The recent updates to Google’s algorithms have all but killed off the golden days of SEO, black hat tricks and backend metrics. 

There has been an increase in reported website ranking drops and inbound traffic due to such changes. However, many of these reported are from websites deploying backhanded SEO tactics of old.

Entering a new era of online marketing and content strategies it is important your site doesn’t fall into the Google updates trap.

What does black hat mean?

When SEO began many moons ago, companies deployed certain methods to trick Google’s primitive algorithm. Such techniques included reciprocal links, keyword stuffing, white text on white background, paid links and back end metrics.

Google quickly caught on to these tricks and took steps to prevent rankings based effectively on SEO cheats. Many companies that took this approach have found that their websites have begun to disappear and in turn have lost business.

How do I know if my website is in danger?

If you have previously employed an SEO company, Google has outlined some techniques you should look out for if you are concerned they may have or may be using black hat tricks:

• Owns shadow domains
• Puts links to their other clients on doorway pages
• Offers to sell keywords in the address bar
• Doesn’t distinguish between actual search results and ads that appear on search results pages
• Guarantees ranking, but only on obscure, long keyword phrases you would get anyway
• Operates with multiple aliases or falsified WHOIS info
• Gets traffic from "fake" search engines, spyware, or scumware
• Has had domains removed from Google's index or is not itself listed in Google

Alternatively you may have deployed some of these techniques yourself on the advice of articles or others. If you believe you have some of the listed above techniques, it may be time for a checkup before your website is penalised.

For more information see Google’s full “Do you need an SEO?” article.

The Human Touch

Now the questions has to be “What next for SEO?”. Well quite simply Google wants its users to be able to find relevant and quality information when using their search engine.

This is where the ‘human touch’ comes in, making sure your content is not only written by a human but also relates to the viewer. Content has become the key to winning over Google search with easily readable and appropriate content related to the user's search terms.

If you intend to make your website content SEO friendly, make sure you stick to those rules and if you are hiring an outside company ensure they outline exactly what they intend to do and achieve those goals.