Black Hat search engine optimization is usually defined as techniques that are used to get higher search rankings in an unethical manner. Either by tricking visitors or search engine spiders.

The most common forms of black hat seo are:

Keyword stuffing: Keyword stuffing is the overuse of keywords in a piece of content. Generally, this is repeating the same keywords over and over just to achieve a higher search engine ranking.

Invisible text: Quite a few cheap sites use this tactic, which involves making keywords to be the same color as the background, so readers can’t see the massive amounts of keywords, but search engine spiders can.

Doorway pages: These are pages that regular visitors cannot see, but search engine spiders can. They are used to trick the search engines so that the site gets a higher ranking. Not only do they go against the rules, but they also hurt the visitor’s experience. Who wants to see a site stuffed with keywords?

Cloaking: Its a deceptive method used to cheat search engines in order to rank well for certain keywords. A user identified as search engine is shown a specifically prepared and optimized website with only purpose to rank well for desired keywords. If a user is not a search engine they are presented with the “real” websites content which is often spammy and of lesser quality.

Cloaking is also used to trick users to visit websites based on their description in search engines. For example a user searching for a particular product could click on a website in search engine due to its description and title. The site in question will not be the one described in SERP’s. It can be totally different or irrelevant.

RSS Spamming: I recently noticed more and more people using their RSS feed in comments instead of their blog’s URL. What that does is tricks people into subscribing to your feed when they only wanted to visit your blog By doing so people don’t realize they can get their IP black listed from any site in a click. So don’t try it, it’s rude.

Does Black Hat SEO Work?
Yes is it does but only temporally. Eventually the search engine spiders catch on and your site can get permanently banned from search results. It might look like a good idea to the novice but it hurts your site and its credibility on the long run.

Why is Black Hat Unfair?
Black hat practices do not not follow the rules and regulations of search engines. Black hat tricks spiders and users into clicking and viewing content with poor quality or content. This in turn leads to a poor user experience, what Google is striving to avoid. Lets keep the web a fun place filled with useful information.