A lot of what is known as black hat SEO actually used to be legitimate, but a few people went a bit overboard and now these techniques are frowned upon by the general SEO community at large. These practices will actually provide short-term gains in terms of rankings, but if you are discovered utilizing these spammy techniques on your Web site, you run the risk of being penalized by search engines. This sort of SEO basically is a short-sighted solution to a long-term problem, which is creating a Web site that provides both a great user experience and all that goes with that.