In the course of teaching yourself about the different SEO tools and techniques, you’ll come across terms such as black hat, white hat, and gray hat. They may be quite confusing, so to clear things up, let’s talk about them, beginning with black hat.

Black hat refers to the tools and techniques used to veer away from what is considered ethical in search engine optimization. It may have originated from the Western movies, where the villains often wear black hats to distinguish them from the heroes.

Many SEO experts try to practice black hats for one reason: fast online prominence. Black hat often brings very high page rank and thus traffic in only a very short time. But since they are unfair tactics, they are frowned upon not just by the rest of the industry but also by search engines.

That’s why one of the biggest consequences is a penalty. Search engines can downgrade your page rank, making it difficult for your target niche to find you. Worse, they can remove and ban your website’s domain.