The term ‘black hat’ exclusively refers to a hacker who penetrates and exploits a computer network for malevolent reasons which has its version for everything on the internet. The black hat social media can be defined in different ways by different people; however, the phrase is commonly used for any social media techniques that are used to drive relevant traffic to the website but which fall outside the stipulated search engine guidelines or terms of service.
This unethical practise is spawning a new era of web spam, affecting the social media sites, the users and the businesses those who are utilising the site for marketing. To understand the hitch better, let’s start with the examples.
Examples of Black Hat Social Media Practices
- Buying fake likes, comments, subscriptions, etc., by recruiting real people
- Creating fake profiles in the social media platform to engage people to like your page, comment and collect information
- Playing the dirty game by writing negative reviews on your competitor’s website
- Ranking profiles with competitor’s names and posting negative comments
These above mentioned points are only a fraction of the examples of black hat social media. You can actually use the social media in a number of ways for both positive and negative impact.
How these black Hat Strategies Affect SEO?
Black hat social media is used to draw pertinent traffic to the website and boost its traffic. This work is usually outsourced and is mainly done for the promotional purposes. However, this technique has a much profound effect on SEO. Here’s how these immoral techniques affect your website ranking.
- Buying fake likes, comments, subscriptions, etc., by recruiting real people
It is true that majority of the pertinent traffic is secured from the social media management. The securing of traffic does affect SEO, regardless of the technique used for securing. Therefore, it has become a common practise today, to buy real people and get false likes and comments.
According to Search Engine Land, “Social signals are emerging as ranking factors as search engines determine how to leverage our social interaction and behaviour.” These signals actually have impacts on search engine optimisation.
- Optimising fake accounts to like your page and comment
Have you ever imagined the number of accounts a person can create on social media like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.? It’s millions! Yes, a person can create millions of accounts and drive immense traffic to the website. This will affect website’s authority and ranking, thereby affecting its SEO.
However, the outranking of your competitor’s real web properties can hurt them and also can hurt the overall brand image, if the displayed listings deter the user.
- Fake reviews and automating your followers, likes, etc.
If someone leaves a negative review about your business which ranks well and the potential customer finds it on web search, then it can really hurt your business. Also, reviews with an appropriate structured data mark-up can take away your present customer as these reviews can display as a rich snippet in search results. The users seeing this which is considered as a low star count for the business may decide to take their business else where
Again, automating your followers i.e., using machines or boost may have great impact on SEO as you can get 1000 likes, shares and comments with it.
What you can do to save your business?
- Mark things as spam
The thing that may set your heart beat to normal is that almost all social media sites have the ability to mark things as spam. You can easily mark things as spam that may hurt your SEO.
- Contact the legal department
If you’ve a legitimate claim, you can contact the company’s legal department, as most social media sites have an area to contact them.
- Report spam on Google
You can also use the old web spam reporting form on Google to get something ranked in Google.
With increasing importance of more visibility in the social media for SEO, more businesses will try and beat this system of unethical behaviours. So, every reputable company such as Unitel Direct should ensure that their brand image is maintained.
Unitel Direct Reviews 