Who's Wearing a Black Hat on the Wild Wild Web?

If you've been working the web for any length of time, then you know the search engines frown on what is known as "Black Hat" techniques. This technology has been used to exploit search engine algorithms since the first search engines appeared.  The reason black hatting used to be popular was because it could move your website onto Page 1 in a hurry. Before the turn of the century, black hatting was practically a requirement, since the practice was so prevalent. However, during the past few years, search engine operators have designed their spiders to search and destroy anyone employing black hat techniques.  In fact, the past half dozen updates on Google have been designed specifically to crack down sites that were using these techniques.  This has resulted in a number of sites being either delisted or even black listed.  The problem is that most people still don't understand where the line in the sand has been drawn regarding black hat practices and technology. So in this episode we're going to show you who is wearing a black hat on the Wild Wild Web.  We'll also review some of the more common black hat-like techniques that can get you into trouble so you'll know to avoid doing them.