Is black hat seo illegal ?

S

sophiesmith

Newbie

Dec 12, 2012

1

0

• Dec 12, 2012

• #1

Is black hat seo illegal ?

 

meannn

Elite Member

Apr 22, 2009

1,908

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• Dec 12, 2012

• #2

It's not illegal. Just a little unethical.

 

seochris96

Regular Member

Jan 31, 2012

383

125

• Dec 12, 2012

• #3

You should try a forum search of this exact question. It's been discussed in length many times. However, the short answer is, most likely no. At least not most methods.

 

ja1myn

Senior Member

Feb 3, 2012

818

307

• Dec 12, 2012

• #4

Nope.

 

bertbaby

Elite Member

Apr 15, 2009

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• Dec 12, 2012

• #5

Yes, stay away otherwise the Penguin will get you!

 

iglow

Elite Member

Feb 20, 2009

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• Dec 12, 2012

• #6

blackhat seo is fully legal. fraud is illegal.

 

GreenGoblin

BANNED

Jul 17, 2008

1,492

2,581

• Dec 12, 2012

• #7

BlackhatSEO = Manipulating the system to create good legitimate results

 

Last edited: Dec 12, 2012

wowhaxor

Elite Member

Apr 28, 2007

1,924

3,371

• Dec 12, 2012

• #8

Blackhat SEO is of course legal. Some blackhat MARKETING is not, fraud = fraud and most of the time there's laws about fraud.

Taking advantage of loopholes/manipulating search engine algorithms is perfectly legal though.

 

Patel

Senior Member

Mar 1, 2011

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• Dec 12, 2012

• #9

Blackhat is more like engineering, whereas the illegal activity is the fraud.

 

steelballs

BANNED

Dec 5, 2008

1,831

4,585

• Dec 12, 2012

• #10

Black Hat SEO is not illegal it is a smart technique used by people to edge an often quick advantage in SE indexing and ranking...

There are risks of course but the (maybe short term) upside is that the rewards can be very high, which often offsets the risk and returns a profitable ROI

 

H

haasan

Registered Member

Apr 7, 2009

86

4

• Dec 12, 2012

• #11

Yes it is illegal. - [Matt Cutts]

 

b1step-ahead

Elite Member

Nov 15, 2010

1,731

1,035

• Dec 12, 2012

• #12

sophiesmith said:

Is black hat seo illegal ?

Click to expand...

try googling it

 

KraftyKyle

Elite Member

Aug 13, 2008

3,669

6,911

• Dec 12, 2012

• #13

Do you honestly think it's against the law to build the reputation of your site by automating the process of naturally spreading the word of your website across the internet?

 

kideze

Elite Member

Jun 23, 2009

1,719

333

• Dec 12, 2012

• #14

Most of the methods on BHW are greyhat, unless your cloaking, doing neg seo, or other commonly known blackhat techniques, you will see most of these methods are used by the so called 'experts' in the field of seo. #foodforthought.

 

Gogol

Administrator

Staff member

Moderator

Executive VIP

Jr. VIP

Sep 10, 2010

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• Mar 20, 2013

• #15

Whomever says it's unethical should think twice, because your opponent already does it D:

 

Narrator

Power Member

Oct 5, 2010

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• Mar 20, 2013

• #16

Be careful, Matt Cutts will place you under citizen's arrest.

 

cooooookies

Senior Member

Oct 6, 2008

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283

• Mar 20, 2013

• #17

Email-spam is illegal ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN-SPAM_Act_of_2003 ).
Fraud is certainly illegal, especially in combination with false identities.

Link-building is not illegal. Doing nasty stuff on facebook, twitter, etc. is legit. BUT: they may sue you == civil court, and this can be very expensive. Targetting individual blogs, forums, guestbooks is imho the best way not to attract any trouble.

For most "black-hat" techniques you won't go to jail, but there is a inherent possibility that you get sued.

 

mrblackjack

Senior Member

Jr. VIP

Dec 6, 2011

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• Mar 20, 2013

• #18

Black Hat Seo is not illegal in Google Land...

but who gives a shit anyhow

 

M

mikeydell

Senior Member

Dec 16, 2012

868

502

• Mar 20, 2013

• #19

Not illegal, just a hell of lot more fun! You get to play with all kinds of cool tools when your blackhatting.