“Black Hat SEO”, and “Black Hat Marketing” are terms that are often thrown around without a real understanding of what they mean. “Black Hat Marketing” could be well described as any type of function or activity that you do that is considered against the rules by the big search engines. The search engines have taken great lengths to hide their abilities and technologies because they know online marketers will exploit it with every chance they get. Some “Black Hat” activities are cookie stuffing, forum and link spamming, as well as various cloaking techniques, just to name a few. While some see it as unscrupulous to use black hat techniques, it can be argued that all marketers are making an effort to manipulate the searches in their favor, some marketers just step further into the black than others. One thing that can not be argued is that there are many Black Hat techniques that are proven money makers.

One area of marketing that “Black Hatters” are always looking to improve upon and find new ways to make money is Pay Per Click, or PPC. Using “Black Hat” techniques with PPC can be rather tough, as most advertising networks feature many rules which will limit what you can do with them. Black Hat PPC techniques are all about bypassing those many rules so that you can be the first ad that potential customers will see when searching for a particular keyword. The nice thing about PPC is that even if they disapprove of your “Black Hat” ad, they will often let you know how to fix it to conform to their rules, which you can then find a way to bend or get around in a different manner.