[26-Feb-2026 00:31:13 America/Chicago] PHP Warning: Use of undefined constant ABSPATH - assumed 'ABSPATH' (this will throw an Error in a future version of PHP) in /home/touchmob/crazyleafdesign.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/thrive-visual-editor/thrive-dashboard/inc/app-notification/classes/DbMigration.php on line 2 [26-Feb-2026 00:31:13 America/Chicago] PHP Warning: require_once(ABSPATHwp-admin/includes/upgrade.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/touchmob/crazyleafdesign.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/thrive-visual-editor/thrive-dashboard/inc/app-notification/classes/DbMigration.php on line 2 [26-Feb-2026 00:31:13 America/Chicago] PHP Fatal error: require_once(): Failed opening required 'ABSPATHwp-admin/includes/upgrade.php' (include_path='.:/opt/cpanel/ea-php74/root/usr/share/pear') in /home/touchmob/crazyleafdesign.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/thrive-visual-editor/thrive-dashboard/inc/app-notification/classes/DbMigration.php on line 2 [01-Mar-2026 07:45:51 America/Chicago] PHP Warning: Use of undefined constant ABSPATH - assumed 'ABSPATH' (this will throw an Error in a future version of PHP) in /home/touchmob/crazyleafdesign.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/thrive-visual-editor/thrive-dashboard/inc/app-notification/classes/DbMigration.php on line 2 [01-Mar-2026 07:45:51 America/Chicago] PHP Warning: require_once(ABSPATHwp-admin/includes/upgrade.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/touchmob/crazyleafdesign.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/thrive-visual-editor/thrive-dashboard/inc/app-notification/classes/DbMigration.php on line 2 [01-Mar-2026 07:45:51 America/Chicago] PHP Fatal error: require_once(): Failed opening required 'ABSPATHwp-admin/includes/upgrade.php' (include_path='.:/opt/cpanel/ea-php74/root/usr/share/pear') in /home/touchmob/crazyleafdesign.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/thrive-visual-editor/thrive-dashboard/inc/app-notification/classes/DbMigration.php on line 2 [01-Mar-2026 18:48:26 America/Chicago] PHP Warning: Use of undefined constant ABSPATH - assumed 'ABSPATH' (this will throw an Error in a future version of PHP) in /home/touchmob/crazyleafdesign.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/thrive-visual-editor/thrive-dashboard/inc/app-notification/classes/DbMigration.php on line 2 [01-Mar-2026 18:48:26 America/Chicago] PHP Warning: require_once(ABSPATHwp-admin/includes/upgrade.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/touchmob/crazyleafdesign.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/thrive-visual-editor/thrive-dashboard/inc/app-notification/classes/DbMigration.php on line 2 [01-Mar-2026 18:48:26 America/Chicago] PHP Fatal error: require_once(): Failed opening required 'ABSPATHwp-admin/includes/upgrade.php' (include_path='.:/opt/cpanel/ea-php74/root/usr/share/pear') in /home/touchmob/crazyleafdesign.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/thrive-visual-editor/thrive-dashboard/inc/app-notification/classes/DbMigration.php on line 2 [06-Mar-2026 13:14:53 America/Chicago] PHP Warning: Use of undefined constant ABSPATH - assumed 'ABSPATH' (this will throw an Error in a future version of PHP) in /home/touchmob/crazyleafdesign.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/thrive-visual-editor/thrive-dashboard/inc/app-notification/classes/DbMigration.php on line 2 [06-Mar-2026 13:14:53 America/Chicago] PHP Warning: require_once(ABSPATHwp-admin/includes/upgrade.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/touchmob/crazyleafdesign.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/thrive-visual-editor/thrive-dashboard/inc/app-notification/classes/DbMigration.php on line 2 [06-Mar-2026 13:14:53 America/Chicago] PHP Fatal error: require_once(): Failed opening required 'ABSPATHwp-admin/includes/upgrade.php' (include_path='.:/opt/cpanel/ea-php74/root/usr/share/pear') in /home/touchmob/crazyleafdesign.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/thrive-visual-editor/thrive-dashboard/inc/app-notification/classes/DbMigration.php on line 2 [08-Mar-2026 11:47:41 America/Chicago] PHP Warning: Use of undefined constant ABSPATH - assumed 'ABSPATH' (this will throw an Error in a future version of PHP) in /home/touchmob/crazyleafdesign.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/thrive-visual-editor/thrive-dashboard/inc/app-notification/classes/DbMigration.php on line 2 [08-Mar-2026 11:47:41 America/Chicago] PHP Warning: require_once(ABSPATHwp-admin/includes/upgrade.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/touchmob/crazyleafdesign.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/thrive-visual-editor/thrive-dashboard/inc/app-notification/classes/DbMigration.php on line 2 [08-Mar-2026 11:47:41 America/Chicago] PHP Fatal error: require_once(): Failed opening required 'ABSPATHwp-admin/includes/upgrade.php' (include_path='.:/opt/cpanel/ea-php74/root/usr/share/pear') in /home/touchmob/crazyleafdesign.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/thrive-visual-editor/thrive-dashboard/inc/app-notification/classes/DbMigration.php on line 2 [20-Mar-2026 17:37:48 America/Chicago] PHP Warning: Use of undefined constant ABSPATH - assumed 'ABSPATH' (this will throw an Error in a future version of PHP) in /home/touchmob/crazyleafdesign.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/thrive-visual-editor/thrive-dashboard/inc/app-notification/classes/DbMigration.php on line 2 [20-Mar-2026 17:37:48 America/Chicago] PHP Warning: require_once(ABSPATHwp-admin/includes/upgrade.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/touchmob/crazyleafdesign.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/thrive-visual-editor/thrive-dashboard/inc/app-notification/classes/DbMigration.php on line 2 [20-Mar-2026 17:37:48 America/Chicago] PHP Fatal error: require_once(): Failed opening required 'ABSPATHwp-admin/includes/upgrade.php' (include_path='.:/opt/cpanel/ea-php74/root/usr/share/pear') in /home/touchmob/crazyleafdesign.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/thrive-visual-editor/thrive-dashboard/inc/app-notification/classes/DbMigration.php on line 2 [20-Mar-2026 17:37:53 America/Chicago] PHP Warning: Use of undefined constant ABSPATH - assumed 'ABSPATH' (this will throw an Error in a future version of PHP) in /home/touchmob/crazyleafdesign.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/thrive-visual-editor/thrive-dashboard/inc/app-notification/classes/DbMigration.php on line 2 [20-Mar-2026 17:37:53 America/Chicago] PHP Warning: require_once(ABSPATHwp-admin/includes/upgrade.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/touchmob/crazyleafdesign.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/thrive-visual-editor/thrive-dashboard/inc/app-notification/classes/DbMigration.php on line 2 [20-Mar-2026 17:37:53 America/Chicago] PHP Fatal error: require_once(): Failed opening required 'ABSPATHwp-admin/includes/upgrade.php' (include_path='.:/opt/cpanel/ea-php74/root/usr/share/pear') in /home/touchmob/crazyleafdesign.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/thrive-visual-editor/thrive-dashboard/inc/app-notification/classes/DbMigration.php on line 2 [27-Mar-2026 14:07:52 America/Chicago] PHP Warning: Use of undefined constant ABSPATH - assumed 'ABSPATH' (this will throw an Error in a future version of PHP) in /home/touchmob/crazyleafdesign.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/thrive-visual-editor/thrive-dashboard/inc/app-notification/classes/DbMigration.php on line 2 [27-Mar-2026 14:07:52 America/Chicago] PHP Warning: require_once(ABSPATHwp-admin/includes/upgrade.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/touchmob/crazyleafdesign.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/thrive-visual-editor/thrive-dashboard/inc/app-notification/classes/DbMigration.php on line 2 [27-Mar-2026 14:07:52 America/Chicago] PHP Fatal error: require_once(): Failed opening required 'ABSPATHwp-admin/includes/upgrade.php' (include_path='.:/opt/cpanel/ea-php74/root/usr/share/pear') in /home/touchmob/crazyleafdesign.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/thrive-visual-editor/thrive-dashboard/inc/app-notification/classes/DbMigration.php on line 2 [29-Mar-2026 10:21:48 America/Chicago] PHP Warning: Use of undefined constant ABSPATH - assumed 'ABSPATH' (this will throw an Error in a future version of PHP) in /home/touchmob/crazyleafdesign.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/thrive-visual-editor/thrive-dashboard/inc/app-notification/classes/DbMigration.php on line 2 [29-Mar-2026 10:21:48 America/Chicago] PHP Warning: require_once(ABSPATHwp-admin/includes/upgrade.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/touchmob/crazyleafdesign.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/thrive-visual-editor/thrive-dashboard/inc/app-notification/classes/DbMigration.php on line 2 [29-Mar-2026 10:21:48 America/Chicago] PHP Fatal error: require_once(): Failed opening required 'ABSPATHwp-admin/includes/upgrade.php' (include_path='.:/opt/cpanel/ea-php74/root/usr/share/pear') in /home/touchmob/crazyleafdesign.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/thrive-visual-editor/thrive-dashboard/inc/app-notification/classes/DbMigration.php on line 2 {"id":25609,"date":"2017-12-13T02:47:29","date_gmt":"2017-12-12T18:47:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crazyleafdesign.com\/blog\/?p=25609"},"modified":"2018-06-19T18:25:00","modified_gmt":"2018-06-19T10:25:00","slug":"seo-best-practice-or-seo-self-sabotage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crazyleafdesign.com\/blog\/seo-best-practice-or-seo-self-sabotage\/","title":{"rendered":"SEO Best Practice or SEO Self-Sabotage? How to Conduct a Clean Campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"
For many individual website owners and businesses who are new to SEO, their only goal is to improve their search engine rankings. They\u2019ll do anything to get their service sitting comfortably at the top of the search page.<\/p>\n
Most novices who want their website or business to rank higher on Google use a number of different SEO tactics, and some days will show sudden gains, and other days they\u2019ll see no progress at all. When you\u2019re employing so many different tactics at once, it\u2019s hard to tell what\u2019s working and what isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
However, one thing many newbies to SEO overlook is that not all SEO tactics are created equal. In fact, SEO tactics can be quite easily divided into \u201cgoodies\u201d and \u201cbaddies\u201d.<\/p>\n
Some tactics you might think are helping your website improve its search engine rankings, could be hindering it.<\/p>\n
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Google punishes websites which use \u2018cowboy\u2019 SEO tactics. Their algorithm can detect when a website is using \u2018black hat SEO\u2019 – which are attempts to cheat the system – and the site is then punished accordingly. This doesn\u2019t just happen to small websites \u2013 both BMW and JC Penney have been removed from Google\u2019s front page for dodgy SEO.<\/p>\n
For a small business owner or website, it\u2019s important to conduct a clean SEO campaign. Otherwise, months of hard work can easily disappear overnight, when Google\u2019s algorithm realizes you\u2019ve been trying to cheat the system. You can be on the front page one day, and miles away from it on the next.<\/p>\n
Here we\u2019re going to break down to explain the difference between Black Hat SEO, which amounts to self-sabotage, and a White Hat SEO campaign, which will bring you sustained growth.<\/p>\n
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Black Hat SEO is the equivalent of getting a lift in a car to finish first in a marathon.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s cheating the terms of service of search engines like Google and Bing to get to the top of the front page. It\u2019s called \u2018Black Hat SEO\u2019 because of the bad guys in cowboy movies, who always wore a black Stetson.<\/p>\n
Although using Black Hat tactics may mean an increase of traffic and some gains in the short term, the negative repercussions of using these tactics is long-term. The worst-case scenario of using Black Hat tactics is being banned from the search engine, which means being isolated from the steadiest stream of internet traffic. This can be disastrous for a business that wants sustained growth.<\/p>\n
Examples of Black Hat SEO include:<\/p>\n
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If your SEO services<\/a> are clean, aka White Hat, and above board, you have a great chance of increasing your search engine rankings in an organic and sustainable way.<\/p>\n White Hat SEO is all about making content for a human audience, not for a search engine algorithm. This kind of SEO practice guarantees Google won\u2019t punish you, because everything is above board and you\u2019re obeying all the rules of the search engine.<\/p>\n Websites that focus on relevant content, which is well written and useful, are noticed by Google and rewarded by ranking higher on Google\u2019s pages. Google also rewards websites that people naturally gravitate towards, through relevant and \u2018organic\u2019 prompting.<\/p>\n Here are the best ways to conduct a clean SEO campaign:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For many individual website owners and businesses who are new to SEO, their only goal is to improve their search engine rankings. More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25610,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2201],"tags":[1050],"adace-sponsor":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-25609","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-marketing","8":"tag-seo"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n
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