"Black Hat" search engine optimization is customarily defined as techniques that are used to get higher search rankings in an unethical manner. These black hat SEO techniques usually include one or more of the following characteristics:

A lot of what is known as black hat SEO actually used to be legitimate, but a few people went a bit overboard and now these techniques are frowned upon by the general SEO community at large. These practices will actually provide short-term gains in terms of rankings, but if you are discovered utilizing these spammy techniques on your Web site, you run the risk of being penalized by search engines. This sort of SEO basically is a short-sighted solution to a long-term problem, which is creating a Web site that provides both a great user experience and all that goes with that.

Techniques To Avoid

Unethical, shady, or just over the line SEO is tempting; after all, these tricks actually do work, temporarily. They do end up getting sites higher search rankings; that is, until these same sites get banned for using unethical practices. It's just not worth the risk. Use efficient search engine optimization techniques to get your site ranked higher, and stay away from anything that even looks like it might not be in the guidelines that search engines set out for webmasters. Here's a few articles that can get you on the road to knowing search engine optimization: