For Bad Actors, Pretty Much

While search-engine optimization (SEO)—the art of optimizing a web property for the highest possible search-engine returns—is not dead, the antics of those looking to game the system pretty much are. The reason: During the past few years, Google has gone out of its way to aggressively thwart practitioners of “black hat” SEO techniques, to the point where their tricks and ruses have been mostly neutralized.

Specifically, Google’s updates to its search-engine algorithm, with code names such as...