What is Black Hat Data Science? | Vincent Granville

There are many ways that people and companies attempt to increase engagement online. Black hat data science is one of those methods but is considered highly unethical. It refers to methods used to increase search engine optimization while going against the guidelines set up by search engines. Examples of black hat techniques include cloaking, link manipulation, and article spinning.

Search engine optimization is incredibly important for businesses today. More than ever, customers rely on Google and Bing to find service providers. This means that nearly everyone is desperate to increase their page ranking. Being on page one means getting seen by nearly everyone. Being on page five can feel like a disaster.

Webmasters can use a lot of white hat techniques to ensure good placement in search engine results. However, the less scrupulous ones can also turn to black hat strategies. These styles of doing business take their names from the conventions of old Westerns, where heroes wore white hats and villains wore black ones. Black hat SEO tactics can have short-term gains. However, they can also get the people who use them banned from search engines like Google and Bing. Search engines view black hat tactics as similar to hacking. While they don't physically access data, they do tamper with algorithms in other ways.

Some people do advocate black hat data manipulation techniques in limited circumstances. Examples of this include using black hat techniques to fight back against injustices online. For example, in the restaurant space, some business owners will write fake, negative reviews about competitors. A black hat manipulation technique would be to post equally fake positive reviews, to drown out the bad ones. This could be seen as leveling the playing field.

Another common example of black hat manipulation online is fake Twitter accounts. Popular accounts with lots of followers are promoted to other potential followers. Using bots to generate fake Twitter accounts from different IP addresses is a quick way to increase numbers. Twitter periodically purges bots, but in the short-term, this can be an effective strategy to make the leap to influencer status.

Black hat data science is widely reviled. Search engines and social media outlets like Twitter encourage people to report it. Using black hat techniques can mean being banned from major search engines. Taking part in black hat tactics may seem like a good idea at first, but after weighing the negatives, it won't be worth your while.

This was originally posted on VincentGranville.io