment in the movie where all of a sudden the camera focuses on the face of one the gangsters, in close-up, pointing his gun at the audience.
He shoots. One, two, six times.
He’s wearin' a black hat.
That moment became famous.
And how 'bout cartoons?
You've got the stereotypical villain Snidely Whiplash who's the archenemy of Dudley Do-Right in the The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show.
Remember? He's the dude with with a tall black top hat and cape, a long nose and a mustache...who ties the girl to the railroad track so that Dudley Do-Right can come and save her in the nick of time.
There's the Wicked Witch of the West.
And Darth Vader.
All black hats...or black helmets.
It's as old as time.
Same way in the black vs white world of Internet marketing.
It's called Black Hat SEO...and you might not even realize you've been walking on the dark side.
Here's how Hubspot defines black hat SEO:
“A practice against search engine guidelines, used to get a site ranking higher in search results. These unethical tactics don’t solve for the searcher and often end in a penalty from search engines. Black hat techniques include keyword stuffing, cloaking, and using private link networks.”
In plain English, black hat SEO is trying to climb up the search rankings in Google using tactics that Google has explicitly banned.
They're as tempting as they are popular. Because they work…until, of course, they don't.
Until Google slaps back.
(A bit of side trivia.)
Google wasn't always called Google. When Larry Page and Sergey Brin started working on the search engine, they originally called it "BackRub"...
...a reference to the underlying algorithm which counts backlinks as affirmative votes.
I just thought that was interesting given our current conversation.
Three things to prevent self-sabotage and stay in Google's good graces:
1. Stay away from PBNs (Private Blog Networks)
They promise to build backlinks to your website at a low cost...and get you ranking on Google in no time.
Except they won't tell you how they'll build those links.
I'll tell you how...on the cheap, they'll buy hundreds (even thousands) of expired/unused domains with a spit of SEO juice left from the previous owners.
Then, they'll go to all of these domains and plug a backlink to your website on each one.
Here's exactly what you can expect:
You'll start to get traction, and you'll get all excited seeing how far and fast you've butt in front of your competitors. Woohoo, this Internet marketing stuff is easy!
And then Google finds out (almost always.)
Your ratings take a nose dive. Your domain might even be banned from indexing altogether.
And you'll have a hell of a time recovering. Sh*t, this Internet marketing stuff isn't so easy!
2. Write your own content.
"Imitation might be the sincerest form of flattery" but not in the world of digital marketing.
Google knows who the original author is and doesn't turn a blind eye to those who copy/paste.
It's called duplicate content.
Same as plagiarism in school. Eventually you'll get caught.
3. Stuffing keywords is artificial.
(I could go so many places with this but will refrain!)
Here's an example of what NOT to do:
We sell custom cigar humidors. Our custom cigar humidors are handmade. If you’re thinking of buying a custom cigar humidor, please contact our custom cigar humidor specialists at custom.cigar.humidors@example.com.
+ doesn't sound natural
+ overkill with the intent to manipulate
All kidding aside...
Moral of this little saga: don't let yourself be sold any black hats.
White hats look sharper. Yeah, harder to keep clean...
...and getting organic traffic building backlinks the old-fashioned way will take longer.
But you're in this for the long-haul. Go white-hat.
Or you can just let us do this stuff.
I'll be back tomorrow 🙂
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