LOL. You shouldn’t even ask that question =P. For one thing, it’s BLACK HAT! For other, well, let me first ‘introduce’ to you why people spam .

Perhaps very few things can illustrate ‘fierce’ competition as vividly as the “Web” and SEO. After all, how can one website compete with thousands of other websites ‘just like itself’–without any search engine optimization?

If the attention span of an average Internet user is as expansive as a search engine’s listing, then there’s nothing to worry about. Unfortunately, though, that is not the case. Very likely, a person conducting a search on the Internet will probably just browse through the top 3 to 5 SERPs (search engine results pages) and stop there. Website that get buried in the 10th page and onwards will probably not get too much attention if certain measures are not undertaken.

Those measures, of course, are search engine optimization (SEO). Experts in this field perform certain procedures which may be seen a “website boot camp” to get your website into fighting form that will compete in the top rankings of a search engine.

However, as it is with almost everything else, some shortcuts exist that are able to “cheat” search engines into placing a particular website at a high ranking, despite the fact that it offers no real information. These sets of shortcuts are called “spamming”.

SEO spam (spamming the search engine index or spamdexing) is a set of ‘black-hat’ SEO techniques that manipulate a website for the purpose of creating an unrealistic boost in its rankings on SERPs. Here are just some examples of black-hat SEO techniques used to spam the living heck out of the search engines. (Warning: Do not do this on your web-estate or any where!)

Black-Hat SEO Technique 1. Cloaking
When a website presents a set of information to a search engine different from a set the user is seeing, then cloaking has been done. What usually happens is that the web page’s code is relevant to the user’s search keywords, but when the user visits that particular web page, he user sees a document that has little or nothing to do with his search.

Black-Hat SEO Technique 2. Artificially Networked Sites
There is really nothing wrong with creating links between one site to another so long as the links are relevant and serve to connect useful information.

However, spammers who perform this black-hat SEO technique set up several web sites and link them together even the sites contain no real and useful information. The purpose for doing so is simply to create the illusion of a highly referenced site because of its density of links. If this is the case, then it can be considered spamming.

Black-Hat SEO Technique 3. Blog and Forum Spams
Online blogs and forums are a great source of information since it these formats are built to be updated within short intervals. This, in itself, what makes it a good reference for information, which is why search engines like to visit these sites and rank it well for the quality of information it holds.

However, spammers have taken advantage of this by flooding blogs and forums with irrelevant links to the websites they want to generate artificial ranking for. Not only are they cheating the search engine company by misleading a user to irrelevant information, they also interrupt the bloggers and the forum participants, which is downright rude.

Black-Hat SEO Technique 4. Hidden Text.
Similar to cloaking, hidden texts are meant to make search engines think that a page is about one thing, while it is actually about another. But it fools the search engine this way: the text that the search engine is able to reads is camouflaged by making the text font color the same as the background. What happens is that the user is unable to read what the search engine saw, and therefore may be looking at a document that is not related to the user’s search.

There are other black-hat techniques, too, but I don’t want to give you any wrong impression. O.K. O.K. Some other techniques are to create small, imperceptible links that a user can accidentally click on, thus generating more hits for a website even if the user had no intentions of visiting that site at all.

O.K. I hope you’re happy with ’some’ of those black-hat SEO techniques (not all of them!?! .

Anyway, by this time, you probably already know why people are spamming. It is basically a shortcut used by some “unscrupulous” website owners to make their website rank high on SERPs (with a high potential of getting their sites BANNED in the future by the search engines), or by some self-proclaimed SEO experts who use these spammy black-hat SEO techniques to get the arms and legs of their customers for doing little to no work .

BTW–now that you know who they are, and how they do it, here’s why you should not be tempted to the dark side and use these black-hat techniques for nothing than spamming:

1. The whole point of the Internet was to create a wealth of information that everyone can access and add to. The whole idea was to be able to create a place where information can be created and shared with others so that it can foster understanding without any physical boundary. Other results of this information have led to the development e-commerce and online businesses, which in itself is not necessarily a bad thing. It still contributes to a community of information and sharing.

2. Spamming is fundamentally profiting at someone else’s expense. A spammer profits by using other people to make his website rank higher than others without taking the necessary time and effort to make his website useful and relevant as what others have done.

3. It speaks poorly of website owners who see nothing but their own bottom lines in using the Internet. It is basically exploiting the trust and the willingness to share, which made the Internet such a promising venue for everyone.

4. Finally, it demeans honest ‘white-hat’ SEO experts (like me ) who take the time and effort to produce quality website and make it a point to follow the rules. Search engine marketing is helping to level the playing field so it can allow businesses of any to advertise right along side each other. And that is a commendable thing, which everyone should gladly support.

5.*Note to the spammers/black-hat SEOers: search engines, with billions of dollars at their disposal, are ALWAYS developing smarter technologies to detect spamming and black-hat SEO techniques in order to give users the best list of information from the Internet. Eventually, the black-hat/spamming techniques mentioned above may be eliminated. (Unfortunately, it is very likely other more sophisticated ones will come up).

On your part, you can report spammers to these search engines when you encounter them. The more people like you who do this, the easier it will be to apprehend these cheaters and make it more difficult for spammers to ‘perform’ their black-hat SEO rituals .

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With honed search engine optimization (SEO) techniques, any website can be listed in the top of the search engine results page (SERP).

This, of course, only happens when you know how to optimized site for the keyword/keyword phrase typed into the search box of Google, Yahoo, MSN, or other search engines.

Emerging on top of a search engine results page (first page) would unquestionably lead to more business for your company. That is why Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a “must”.

For years, BIG companies have employed services from numerous Search Engine Marketing (SEM) establishments or individual SEO experts to deal with search engine optimization. The price tags for these SEO services are usually astronomical for small online business owners who wish to ‘join’ the search engine race.

The SEO services provided by these search marketing experts usually involved developing a more informative and user-friendly website and also included pay-per-click (PPC)–as an additional ‘optional’ cost .

When compared to a PPC campaign (e.g. Google Adwords campaign) done by these SEO services, Do-It-Yourself SEO isn’t so bad–PERIOD . To simply put, optimizing your website YOURSELF for organic searches (search engine searches) can yield positive results at a ridiculously low cost, compared to those SEO services.

If you would like to have a hands-on experience with search engine optimization and can’t afford a third-party SEO service, below are some helpful SEO techniques/tips you can learn to “do it yourself” to rank high on the search engine:

SEO Technique 1: Take some ‘lots’ of time developing your website’s content.

“Content is king”–hopefully, you have heard that before. If not, now you have =P.

Anyway, for most search engine optimized websites, content–high quality content–is the key.

When writing the content of your web pages, remember not only to SEO the right number of keyword density (1% – 4%) but also to keep your readers interests in mind. Insert vital keywords which relate to your company’s products and services only when it’s appropriate. Again, you readers interests should come first. Why? Because–if they get bored, due to that bombardment of repeated keywords and your company’s products/services, they will RUN; and, then, you will have no ‘potential’ or ‘long-term’ customer to sell to (in the future .

*Make your SEO content brief but–above all–INFORMATIVE. (Just like this sentence .

The reason is that most Internet users do not actually read a website’s content word-for-word. They just skim through the text and concentrate on the ‘parts’ and ‘data’ that they need or find interesting. Yup, a 600-word article may be too boring or too long for the “average” Internet user .

Anyway, in addition to keeping SEO content and keyword density in mind, also remember to keep your FACTS up-to-date. Why? Come on–don’t you like things updated? I know I do, because this helps bring the visitors back to your website over-and-over again for more and more ‘updated’ information, a.k.a. NEW information (to them).

*By the way, don’t forget to include a lot of FREE helpful links, articles and guides when appropriate. Don’t be too stingy to give out external links to relevant sources .

(See how important this SEO technique is? It’s the longest that I have covered–and it’s the #1 technique of all SEO techniques I’ll discuss…more below).

SEO Technique 2: Make the overall design of your website especially user-friendly.

Let’s face it: if users can’t ‘use’ your website/navigate to where they want, THEY WILL LEAVE.

In most cases of web design, the rule–”The simpler, the better”–applies: K-I-S-S KISS! (Keep-It-Simple-Stupid!)

To ’simply’ put, don’t design your website in an overly-complicated way that users will find it too “frightening” to browse for their ‘data’ and ‘needs’.

Also, try to adapt your website design to your target market. If your target audience is of young teenagers, make sure that the colors and designs are funky, youthful, attention-grabbing, and appealing to their tastes.

For a more mature audience, you ‘might’ want to use subdued colors and have a more elegant theme for your overall website’s design.

So basically, a website that’s usable, accessible, and alluringly engaging to the target market will stay ’sticky’ to the targeted users (they’ll come back to your website over-and-over again–to be ‘easily’ entertained .

This–a site’s design based on the USER’S usability, accessibility, and interactivity–is probably the queen of “Content is King.” *Note how I emphasize USERS: site design may be queen, content may be king, but USER is GOD–at least to your income anyway .

SEO Technique 3: Vary the keyword for each individual web page.

Think of every possible keywords or phrases that will apply to your products and services. Each user, however, is different and may not necessarily use the keyword that you expect them to type in the search box/bar. There are free SEO tools that can help you find the ‘correct’ keywords for search engine optimization. This I’ll cover more in-depth in the SEO Keyword Research category. For now let’s move on to SEO technique #4.

SEO Technique 4: Make sure that your hyper-links are visible, accessible and informatively KEYWORD-LOADED to specifically relevant pages on your website.

Providing users with hyper-links or HTML links which are useful and easy to find is yet another way to optimize your website (your visitors that is . There’s another SEO technique, keyword-loaded anchor text in hyper-links, which I’ll discuss in details in the SEO Links category. I don’t want to stretch this post to a 700 words essay .

Anyway, for now let’s move on to the last SEO technique.

SEO Technique 5: Learn how to LEAD traffic to the right place of your website that lead to your Most-Want-Response (MWR).

Seriously, seek experts’ advises on this field if you do not know how to lead traffic to the ‘target’ of your site. You should consider developing a plan and investing in necessary tools (aside from the free ones) to drive traffic your way.

But, of course, you have to have a way to measure your Return On Investment (ROI), if you’ve decided to make the necessary investment. These not-so-free SEO tools (e.g. WordTracker, Link Assistant, etc.) are must-haves if you want to have the TREMENDOUS edge over your competitions without having to pay ‘astronomical’ fees to the third party SEO services.

These SEO tools are similar to what major SEO services use to empower their SEO techniques. Please remember that they are paid-to-use tools for a reason. These reasons, plus in-depth SEO tools’ reviews, will be discussed in my posts in the SEO Tools category.

Anyway, that ends my rambling on “Do-It-Yourself SEO Techniques and Third Party SEO Services.” I hope it’s not too long or over 700 words .

• What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?
• 9 SEO Tips to Out-Flank Your Opponent in the Search Engine War
• Spamming is Not a Good Black-Hat SEO Technique
• Why Yahoo New Robots-Nocontent Tag Will Have Little Use
• The Best WordPress Blog Title Structure