Black hat GEO is real – Here’s why you should pay attention

In the early days of SEO, ranking algorithms were easy to game with simple tactics that became known as “black hat” SEO – white text on a white background, hidden links, keyword stuffing, and paid link farms. 

Early algorithms weren’t sophisticated enough to detect these schemes, and sites that used them often ranked higher. 

Today, large language models power the next generation of search, and a new wave of black hat techniques are emerging to manipulate rankings and prompt results for advantage.

The AI content boom – and the temptation to cut corners

Up to 21% of U.S. users access AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot, Perplexity, and DeepSeek more than 10 times per month, according to SparkToro. 

Overall adoption has jumped from 8% in 2023 to 38% in 2025. 

It’s no surprise that brands are chasing visibility – especially while standards and best practices are still taking shape.

One clear sign of this shift is the surge in AI-generated content. Graphite.io and Axios report that the share of articles written by AI has now surpassed those created by humans.

Two years ago, Sports Illustrated was caught publishing AI-generated articles under fake writer profiles – a well-intentioned shortcut that backfired. 

The move damaged the brand’s credibility without driving additional traffic. 

Its authoritativeness, one of the pillars of Google’s E-E-A-T (experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness) framework, was compromised.

While Google continues to emphasize E-E-A-T as the North Star for quality, some brands are testing the limits. 

With powerful AI tools now able to execute these tactics faster and at scale, a new wave of black hat practices is emerging.

The new black hat GEO playbook

As black hat GEO gains traction, several distinct tactics are emerging – each designed to exploit how AI models interpret and rank content.

Mass AI-generated spam

LLMs are being used to automatically produce thousands of low-quality, keyword-stuffed articles, blog posts, or entire websites – often to build private blog networks (PBNs). 

The goal is sheer volume, which artificially boosts link authority and keyword rankings without human oversight or original insight.

Fake E-E-A-T signals

Search engines still prioritize experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. 

Black hat GEO now fabricates these signals using AI to:

• Create synthetic author personas with generated headshots and fake credentials.
• Mass-produce fake reviews and testimonials.
• Generate content that appears comprehensive but lacks genuine, human-validated experience.

LLM cloaking and manipulation

A more advanced form of cloaking, this tactic serves one version of content to AI crawlers – packed with hidden prompts, keywords, or deceptive schema markup – and another to human users. 

The goal is to trick the AI into citing or ranking the content more prominently.

Schema misuse for AI Overviews

Structured data helps AI understand context, but black hat users can inject misleading or irrelevant schema to misrepresent the page’s true purpose, forcing it into AI-generated answers or rich snippets for unrelated, high-value searches.

SERP poisoning with misinformation

AI can quickly generate high volumes of misleading or harmful content targeting competitor brands or industry terms. 

The aim is to damage reputations, manipulate rankings, and push legitimate content down in search results.

Dig deeper: Hidden prompt injection: The black hat trick AI outgrew

The real risks of black hat GEO

Even Google surfaces YouTube videos that explain how these tactics work. But just because they’re easy to find doesn’t mean they’re worth trying. 

The risks of engaging in – or being targeted by – black hat GEO are significant and far-reaching, threatening a brand’s visibility, revenue, and reputation.

Severe search engine penalties

Search engines like Google are deploying increasingly advanced AI-powered detection systems (such as SpamBrain) to identify and penalize these tactics.

• De-indexing: The most severe penalty is the complete removal of your website from search results, making you invisible to organic traffic.
• Manual actions: Human reviewers can issue manual penalties that lead to a sudden and drastic drop in rankings, requiring months of costly, intensive work to recover.
• Algorithmic downgrading: The site’s ranking for targeted keywords can be significantly suppressed, leading to a massive loss of traffic and potential customers.

Reputation and trust damage 

Black hat tactics inherently prioritize manipulation over user value, leading to poor user experience, spammy content, and deceptive practices.

• Loss of credibility: When users encounter irrelevant, incoherent, or keyword-stuffed content – or find that an AI-cited answer is baseless – it damages the perception of the brand’s expertise and honesty.
• Erosion of E-E-A-T: Since AI relies on E-E-A-T signals for authoritative responses, being caught fabricating these signals can permanently erode the brand’s trustworthiness in the eyes of the algorithm and the public.
• Malware distribution: In some extreme cases, cybercriminals use black hat SEO to poison search results, redirecting users to sites that install malware or exploit user data. If a brand’s site is compromised and used for such purposes, the damage is catastrophic.

AI changes the game – not the rules

The growth of AI-driven platforms is remarkable – but history tends to repeat itself. 

Black hat SEO in the age of LLMs is no different. 

While the tools have evolved, the principle remains the same: best practices win. 

Google has made that clear, and brands that stay focused on quality and authenticity will continue to rise above the noise.