Uday Agrawal
Newbie
- Feb 17, 2024
- 4
- 1
What's One Black Hat SEO Method That Does not Work Like It Used To?
- Thread starter VelvetTiger
- Start date
- May 27, 2016
- 11,542
- 2,652
Yeah keyword stuffing was one of the best tricks to rank a couple years ago! Nowadays Google's too smart for it though.
Williams SEO
Registered Member
- Mar 10, 2026
- 60
- 23
One example I’ve seen discussed a lot is mass automated link building. Years ago, blasting thousands of low-quality links could sometimes produce surprisingly quick ranking movement. Today, it’s much less reliable and can create more problems than benefits.
The bigger change, in my opinion, is that search engines have become better at evaluating patterns rather than simply counting links. Things like topical relevance, link quality, content usefulness, and the overall site profile matter much more.
Nastrz
Newbie
- May 23, 2023
- 38
- 19
spun content man. thats the one that actually died, not the link building
back in the day you spun one article into 500 garbage versions and blasted it. that doesnt work anymore cause google reads it now. but the funny part is AI fixed this for us... now the same tiered blast gets real readable articles for pennies. the method is fine, the trash content is what stopped working
EMD is very powerful, especially if it's a local niche. Currently, I'm dominating one of the toughest and biggest profitable markets (not keyword market) with EMD plus GSA SER, Ranker X, and Money Robot links. If your EMDs are less than 60 days old, Google may penalize them if it's really tough, but keep building links and publishing content with interlinking. Get help with an AI agent and you can totally automate it. You're in one of the easiest ways to dominate the market if you're in the right niche.
back in the day you spun one article into 500 garbage versions and blasted it. that doesnt work anymore cause google reads it now. but the funny part is AI fixed this for us... now the same tiered blast gets real readable articles for pennies. the method is fine, the trash content is what stopped working
EMD is very powerful, especially if it's a local niche. Currently, I'm dominating one of the toughest and biggest profitable markets (not keyword market) with EMD plus GSA SER, Ranker X, and Money Robot links. If your EMDs are less than 60 days old, Google may penalize them if it's really tough, but keep building links and publishing content with interlinking. Get help with an AI agent and you can totally automate it. You're in one of the easiest ways to dominate the market if you're in the right niche.
- Aug 7, 2026
- 36
- 8
Probably mass spammy backlinks.. They used to work pretty well if you pushed enough of them but these days I dont see the same results
To me, the power of mass profiles or comment link building has waned to a great extent. it was still somewhat useful at times, but the era of easy blast thousands and ranks seems well over.
Mass links blasts are definitelly not as tolerant as they used to be tbh. u still see some temporary gains, but it was mch easier to torch the site than to does some thing more permanent.
Veltrixdigital
Newbie
- Aug 15, 2026
- 7
- 0
One black-hat tactic that has lost a lot of effectiveness is mass automated link building—especially thousands of low-quality forum, profile, comment, or PBN links created with the same anchor text.
Search engines have become much better at identifying unnatural link patterns, so sheer link volume doesn't necessarily translate into better rankings anymore. In some cases, it can even create a cleanup problem.
What works better now is focusing on relevant, genuinely useful content and earning or building a smaller number of contextually relevant links. The biggest change I've noticed is that relevance and overall site quality matter much more than simply increasing the backlink count.
Search engines have become much better at identifying unnatural link patterns, so sheer link volume doesn't necessarily translate into better rankings anymore. In some cases, it can even create a cleanup problem.
What works better now is focusing on relevant, genuinely useful content and earning or building a smaller number of contextually relevant links. The biggest change I've noticed is that relevance and overall site quality matter much more than simply increasing the backlink count.
CosmicBanana
Newbie
- Apr 30, 2026
- 16
- 15
I stopped using cheap backlink packages some time ago. They may give a small push, but I didn’t see much long term benefit from them.
kulsoombano
Newbie
- Jul 2, 2026
- 22
- 4
Low quality link networks seem less effective now.
RankVexa
Newbie
- Jul 19, 2026
- 26
- 3
One approach that seems much less reliable now is relying on large volumes of low-quality links. It may still create short-term movement in some cases, but it doesn't seem like a stable strategy to build around. I'd rather focus on fewer relevant links and improving the site itself than trying to push rankings with sheer link volume. The bigger change, in my view, is that shortcuts are harder to rely on consistently for long-term results.
gracetaylor
Newbie
- Jul 15, 2026
- 28
- 7
Mass comment link blogs were the kind that i would use here. These used to makes a difference because there were enough of them but now a lots of them were just ignored and filtered quickly.
ryanmcarter
Newbie
- Aug 17, 2026
- 18
- 5
For me it’s mass Web 2.0/profile link blasts. Years ago you could get movement just from volume, now most of that either gets ignored or leaves a very obvious footprint.
I’d rather build fewer links from pages that actually have relevance and some traffic.
I’d rather build fewer links from pages that actually have relevance and some traffic.