[Question] How to detect the use of "blackhat" SEO techniques by competitors ?

NoFear87

NoFear87

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Hello everyone,

I'm diving into the world of SEO because, despite my site being five years old, I'm struggling to increase its visibility. The number of visitors remains low, which is frankly discouraging, especially when I see similar sites skyrocketing in terms of monthly visits, counting by the thousands!

I managed to secure a very small, highly targeted advertising contract, but I'm about to lose it due to my site's poor performance. :(

I turn to the community to find out: How can you detect the use of "blackhat" SEO techniques by competitors? I'm looking for advice, tools, or indicators that could help identify these methods. Understanding this is crucial to ensure fair competition and to ensure that any significant ranking changes are for legitimate reasons.

Thank you in advance for sharing your knowledge and insights on this matter.
 
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Common backhat tachiques are backlinks and ctr manipulation.
Some other techniques are doorway pages but not common.
You cam find the bacllinks using a tool like semrush or ahrefs. Some of pbns backlinks you can't detect.
I dont know if you can detect ctr manipulation which not many sites use anyway.
 
Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Moz will help you but not 100% of competitor data. (some of the backlinks blocked from ip's)
 
NoFear87 said:
Understanding this is crucial to ensure fair competition and to ensure that any significant ranking changes are for legitimate reasons.
Click to expand...
I doubt your competitors care about your views on such things. The SERPs are not a democracy.
 
Mostly, you get an idea about such tactics with the help of backlink crawler tools like semrush, Ahrefs!
As you mentioned "your site is 5 years old" and still you see no significant growth then it tells that you also have not added enough content coz otherwise, A good informative website with Researched content naturally gets backlinks and you would have seen decent growth by now!
 
You can't tell 100% sure how your competitors rank in top, som factors are backlinks, CTR manipulation and other ways. Focus on how you can develop your site in terms of SEO and how to invest in it.
 
ninzaseo said:
Mostly, you get an idea about such tactics with the help of backlink crawler tools like semrush, Ahrefs!
As you mentioned "your site is 5 years old" and still you see no significant growth then it tells that you also have not added enough content coz otherwise, A good informative website with Researched content naturally gets backlinks and you would have seen decent growth by now!
Click to expand...
Thx for reply
Alright, I'll make an effort to grasp the functionality of these tools (I have access to SEMrush Guru). My site is dedicated to news and reviews, boasting a total of 5500 posts. Indeed, I must admit my SEO skills may not be up to par. While I have acquired backlinks, they've all come about naturally. Additionally, I'm uncertain whether my competition might be engaging in less-than-fair tactics against me. My objective is to confirm whether my SEO skills are truly as lacking as I suspect, or if my competitors have an edge over me beyond just natural SEO tactics.
 
Thank you all for your answers. I have taken note of your advice. I have access to Semrush, but I don't know how to identify dubious backlinking. Otherwise I've noted that in seo there's no mercy, it's either you win or you lose. And in order to win, I'd like to know what "safe mode" advice you have for me. I've also seen some articles about the GSA rank software and I've bought it without really asking myself whether it's a good solution or not! Can anyone tell me if I'm doing the right thing?
Thanks again to all of you for your answers and responsiveness.
 
The true blackhat techniques of gateway pages, cloaking, and all that stuff do still exist, but they're very rare because Google has become increasingly sophisticated over the years.

The most common way to find blackhat techniques is to look at expired domains.

Study the backlinks of your competitors, and keep going through their backlink network.

While some obviously expired domain footprints may be hidden at first, if you go through link connections enough times, you will be able to start unraveling expired domains.

Once you see that, you know that they are using blackhat techniques.

Given Google's most recent pronouncement regarding expired domains, they view the use of such domains and the publication of content that doesn't match the original content of those sites as an attempt to game Google's search results.

So all bets are off in that context.

You might want to start there.
 
To find the blackhat techniques followed by competitors:
  • Check the backlink profiles by using Ahrefs, Moz, or SEMrush.
  • Check for the keyword stuffing and optimization level.
  • Check their website and see if they are using cloaking techniques.
  • Check for duplicate, copied, or spun content on their site.
  • Check for link farms or use PBNs to manipulate rankings.
  • Check for anchor text distribution on exact-match anchor text.
  • Check for automated tools for link building.
 
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