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What is Black Hat SEO?
Where does the term black hat SEO come from?
What effect do black hat SEO measures have?

What is black hat SEO?

Black hat SEO refers to all measures intended to improve a website's ranking in a search engine but whichviolate the guidelinesof the respective search engine. 

All legitimate measures, on the other hand, are referred to aswhite hat SEO. Any reputable SEO agency should only practice white hat SEO.

Where does the term black hat SEO come from?

The term "black hat SEO" is a stylistic device fromWestern filmsof yesteryear. In classic duel scenes, two opponents face each other. Here, the antagonist was always depicted wearing ablack hatand the protagonist, the good hero of the film, wearing awhite hat. "Black hat SEO" is therefore contrasted with "white hat SEO."

What methods are/were used in black hat SEO?

Common methods of black hat SEO were:

What effect do black hat SEO measures have?

Modern search engines oftenquickly recognize undesirable measures taken to manipulate rankings. The positive effect is very short-lived at best, while thedamagecaused isvery significant in the long term. In the worst case, the website will be completelyremoved from the search engineindex.

Want to learn more about actions that couldjeopardizeyour indexing?

Listen to ourpodcast episodeon this topic!