If not present in search engine results, the business has no business in the internet.
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Google is a titan of the internet. It has been and still is. Bloggers and businesses have to abide by the guidelines of Google to be present in the web. Having more publicity accords higher ranking, more clicks, and more profits for most.
Not many will take time to know it, but it costs money to operate a search engine. These companies will have warehouses full of computers working as a system to fit the demands of worldwide searches, that is, 3 billion searches every day.
Searches can be optimized to rank on top. JCPenny, a retail store, took the “black hat” to be the earnest result when you searched for “jeans”, “furniture”, and other related products. This happened during the holiday season; and even if you typed in “Samsonite carry on luggage,” JCPenny will still be number one in results instead of Samsonite.com. Their online shopping sales spiked up.
The “black hat” is against the guidelines of Google. It is deceptive and is cheating. It is a monopoly and is unjust. Google has a robust preventing action against these modifications. Even overdoing SEO optimization, a legitimate way of increasing site rankings, can sink the site off the Google results. Google’s corrective action against Penny?
“On Wednesday evening, Google began what it calls a “manual action” against Penney, essentially demotions specifically aimed at the company. At 7 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday, J. C. Penney was still the No. 1 result for “Samsonite carry on luggage.” Two hours later, it was at No. 71. At 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Penney was No. 1 in searches for “living room furniture.” By 9 p.m., it had sunk to No. 68.
In other words, one moment Penney was the most visible online destination for living room furniture in the country. The next it was essentially buried.” (Segal, 2011)
I say it’s too late. Millions of online shoppers visited and sales are already made. It only shouts embarrassment for the company. German company BMW was also caught bringing out the “black hat” and suffered the same fate in 2006.
Search engine keywords messes up with creative writing. Online writers and publishers are not free to use words they will. They have to ensure that people will find them, and keyword is the way. HuffingtonPost forced keywords in “What Time Does The Superbowl Start” and it rewarded them rankings. I don’t do this; I’m for the freedom of word choices. However,
“..until Google stops rewarding bad writing and various annoying tricks, they’ll proliferate on the Web. Because, if nobody is reading the page, it doesn’t matter that it’s actually better written and contains more useful content than the pages that the search engines are sending readers to.” (Joyner, 2011)
Everything is one search away – publicizing everything. You can search the map to peek at the Imrali Island, a military forbidden zone. Military grounds, air bases, and highly secured prisons in Japan, Germany, Turkey, USA, and anywhere on Earth is searchable.
And when you have an interview or a date, you can know everything about the other person by merely searching the name. The ease of instant information has questions of security and ownership.
How does this industry secret rank to you?
Sources:Search Engine Optimization Dirty Secrets; Outside the Beltway
The Dirty Little Secrets of Search; The New York Times
Some Clear Facts About Google’s “Transparency” Report; RIAA
Moment Matters 
Very timely post for me. I was looking up SEO stuff a lot today. It wasn’t fun and this gives me another perspective.
I googled Black Hat techniques and was amazed at some of the sneaky things people do… even more amazed that it’s giant corporations doing it! World’s crazy.
For some reason google sounds scary.
If you wanted to write a well-written article or post, it would probably get buried. It’s a shame. Very interesting and great information. I don’t think I would be any good at optimization.
Clever marketing and media manipulation
It’d be swell if I could rank better on Google… 😉
Insightful case study. I write for my personal reason, not because I am good or bad at it. I pay very little attention to keywords or searchability. Guess that’s one reason why I don’t have much readers/followers? When I took a break from blogging, I lost 2/3 of my audience according to WP stats. Thank goodness I wasn’t checking in. Should I be frantic? I really don’t want more stress. So, maintaining freedom of word choices works for me…for now.
I feel like SEO is something I need to know more about one day but I agree with the person above who says it’s not something you would want to stress over…!! Great post – never heard of black hats before! Thx for stopping by my blog too : )
Your header says it all. Two thumbs up for this. Businesses who tops the result of Google are sure to earn far better than those who don’t. Web traffic isn’t really just traffic. It means profit for the business. The recent update gave importance to the authority of the sites that the business’ link and not just how many links are linking back to the website.
Ummmm, with the utmost respect ………. duh! What is not surprising? Is the amount of people who fall for it?
Back, in the dawn of internet time. Using a search engine properly was always, key. I suppose, “drilling down” is different now. Still as more people use it, the freedoms and information enjoyed now will begin to be censored and harder to find.
Not only that, but JCP seems to be endemic in retail. Given that it was almost dead a few years back. They obviously found that sweat shops in China were a better deal, than the ones in New York?