How To Spot A Black Hat SEO Company

If you have never used search engine optimization (SEO) before, you may not be overly familiar with what attributes make for a good company (white hat) and what ones make for a bad company (black hat). It is very important that you do not let yourself fall victim to a black hat SEO company, as it could mean very bad things for your website (including blacklisting and ranking penalties). Here are some of the most common ways to spot a black hat company:

• Big promises
  Plenty of SEO companies will make promises that seem to good to be true and, often times, this is exactly what they are. Steer clear of any company who tells you that their techniques can get you to rank as number one on Google, as there is absolutely no way that SEO can definitely achieve this.
• Paid links
  Then, there are the SEO companies that claim they can provide you with a series of permanent links for the very low price of $39.99 (or words to that extent) – 99.99% of the time, this is a total scam. Whilst links are great for SEO, it’s just not realistic for many websites to link to lesser ones.
• Immediate results
  SEO takes a hell of a lot of patience and time to implement and get right – it’s not something that occurs overnight, and any company telling you that it is should be avoided at all costs.
• Bad website
  Whenever you are looking to employ an SEO company, you should take a look at their website before signing on the dotted line. If it looks a bit rough or doesn’t contain any SEO, alarm bells should be going off in your head and you should know to walk away.
• Cloaking
  Never ever accept help from an SEO company that offers cloaking as one of its services – all this will get you is a one way ticket to being blacklisted and removed from rankings entirely.
• No portfolio
  A good SEO company will be more than happy to provide you with past examples of their work – after all, they want to show you how good they are at what they do. If the company cannot provide you with examples or even references from clients, you should keep looking.
• Upfront payment
  There are hundreds of purportedly reputable SEO companies out there that turn out to be nothing other than a scam to rip you off – you should never be asked to pay for the entirety of an SEO support package upfront.

There can be no denying that effective SEO is essential for boosting the ranking of your website with the search engines, but you do need to keep your eye out for the black hat SEO’s that are more interested in your money then your online presence.