For the most part, only search engine optimization (SEO) specialists know about Google penalties, but that shouldn’t be the case. If your website or blog practices “black hat tricks” (tricks that falsely improve your search engine result rankings), Google’s algorithms are almost always capable of catching them at some point. If they do, and it’s deemed intentional, then you can get slapped with a Google penalty. In the worst cases, this removes your site from that search engine’s results completely.

There are many ways to avoid a penalty, but they all have to do with avoiding black hat tricks. Unfortunately, many unsuspecting bloggers hire a “black hat” SEO agency unaware that the tactics being used are illegal. Other times, a newbie developer practices these tricks themselves, not knowing that they’re “illegal.” Here are some of the biggest black hat strategies to avoid: [Read more…]