There's undoubtedly a lot to know about search engine optimisation agencies. To make things a little simpler and easier to digest, they are loosely put into two categories. These are 'black hat' and 'white hat' agencies. Some of their methods are remarkably similar, but it simply depends on how they are executed. A black hat method can easily be turned into a white hat method, and vice versa. So how do you tell the difference between the two? Black Hat Agency Techniques Keyword Stuffing Keywords should be used sparingly. Stuffing an article or blog post with keywords is an easy way to build links for your website. However, if your site very quickly ranks in Google then Google can see this as suspicious. They can either penalise your site or take you off their rankings altogether. Forum and Blog Spam Commenting on blogs and forums with relevant information is fine in small quantities, but black hat agencies tend to take this to the extreme. They comment countless times with information that is of no relevance, purely to get links back to your site. Not only are they ruining a blog for somebody, but the traffic you receive probably won't be relevant. Commenting on blogs and forums with relevant information is fine in small quantities, but black hat agencies tend to take this to the extreme. They comment countless times with information that is of no relevance, purely to get links back to your site. Not only are they ruining a blog for somebody, but the traffic you receive probably won't be relevant. Twitter Automation Twitter automation doesn't have to be a bad thing. It can be used to follow and un-follow people on a semi-regular basis, in a way that looks natural. When it becomes black hat is when countless DM messages are being sent out to users and the account is never used manually by an actual person. Automation in any form tends to be acceptable as long as it is used sparingly and with respect for others. Content Scraping Otherwise known as content stealing. This is where agencies steal other people's content and pass it off as their own by simply removing the links from the original piece and replacing them with their own links. It is a quick and unethical way of getting content for a client. White hat SEO agencies create original content and this practice of content scraping is never acceptable in white hat SEO. Irrelevant Traffic This is less of a technique and more of a way to measure success. Just because an SEO agency is getting your site an increased number of page views, does not necessarily mean that they are doing a good job. Relevant traffic is what you want in order to get a good ROI. White hat agencies aim to provide you with this. These are just a few examples of black hat SEO techniques. As you can see there is often a very fine line between black and white hat agency techniques, and you should be certain that the company you choose is ethical before hiring them.
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