Research Article
a
June
2018
Computer Science and Software Engineering
ISSN: 2277-128X (Volume-8, Issue-6)
Conversion of Website Users to Customers-The Black Hat
SEO Technique
Rotimi-Williams Bello1, Firstman Noah Otobo2
1, 2
Department of Mathematical Sciences, University of Africa, Toru-Orua, Bayelsa State, Nigeria Email- [email protected], [email protected]
Abstract: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a technique which helps search engines to find and rank one site over another in response to a search query. SEO thus helps site owners to get traffic from search engines. Although the basic principle of operation of all search engines is the same, the minor differences between them lead to major changes in results relevancy. Choosing the right keywords to optimize for is thus the first and most crucial step to a successful SEO campaign. In the context of SEO, keyword density can be used as a factor in determining whether a webpage is relevant to a specified keyword or keyword phrase. SEO is known for its contribution as a process that affects the online visibility of a website or a webpage in a web search engine's results. In general, the earlier (or higher ranked on the search results page), and more frequently a website appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine's users; these visitors can then be converted into customers. It is the objective of this paper to re-present black hat SEO technique as an unprofessional but profitable method of converting website users to customers. Having studied and understood white hat SEO, black hat SEO, gray hat SEO, crawling, indexing, processing and retrieving methods used by search engines as a web software program or web based script to search for documents and files for keywords over the internet to return the list of results containing those keywords; it would be seen that proper application of SEO gives website a better user experience, SEO helps build brand awareness through high rankings, SEO helps circumvent competition, and SEO gives room for high increased return on investment.
Keyword-SEO; White hat SEO; Black hat SEO; Gray hat SEO; Traffic; Crawling; and Indexing
I. INTRODUCTION
ISSN(E): 2277-128X, ISSN(P): 2277-6451, pp. 29-35
method of converting website users to customers becomes the objective of this paper. Having studied and understood white hat SEO, black hat SEO, gray hat SEO, crawling, indexing, processing and retrieving methods used by search engines as a web software program or web based script to search for documents and files for keywords over the internet to return the list of results containing those keywords; proper application of SEO gives website a better user experience, SEO helps build brand awareness through high rankings, SEO helps circumvent competition, and SEO gives room for high increased return on investment.
Fig. 1: Different types of search engines
II. LITERATURE REVIEW
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This type of optimization is well supported and appreciated by all search engines, mainly by Google. Because this technique of SEO is a natural way to achieve better results, if the website is regularly updated with quality and unique content, gets better links from relevant niche websites and blogs. This means that the webmaster does not take a single attempt to mislead search engine and does not try to cheat. Gray hat SEO is when webmasters use some irrelevant techniques to optimize their website. Simply put, we can say that optimizer may buy or exchange links with other websites to get better search engine ranking but it will not be accepted by the search engines. This technique is not long term for search engine ranking. If a webmaster or optimizer is doing spamming in link building or making irrelevant links with some irrelevant niche websites, this will be considered as black hat SEO technique. This technique of SEO is very dangerous for long term results because of the regular updates in search engine algorithm crawler will easily judge the spammed techniques to optimize websites.
Fig. 2. SEO in 2018
ISSN(E): 2277-128X, ISSN(P): 2277-6451, pp. 29-35
and outbound links. Pages which have higher rank are most important and it has chances to be listed on search engine‟s top result list. Page Rank value is divided into levels 1-10 of which 10 represents higher PR value means that page is more popular while Page Rank value 1 means page is not popular. The webpage which got position among first 25 top results, PR value should be 6 or above [14]. The Page Rank values are pre-calculated and stored for all pages known to the IR system. This means every page in the web has a Page Rank score that is entirely independent of query terms.
Fig. 3. Internet users in the world by regions-December 31, 2017
A search that returns Page Rank scores is reporting the significance hierarchy of pages containing the query terms [15]. It is a value in number out of ten (10) which Google toolbar gives on basis of numerous factors and can be seen using Google toolbar or SEO tools. Page Rank is an exceptional way to prioritize the results of web keyword searches in order. For most admired subjects, a simple text matching search that is restricted to webpage titles carry out commendably when Page Rank prioritizes the results. The major factor Page Rank depends upon is the back links to a website. Page Rank widens this idea by not counting links from all pages equally, and by normalizing by the number of links on a page. Suppose t1, t2...tn are pages linking to page A, then Page A has its PR value as follows:
PR(A) = (1-d) + d { PR(t1)/C(t1)+PR(t2)/C(t2)+...+PR(tn)/C(tn) } (1)
where d is damping coefficient, usually its value is 0.85. PR(t1)...PR(tn) is page t1 to tn Page Rank value, C(ti) means number of outgoing links page ti.PR(ti)/C(ti) means page ti‟s contribution to page A‟s PR value. It is important to consider that Page Ranks form a probability distribution over web pages, so the sum of all web pages‟ Page Ranks will be one [16].
III. BLACK HAT SEO TECHNIQUES
Black Hat SEO implements malicious website ranking optimization techniques which violates the search engine optimization rules. Implementing black hat techniques may result in a short term rise in organic listings. However, if it is discovered by the search engines those websites who use black hat techniques then those sites may be penalized (by demoting it further down the rankings) or removal from its index completely. Being penalized will obviously have a major impact on a site‟s reputation and performance in the future. Black hat SEO techniques include using hidden words and links (invisible to the user) in attempt to deceive search engines. Keyword stuffing consists of over loading a webpage with keywords or irrelevant keywords in order to manipulate a site ranking. (Adam, 2010)
The main Black-Hat SEO methods are as follows: [17]
III.I Keyword Stuffing
Stuffing large pile of keywords in the webpage causes increase in keyword density of the page. The keyword density is a factor which can increase page relevance for keywords. [17] This means, adding too much keyword in a single paragraph to make that keyword importance for search engine.
III.II Doorway Pages
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Fig. 4. Flow diagram activity of black hat SEO
III.III Content Generator
It is practice by Software that searches the web for specified content and then copies that content into a new webpage. These so-called content generators in fact search the web for keywords and terms specified by the optimizer. The software then mainly copies content from other sites and includes it in the new one. Content generators represent a problem for legitimate web owners as their original content may be copied extensively. Since some search engines penalize duplicate content, legitimate sites may also be penalized. [18]
III.IV Cloaked Page (Cloaking)
Programs or scripts are used to detect whether the access is the search engine or a normal user. If it is search engine, there will return optimized web pages. If it is the common people, the return will be another version. [17] The purpose of cloaking is to get high rankings on all of the major search engines. Since each search engine uses a different ranking algorithm, a page that ranks well on one may not necessarily rank well on the others. Since users will not see a cloaked page, it can contain only optimized text, as no design elements are needed. So the black hat optimizer will set up a normal web site and individual, text only, pages for each of the search engines. The final step is to examine requesting IP addresses. Since the IP addresses for most of the major search engine spiders are well known, the optimizer can serve the appropriate page to the correct spider. [18]
III.V Hidden Text/Link
The keywords are put into the HTML files. However, these words cannot be seen by users or naked eyes, but search engine can only recognize. [17] For example, the text presented with the same colour scheme as the corresponding webpage has. As for the link, when the keywords are put into the link, the link becomes invisible to the user. [17]
III.VI HTML Injection
HTML injection occurs when a user utilizes security vulnerability in web site search programs, by sending the program a search string which contains special HTML characters. These characters source the insertion of data specified by the user into the site. It allows optimizers to include a link in search programs that run on another site. For example, WebGlimpse is a web site search program widely used on academia and government web sites. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy web site located at plato.stanford.edu, which has a Google Page Rank of 8 (links from sites with a high Page Rank are highly valued), uses the WebGlimpse package. So an optimizer that would like a link from
this authority site could simply navigate to http://plato.stanford.edu/cgibin/
ISSN(E): 2277-128X, ISSN(P): 2277-6451, pp. 29-35 III.VII Blog-ping (BP)
It is method for attracting search engine spiders that involves the making of hundreds (or even thousands) of blogs and then continuously pinging blog servers (telling the servers that the blog has been updated). [18] For example, webpage is also submitted to number of websites available like pingomatic.com. It offers the practitioners to inform search engines automatically about the websites or blogs latest updates and changes in web pages. It helps the search engine spiders and crawler to index new created pages faster.
IV. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
SEO has enabled many website owners to gain customers [2], [6-8], among the benefits that such optimization brought are: (1) proper application of SEO gives website a better user experience: one of the major factors for Google ranking is user experience (UX). SEO also serves benefits to small businesses in that, when Google spider crawls a website, the bot would want to embrace a mobile-friendly web design, well optimized contents (videos, images etc.), and of course a better good user indicators (low bounce rate etc.). These factors are all fundamental for the provision of a better user experience for website visitors as well. What this means is that when a website is optimized, automatically UX is being improved. And a good user experience will attract even higher conversion rates, more credibility and will boost brand loyalty. (2) SEO helps build brand awareness through high rankings: as one of the major benefits of SEO for small businesses, site will attract more brand loyalists through high rankings in search engines. SEO also serves benefits to small businesses in that, when it is necessary to know that ranking on the first page or even number one in search engine result pages (SERPs) is also possible through brand awareness. And if rank is not well carried out on search engine, when people search for services or products related to your niche, you won‟t be found on the SERPs. It‟s one thing to create a website and another thing to have a good online presence. This means that, SEO will help you to build your online presence and make your business visible to your prospects. Small businesses that need to build their brand and also create awareness can invest in SEO by hiring the services of an SEO expert and enjoy the huge benefits of been found on the front pages of search engines. Today, every internet users looks up virtually everything they want on search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc), so imagine when a website rank low in SEO – thousands of people searching for a product will not even know that such a product exist and they will end up on optimized website and get the services they want. This is one of the reasons why fraudulent webmasters opt for black hat SEO by all means (3) SEO will help circumvent competition: as a small business, proper application of SEO strategies will help bypass competition. It is beneficial to businesses that actually embrace SEO than those that pay little or no attention to SEO – this is no brainer. Let‟s make a case- two businesses in the same niche offers similar products and services, at similar cost and also equal in terms of strength. It happens that one out of the two businesses has optimized website and the other one doesn‟t have. Between these two businesses, which do you think will have more traffic and possible leads? Do not take for granted the power of search engines and SEO. Besides, while you‟re still contemplating on whether or not to invest in SEO, your competitors are already enjoying the benefits. Why not invest and be at the same level with your competitors or even rank above them. A simple unique method from a SEO professional will place you on a better position on search engines. (4) High increased return on investment: as a small business with intent to maximize profit, SEO has a beneficial role play in your business. Having an optimized webpage will help drive traffic to business and possibly convert leads to instant paying customers. The good thing about SEO technique is that you don‟t have to bother yourself with expenses or campaigns to drive traffic to your site. Once your site is well organized, optimized, and command good contents, it will definitely generate organic traffic to your business. Besides once your website is listed, you need just little updates to remain on the SERPs. However, considering the rate at which people use search engines to identify local businesses and to even know their locations, distance and directions as well, there are chances of high conversion rates and returns from people that visited your website. (5) SEO is awesome for social media: social media, as some people would say has become even more popular than the internet itself- no doubt. But then do you know that web pages with better rankings will also bring more exposure to social media content? - Of course it does. So, one can rightly say that both social media and SEO have something in common – generates traffic and complement each other. In other words, the overwhelming popularity of social media is really good for SEO and in return, SEO gives more social vis ibility to social media.
V. CONCLUSION
ISSN(E): 2277-128X, ISSN(P): 2277-6451, pp. 29-35
contribution as a process that affects the online visibility of a website or a webpage in a web search engine's results. Black hat SEO implements malicious website ranking optimization techniques which violates the search engine optimization rules. Implementing black hat techniques may result in a short term rise in organic listings. However, if it is discovered by the search engines those websites who use black hat techniques then those sites may be penalized (by demoting it further down the rankings) or removal from its index completely. Being penalized will obviously have a major impact on a site‟s reputation and performance in the future. Black hat SEO techniques include using hidden words and links (invisible to the user) in attempt to deceive search engines. Keyword stuffing consists of over loading a webpage with keywords or irrelevant keywords in order to manipulate a site ranking.
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