With billions of websites out there, it’s important for your website to be visible, especially on search engines, like Google and Bing.

But, here’s the thing. Scoring those page-one organic rankings takes time and consistency. That’s why so many website owners try to speed up the process by using blackhat SEO tactics designed for fast rankings.

6 blackhat SEO tactics to avoid

#1: Keyword stuffing

The idea behind keyword stuffing is that the more keywords you can stuff into your content — no matter how awkward or forced — the higher rankings and more traffic you’ll get.

While that sounds good in theory, in reality, it’s not a good idea. When you stuff keywords into your content, it looks spammy to both Google and its users.

When it comes to optimizing your content with relevant keywords, the best practice is to use keywords naturally. Avoid forcing keywords in where you wouldn’t normally use them, and avoid using awkward phrasing in order to include a keyword.

Luckily, if you choose good, relevant keywords, it’s easy to fit them naturally into your content without even thinking about it.

As much as you want your website to rank organically, it’s important to remember that you should be writing your content for people, not Google. When you do, your readers will have a better experience and your content will rank higher.

#2. Cloaking

Cloaking is essentially presenting different content to users and search engines in order to increase rankings of specific keywords.

Cloaking is against Google’s guidelines, and Google will penalize websites for cloaking, because it provides its users with an experience they didn’t expect or necessarily want.

In some cases, you may want to avoid showing Google a page, like your shopping cart or a privacy policy page, that you don’t want to rank in the SERP (search engine results pages). This is perfectly acceptable and not an example of cloaking.

Cloaking involves deliberately providing Google and other search engines with keyword-rich content that users will never see.

#3. Scraping

Scraping is stealing another website’s content, which may include the pictures, product descriptions, etc.

I get it, writing content for your small business website isn’t always easy, especially if you don’t have a lot of practice. And, simply copy/pasting someone else’s work is a whole lot easier than trying to come up with what to say.

However great the content may be, stealing content is not going to help you rank organically.

Google wants to provide its users with a good experience, which means that it’s not going to rank the same content over and over again. That’s why Google treats duplicate content like it doesn’t exist.

Google no longer penalizes websites for duplicate content, but it won’t rank duplicate content, either, which means that it’s not worth having on your website.

#4. The bait-and-switch

The bait-and-switch — otherwise known as page swapping — involves optimizing the page for certain keywords, and then, once the page is ranking well for those keywords, replacing all of the content with something else.

For example, replacing an article with tips for doing your own oil change with the Contact Us page for an auto repair shop.

Not only is the bait-and-switch difficult to pull off, but it’ll get your website penalized by Google. It’s not worth your effort.

You’re far better off leaving the article about how to do DIY oil changes and including a link to a contact form where people can call you to schedule an appointment instead. You may not trick as many people to get to your Contact Us page, but the people who do land there will actually want to be there.

#5. Link buying

The three basics of SEO are keyword research, content and links. Keyword research and content are easy, because you can do them on your own. Links, on the other hand, have to be earned, making them a lot harder to go after.

Link buying is exactly what it sounds like, buying backlinks from other websites that point to your own.

Like many of the SEO tactics I’ve covered, link buying sounds great in theory. But, it’s important to remember that the quality of your backlinks matters. And, when you buy links, you’ll always be dragged down by low-quality websites.

Unfortunately, buying links won’t get you the results that you want. Not only does it go against Google’s Terms of Service, but it also goes against the entire practice of SEO.

The goal of SEO is to rank websites with the best, most helpful content — not websites that have spent the most on buying links.

#6. Hidden text

Hiding text involves including keyword-rich text on your website that only search engines can see by making it the same color as your background.

While it looks spammy to use keywords over and over again in your content, hidden text allows you to use keywords as much as you want without providing a spammy experience for your visitors.

Using hidden text seems like an easy way to use lots of keywords without hurting your user experience, but the reality is that it’s a quick way to get your website blacklisted by Google.

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