Black Hat SEO Tools: Risks, Rewards, and Strategies for Minimizing Detection

Are you considering the use of black hat SEO to rank higher in search engines on a popular niche, and if so what are the pros and cons? More specifically, what weed are (slowly but surely) pulling — automated link building software, cloaking and private blog networks used for Live Keywords Research — how those may affect the site in the short run or long run— And methods to avoid getting busted and penalized by search engines.