While SEO is very useful in terms of helping you promote your website by boosting its Google ranking, not every single SEO strategy is good or helpful. In fact, many online platforms and influencers rely on what are known as black-hat practices. Those who want to enjoy the benefits of SEO without worrying about consequences will focus on white-hat practices. Meanwhile, many others took advantage of black-hat practices, with some even bragging online about what these techniques brought them. Obviously, exposing themselves led to penalties.
One industry that is commonly targeted by black-hat SEO practices is online gambling. Now, why does this happen, and how can you avoid it if you’re running an online gambling platform? Here’s all you need to know.
Black Hat SEO – What Is It?
Black hat SEO refers to a set of practices that are used to gain benefits on search engines while not respecting the rules and terms that the search engines made. A wide range of websites and influencers use this method as a way of boosting their popularity thinking that the search engines will not detect their activities. Due to the quick gains they can provide, black-hat SEO techniques are very tempting.
Some of the most common practices that are part of the black-hat SEO sphere include link-building via PBNs, spamming keywords into a page with the help of invisible text, and clickbait. In the short term, this way of doing SEO may bring some benefits, but once the search engines realize what you’ve been doing, your rankings will suddenly go down and you’ll face consequences.
What Are the Pitfalls of Black-Hat SEO Practices?
Despite it being common knowledge that you should not get involved with black-hat SEO, many companies still do. But those who are new to the scene do not know what risks they expose themselves to, thus feeling devastated once search engines catch up and implement penalties on those who break the rules. Here are some of the biggest risks of black-hat SEO:
- Legal Issues – One of the worst dangers you can deal with following the use of black-hat SEO is legal problems. Now, this will not be the case with all practices, but if you do things like link purchases and content scraping, you’ll easily deal with fines and even lawsuits. This all comes in the same package as your site’s reputation being completely ruined.
- No More User Trust – SEO aims to boost the credibility and importance of your site, as well as your reputation. When you use black-hat SEO and the search engines discover this, you will risk disappearing from the results, bringing you less traffic. In the meantime, users will trust you less and less, as even those with little to no SEO knowledge will feel like you’ve done something wrong to drop from the top results.
- Changes in Algorithm – The algorithm of a search engine doesn’t stay the same. Over time, it keeps getting updates. Many times, these updates will bring new ways to deal with black-hat SEO methods. Once it happens, your website can be affected.
Why Do Black-Hat SEO Agencies Target the Online Gambling Field?
It isn’t shocking to hear that online gambling is one of the largest industries right now. By 2029, the number of people who enjoy online gambling is expected to reach 281.8 million. Considering the benefits that online betting has brought to the population, it isn’t surprising that more and more individuals give up on brick-and-mortar casinos and switch to online.
However, when it comes to promoting an online gambling platform, black-hat SEO agencies often target these sites. Now, why is that? The reason is very simple: gambling is an industry that focuses on competition – therefore, this is very attractive for many firms that offer black-hat SEO. Because results are faster and the SERP rankings can increase very easily, black-hat methods look very tempting.
But that is not all. When you are part of the gambling industry, you already know how hard it is to come up with new content that Google will take into account for your ranking, not to mention the fact that there’s much competition. Besides, many white-hat SEO agencies are not fans of the divisive nature of the industry, which is why they may hesitate to help promote a gambling platform. Even worse, it can cost a lot of money and take a lot of time to make your dream come true and put your gambling site in the top search results. Therefore, many online betting platforms end up focusing on black-hat practices instead.
The Importance of Using White-Hat SEO and How to Avoid Penalties
Black-hat SEO is easily compelling due to the benefits it can bring in a very short time. However, when you consider the consequences, it’s not worth the risk. While it may take longer to promote your gambling platform this way, white-hat SEO will help you avoid the pitfalls that you might experience when Google finds out about your actions. Besides, white-hat techniques will make sure your results last for longer, whereas black-hat techniques make your success very volatile due to the constant algorithm changes.
If you want to promote your online gambling site while avoiding consequences, here are some SEO tactics you can do that are white-hat:
- Perform keyword research and include relevant keywords
- Earn backlinks with the help of valuable content and by replacing broken backlinks
- Optimize your site for user experience
- Make sure the content you publish is unique
- Optimize your website for different platforms
Final Thoughts
Are you planning on promoting a site in the gambling industry? Make sure you only use white-hat SEO practices. Black-hat practices may seem more attractive, but they are also riskier, especially when the algorithm is updated and the search engine finds out. Many black-hat agencies target gambling platforms because they are competitive, but you can avoid these firms and focus on a strategy that won’t get you in trouble.