Long Term Effects of Blackhat SEO

In a previous article we covered if businesses should prepare for the effects of targeted negative
SEO, but never got into the potential long term effects of negative practices.

This article is going to go through the long term effects of using black hat SEO techniques, how
it can affect your business site and prevent you from recovering the SEO of your site.

What is Black hat SEO?

The Reliable SEO Metro defines Negative SEO as “a black hat technique that uses bad text
links with negative connotations linking back to a competitor’s site, linking competitors to link
farms and free-for-all sites, etc.” It can also include hackers or malware that has infiltrated the
site to change or shut it down. When these techniques are used they act as a barrier, harming
the visibility of the site and causing it to be demoted by Google and the SERP (Search Engine
Ranking Positions) to be lowered.

Although in the past this form of SEO would have helped increase the ranking of your site, it
now only serves as a hindrance and prevents the site from gaining positions on a results page.
This was as a direct effect of numerous algorithm changes brought into play by Google, the most
notable of which was the Penguin update of May 2012.

Would using Black Hat SEO provide fast results in half that time?

To put it bluntly the answer is NO! Although it used to create fast results and costs less, it
doesn’t work that way now. Google have put into place a number of tactics to prevent the
unethical practice of Black Hat SEO. The key one of these is the development of a number
of complex algorithms that prevent any kind of black hat SEO from working. This has left a
number of unreliable SEO companies unable to offer their previously exceedingly cheap deals
for places on Google.

What are the long term effects of Black Hat SEO?

What some people don’t know is the continued damaging effects black hat SEO has on a website
even though the program may have been stopped. Each individual link is logged in the back of
the website and gives the site a form of portfolio. This portfolio is vital in influencing where the
site is placed in a search engine. Black hat SEO produces an influx of poor and irreverent links
at once to this portfolio which act as a black marker each time the site is reviewed and can push
it down the rankings. This will continue to act against a website until the offending links are
removed.

What can be done to resolve it?

The long term effects of this are that a large number of the links become irremovable and have
a persistent harmful affect on your SEO. To combat and these issues and recover the site takes
a long time and a considerable amount of effort. Such quick fixes like Google’s disavow tool
shouldn’t be the first port of call. The emphasis should be placed on trying to remove theses links
manually, to learn more about the approach for resolving negative links click here.

Many people go for cheap SEO thinking they are buying a quick and easy way to help their
website, this is not the case and many businesses that go for this option are in fact purchasing
the long term damaging effects of black hat SEO. We here at Red Cow Media provide a cost
effective and long term service that will help get the most out of your website.

For more information or if you’re interested in joining us, visit our website by clicking here

Benefits of Google+

What is Google+?

Google+ is a social networking platform to rival both Facebook and Twitter; it was created by Google to participate in the current social media buzz. Google has made many previous attempts with social media services such as Google Wave and Google Buzz that have never really caught on, but it has invested a lot of time and money into making Google+ a massive competitor against Facebook.

Google has integrated their services in to Google+ to expand the social media world. Some of their most famous services such as Google maps, Picasa, Gmail are all incorporated into G+. It has a lot of features which allow people to talk over any platform as they have a mobile and tablet app, so you don't have to be on a desktop or laptop computer to access your G+ page.

They have also implemented different ways to stay in touch with people by adding in new and innovative ways of interaction. For example, Google has integrated a system called Circles in which you add someone into your circle if you know them or just want to see what they are up to, allowing you to always stay in touch with different groups of people, as well as with individuals similarly to Facebook. Another system they have added in is Hangouts which allow people to communicate through video chat with a group of people, this is brand new and not many competitors have this sort of system. Instead of Hangout there is a program called Huddle that allows you to talk directly to one group of people though an instant chat. These sorts of programs are excellent for business and allow a group to communicate though this media directly, as well as allowing you to project your brand message to multiple people at once.

Why should you make a business profile on Google+?

You may be thinking that your business is already covered with social media because you tweet and use Facebook constantly. Or maybe you’re thinking that all social media integration doesn’t work or isn’t needed.

Well social media as a whole can help build your business and help attract new customers as well as communicating effectively with your existing customers. Some businesses only use social media to gain customers and clients and work their whole business through social media. However, the way social media should be thought of is a means of communication, that is with new, existing and potential future customers, so integrating your business into social media helps the business to interact with these people and isn't restricted to one particular group.

The best time to get on Google+ is now as it is still new, and makes it easier for you interact, rather than having every business in your area competing to be top dog. The business world is constantly competitive, so getting ahead of the curve will serve you well for the future.

Helpful Features Related to Google+

A great feature for business is that G+ creates a listing on Google Maps. Google Maps listing allows for your business to appear on the Google maps lists options on left side of the page when someone conducts a search related to your business. When adding G+ the listing is given a more attractive profile with pictures and reviews. What this does is influence potential customers and business partners with a professional looking profile, prompting them to choose you over competitors.

G+ increases your online presence by just having an account. It gives you more of online presence which allows customers to find you more easily, and also lends itself well to SEO. Not only does G+ help increase presence, it also allows a business to integrate their marketing approach on to their account. If you sell products online you can link your G+ account to Google Shopping to influence potential customers and show them other products.

Getting the most out of Google+

Google+ is one of the newest major social media set-ups, but is already dominating as an SEO titan on search results. The reason for this is Facebook and Twitter are essential to marketing efforts, and therefore stop Google from accessing much of their data, in turn limiting their SEO effectiveness. Although all social media is good for generating back links, Google ultimately decide SEO rankings within Google.co.uk and Google.com, and therefore place more importance on sites linked to their own social media.

The effects of Google+ can be easily measured, if you have a Twitter, Facebook and Google+ and then search yourself within the 100 search results, Google+ will be the most common social media.

Link your site to Google+

A great advantage to G+ is you can optimise it to your site, this helps get the most out of optimisation of your website. Even including a G+ icon on your business' site or a blog may help influence more traffic to your site and to you G+ page.



You can also profile link your G+ to your website using keywords to help build links between the G+ page and the website.

Having a link on a Google+ page is all dependant on the authority of both the page and the domain. You can influence this by raising your visibility by getting people to engage with you, share your posts, or link directly to your profile.

What can be done with posting?

When using G+ you can add title tags which can help you rank for certain keywords. If you use an attractive and eye catching title tag you can help increase the click and view rate for your profile, making a good title tag can help influence people to share and interact with your post.

Having a widely shared post with an attractive title tag can increase the chances of the post ranking for the keywords; this then helps generate more views and people following your profile.

Another technique when using G+ would be to embed links into posts, if high authority profiles re-share the post then the value of the link will go up. What +1 does to a post is allows more people to see the post increase the chance of it becoming more viral, this in turn helps the contents of the post have more value and helps to rank the content higher.

Now when you share brand new content on G+ it will be indexed on Google instantly, this allows you to share your new content on G+, and on another social networks with quick indexing. Is a sense it’s trying to render twitter obsolete as you can instantly get feedback and updates in a matter of seconds, allowing any new content you share on G+ to be indexed instantly.


For more information on anything online marketing related, visit our website by clicking here.