Though considered unethical but the quick results it provides (and the low cost involved) are enough to lure people to Black Hat SEO.

Let us have a look at some of the techniques that are adopted worldwide under this category (and beware of these if you want to avoid getting penalized by the search engines)-

1)    For content

Over here the main focus is on the statistical aspects of the algorithms (used by search engines) instead of the content.

So they use techniques like-

•    Keyword stuffing

It means over-using the keywords in alt or meta tags or the content itself (even the reader can make out these repetitions). Sometimes keywords are placed in the background as hidden text (by merging it with the background color)

•    Deceptive content

The gateway (also called bridge or doorway) pages may be created. These are the pages targeted towards a particular search engine with about 1-3 keywords.

Also at times different pages are created for the search engines and visitors (who is visiting is decided based on the IP or other methods). This technique is referred to as cloaking.

2)    For linking

•    Link farms

These are the pages that have unrelated links. In fact the sole motto of these is to create more and more links to the target pages.

•    Spamming

The blogs, forums and the other social networking sites are spammed with the links. It is again considered unethical.

These were some of the most popular Black Hat SEO techniques used. Though if you are planning to adopt these, do remember that they might give your site a sudden hike in the search engine rankings, but this will be maintained only till the time the search engines get to know (and then be prepared to pay the penalty!)!