Well, it sort of is black hat seo, but it doesn’t do a thing at all nowdays.  Like the article says, google completely ignores them.

First off those that say Google ignores meta tags are confusing the issue, because Google does use the Metatag input that you supply in their algorythm, the issue is how does it add value.

Second if You use a word in the meta tags but do not use the words within the content of the page, you may be in for a surprise, and you will find yourself droping in the search order.

So if you use your competitors name in the meta tags but not in you page you are shooting yourself in the foot, as you will find some negative juice being used to dilute your hard earned positive points from googles algorythm.

Positive points are earned in many ways that will seem strange and confusing, as this include things like

• lingustic appeal
• lingusitic corectness
• spelling
• word flow orders
• html lay out and correctness of spacing lay outs and visual appeal
• defined target market goups in relation to words used

and these have nothing to do with the actual content which the end user sees when looking at his / her screen.

Then of course there is the issue of inbound links which is the real points multiplier, especialy when google can connect both the out going linkand the incomming link to other pages within each web site, and can determine that the recieving page is actualy an authority on the subject matter within the link anchor text.

so if your competitor scores high for certain key words on a specific page and you link your page to that page, you may be in for a pleasant surprise and score much higher in the SERP’s and you will need to evaluate just how much you have gained, and whether your competitor has also recieved an added bonus or not. 

these things need deep evaluation, but at all times remember that cheating will be punished when caught out, and that this punishment by Google and other search engines is not short lived, but remains part of your sites historical evidence, which is used extensively by the search engines algorythms. in some cases site owners have actualy abandoned specific domains once caught out for cheating on SEO as the search engines have banned these sites from their data bases, and in some extreme  cases even banned those who refer to them.

Using white on white isan obvious hide away technique that has long been considered ilegal and improper by search engines, so I am surprised at the case in point, and kind of woried about the impications. 

maybe blackhat.. 

It’s been pretty common for many companies, afiliates and other people do use their competitors keywords. However, from that point to make something dumb like this, well, they deserve what they are getting punished for.

So many rules

Great article

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if they ever do!? perhaps i should just advise my clients to threaten their competitors with taking them to court!

I have heard some stupid stuff but this is very stupid