Does SEO Still Have A Bad Reputation?
Article by: Nhlakanipho Kubheka
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has undergone significant changes over the last decade. Initially, this marketing concept was viewed by many as being a devious marketing tactic primarily used to sway the algorithm and rank websites higher on search engines like Google regardless of the content that they had. From then on, the term ‘Black Hat SEO’ was popularized. These unethical methods were severely utilized during the period during a time when guidelines against such practices and detection mechanisms were not yet as refined as they are today.
In this digital marketing boom where SEO is a quintessential marketing tool, the number of people questioning the ethical nature of SEO is few and far between. It is being glamorized by many bloggers and digital marketers alike who have yielded significant results from employing successful SEO marketing strategies, but to some, the ‘doggy-dog’ methods that are seemingly used in SEO still rouse criticism from ‘ethical’ marketers since the Black Hat SEO still casts a dark cloud over the acclaimed marketing tactic.
Defining Black Hat SEO
Black Hat SEO is the overblown word used to describe spam―a term that anyone, even in the dark crevices of society has heard of. Nobody likes spam, while not illegal in any sense of the word, it is without a doubt a relatively annoying and dastardly way to avoid the long and hard road that the White Hat counterpart has to follow to garner organic results. Mainly focusing on acquiring swift conversion, search engine rankings and link thefts, the malicious tactic succeeds in getting swift yet yet very short-lived results.
Why are Black Hat Tactics Short-lived?
Retention is the unethical practices’ worst enemy as the underhanded redirects and low-content webpages stuffed with concealed keywords only succeed in irritating the individual and they click off the site in the blink of an eye. Real consumers of products and services will only stay on pages and platforms where they can derive value from high-quality content, which in turn tarnishes the image of the company or individual that tried to lure them to the low-quality sites in the first place.
Modern-day search engines are opposed to such practices and as they continually advance, they continue to penalize such pages by sanctioning them and decreasing their visibility―a term that most would call ‘shadow-banning’. These penalties have greatly decreased the number of people who utilize black hat methods.
The Disadvantages of Black Hat SEO Tactics
Harms Your Search ranking: Google will enforce strict punishments to counter malicious sites, therefore several potential penalties will be handed down to the site such as demoting your keyword level and even an entire delisting of your site if they deem it necessary.
Negatively affects Traffic and visibility: Without a site with standing and visibility in search, the ranking will negatively affect the overall product sales which can have various ramifications. Initiating Pay Per Click (PPC) will only continue to drain finances with no return on investment.
Short-Term Results: As previously stated, Black Hat tactics will provide a shortcut to acquiring clients and results, but the lack of quality content or products on a malicious site will only ward away prospective positive results. Only gradual ethical White Hat practices will retain potential clicks. Both Black and White Hat practices face the risk of losing traffic, but Black Hats stands to lose most if not all of its traffic.
Negatively affects Authority: Domain Authority (DA) is a sought-after privilege in SEO; it is a ranking score developed by Moz that predicts how likely a website is to rank in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS) and without a doubt, unethical practices will drastically affect your ranking and visibility as a whole. This will put a damper on even an established brand with extremely costly, long, and difficult ways of regaining its initial status and ranking on search engines with external consequences that extend beyond the internet.
Common Black Hat Tactics Include:
- Mass Emailing: Link-building strategies typically serve as most businesses’ methods to get more site traffic. Black techniques are employed in the form of mass emails in the form of spam, which only serves to sway away potential clients because of the negative connotations that they received over the past few years. Bombarding emails with several links or unpleasant tap links are a few of many tactics that prominent search engines like Google will easily detect.
- Excessive Ads: With an emphasis on retention, search engines monitor the amount of time users spend on a specific site. Too many unsolicited ads above-the-fold will deter anyone with an average or lower attention span, especially when ads are placed before the actual consumption of the content on the page. The main reason why excessive above-the-fold ads are placed there is the high SEO ranking potential that comes from a lot of views or clicks on the ads.
- Misleading Titles and Headlines: Many people are acquainted with the concept of clickbait―a common method to force a response from any potential user by preying on several human emotions such as greed, fear, and pride. The obvious repercussions include the immediate click-offs when their curiosity and desires aren’t met.
- Paid Backlinks: The process of buying several links to rank without any significant effort, this is among the most contentious techniques used because there is an exchange of finances akin to every form of marketing and is often viewed as perfectly normal subject to Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.
- Gateway Pages are the most common unethical SEO techniques that most of us have fallen victim to on several occasions; this is the tactic that redirects visitors to specific sites and sends them to an alternative page with real content. The rapid speed in which that moves at a rapid Meta which often conceals the fact that the user was on a doorway page. This is employed for E-commerce sites where the page is optimized for a product but does not directly link to any item and redirects to a page that does have them. This, of course, is also an attempt to boost page rankings. In recent years Google has instituted penalties and removed these pages from the web.
WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF SEO IN THE COMING YEARS?
Search Engine Optimization is developing at a rapid pace and with the newest form of optimization;
Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) involves optimizing content for search queries that are phrased as questions to appear as the featured snippet or answer box in SERPs. The rise of virtual assistants and voice search has made increased the significance of this form of optimization.
According to Forbes, the global SEO market size is expected to reach USD 122.11 billion in 2028, which is influenced by the rise in online data and the increase in e-commerce activities, and the increasing demand for high-speed internet. This perfectly aligns with AEO, the optimization of content for questions that most users are likely to ask, Businesses can provide direct responses to those questions and increase their visibility in SERPs. A study by Ahrefs has found that 8.6% of clicks on average stem from those featured snippets when they appear at #1.
While this is a significant change to the SEO landscape, it isn’t a complete replacement for SEO due to the changing ever-changing algorithm with no substantial full-proof techniques. The glaring issue when it comes to AEO is that it decreases actual traffic to your page and the reason for that is self-explanatory thus this form of optimization should be complementary to SEO.
AI and Machine Learning will be a prominent feature in the SEO industry since major search engines like Google are dependent on these technologies to improve their algorithms, with Machine Learning, search engines will easily be able to interpret user intent resulting in better relevance and accuracy. This is achieved through the use of basic language with the inclusion of relevant keywords, and formatting content through effective semantic search trends.
Optimized Voice Search is gaining significant prominence due to increased smart speakers and virtual assistants. With an estimated projection of above a 60% increase in voice search, which will need to be adjusted to the use of FAQ-style content optimized for mainly mobile devices due to most voice searches being made through mobile phones.
Increased Demand for Video SEO Most if not all of the SEO content will benefit from short-form video content properly titled with accurate descriptions to rank efficiently, the use of transcriptions are added bonus for accessibility.
Local SEO will never lose its relevance and is a practice that has yielded significant results through Google Profile Listings and consistent updates and directories.
SEO is now easier to utilize because of the increased number of Content Management Systems (CMS) which allow anyone to create websites without any significant coding knowledge, a far cry from the period in time where you needed to write your own PHP code and craft your own HTML. With the inclusion of AI, it will be easier to utilize, but thankfully SEO as a whole won’t easily be rendered obsolete anytime soon.
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