Taking a multidisciplinary approach, the team at SEO Sydney introduces the notion of dark patterns – a common concept in user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) design, that shares a similar background with black hat SEO tactics. Today, we discuss the different types of dark patterns, and the damages they may bring to a website’s search index ranking, client base and reputation.
What are Dark Patterns?
For those unfamiliar with the term, dark patterns are user interface implementations designed to trick users into transactions or actions they may not agree to (mostly email newsletters or payment subscriptions). This is done through obscured or misleading information, and is essentially unethical or black hat UX, by way of exploiting user tendencies unjust gain.
For example, imagine you just landed on a website, immediately you are greeted by an alert message asking for permission to send you notifications (these may range from minor annoyances to malicious programs). There are two options, a coloured button and plain text besides it. Instinctively, you move your cursor to the plain button. It says “Accept”, that’s not what you want, you turn to your other option. What does it say?
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Dark Patterns Will Hurt You (and your search index ranking)
If you’re familiar with SEO or marketing, you’ll recognise the similarities between black hat SEO techniques and dark patterns. Both involve deception to benefit the company at the expense of customers, potentially leading to penalties like lower search index rankings from Google. Just as user experience is crucial for ethical SEO, dark patterns often accompany black hat strategies, exploiting human behaviour to deceive both users and search engines.
1. Misdirection in Dark Patterns: Hidden Text and User Manipulation
Misdirection is a common type of dark pattern. This often manifests in the form of hidden text that is designed to be skipped or misread. This is possible due to its surrounding visual elements diverting the user’s attention.
How often do you remember seeing the small, lighter text at the bottom of an input form? While hidden text for the purpose of SEO is intended to be out of the visitor’s sight and has a different purpose, hidden text is still acknowledged by this page of Google’s Quality Guidelines as deceptive.
Case study: The Impact of Dark Patterns on User Experience and SEO: A Tale of Two Platforms
In 2019, Experts Exchange, an IT help-forum website, was known to request payment from users for access to full answers. This could be recognised as a use of the misdirection dark pattern, as the hidden answers were only fully available for free if the user selected the less noticeable “View your complimentary solution” option. Although Experts Exchange has shifted towards a more open-access approach nowadays, the case study is still a notable example showcasing the dark pattern practice that can influence user experience and search index ranking.
(as of August 2019).
In terms of Experts Exchange’s Search Index ranking, they are far outperformed by Stack Overflow which offers similar services. Stack Overflow’s main difference is the absence of these payment prompts. If you search “excel cannot run the macro”, Experts Exchange’s solution for this basic problem is ranked lower than Stack Overflow’s and a few other websites’.
This is a significant advantage Stack Overflow has over Experts Exchange, given that topics about Excel are very common in Experts Exchange. For programming-related questions which are more of Stack Overflow’s domain, results from Experts Exchange cannot be found in the first page.
Aside from the lower ranking given by the search engine, Experts Exchange has a poorer reputation among users and visitors. It is no surprise users and visitors turn to alternatives that offer transparency and easier access to their services.
2. Disguised Advertisement: Pitfalls Underneath the Button
Another common type of dark pattern is disguised advertisement. Often, links to advertisements are disguised as a button a user or visitor thinks they need to click in order to proceed. This is considered “malicious behaviour”, according to this section of Google’s Quality Guidelines.
These dark patterns that resemble black hat SEO techniques are in violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. This will lead to Google lowering the website’s search index ranking or even warn visitors that it may be malicious.
3. Other Dark Pattern that Hurt Your Index Ranking
Some dark patterns lie in policies, such as roach motels (having a difficult cancellation process that involves contacting customer support), hidden charges and VATS and forced continuity (having to give your credit card details even when commencing a free trial). In these cases, search engine algorithms may not detect any problem but users and visitors often end up feeling cheated or frustrated.
The example above is of the forced continuity dark pattern. Where a service will offer a free trial but requests credit card or other billing details. The user will potentially forget to cancel their free trial and will be billed.
Consequences of Dark Patterns
1. Impact On Search Engine Ranking
Dark patterns that resemble black hat SEO techniques are in violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. This will lead to Google lowering the website’s search index ranking or even warn visitors that it may be malicious.
Furthermore, a website’s search index ranking can be damaged by visual, text and link-based dark patterns in other ways. Firstly, the authority of the website’s content can be undermined by these types of dark patterns. Then, it may also lead to a reduction in backlinks. Both of these can lower a website’s search index ranking.
However, not all dark patterns are similar to black hat SEO techniques, and thus, may not have their ranking lowered for being suspected of black hat SEO or being untrustworthy. Many websites with large user bases used or currently use dark patterns. Some big names are Youtube, Netflix and Quora.
Dark patterns are deceptive in nature, as a result they are unethical practices. However, they are usually not considered illegal. An exception is the case of a lawsuit against LinkedIn for misusing access to their users’ contacts.
Case Study: LinkedIn’s Legal Battle Over Dark Patterns
LinkedIn settled a $13 (USD) million lawsuit that is unlikely to be forgotten for a long time. In 2015, LinkedIn was ordered to compensate every user affected by their “Add Connections” feature. The lawsuit started in 2013, while LinkedIn began sending unauthorised invites in 2011. For the unfamiliar, this feature was present in LinkedIn’s Sign up process.
It appeared as a grey, smaller-sized font under the email input field that said it would import the user’s address book to suggest connections and manage contacts. However, what it actually did was use the access to the user’s address book to send email invites for LinkedIn’s service to the contacts in the address book with the user’s identity.
As of now, this feature has been changed. However, the impact of this dark pattern was significant and remains relevant today. Many users were not aware that LinkedIn spammed their contacts using their names. Much of the basis of the lawsuit surrounded users’ damaged professional reputations and relationships. It resulted in many users deleting their accounts and LinkedIn’s brand image suffering.
2. Impact on user experience
Search index ranking is affected by factors like dwell time, backlinks, content quality, visitor usage and satisfaction. Logically, upsetting site visitors and users through dark patterns in policies can still lower search index rankings.
Additionally, its use has more negative effects outside the context of search engine rankings.
While user research proved that people mostly skim-read information on websites and thus, will make mistakes and skip over information, they can recognise its characteristics well enough.
The website may end up in the Dark Pattern Hall of Shame. The Dark Pattern Hall of Shame is a collection of tweets where people point out dark patterns they encountered and the companies guilty of using them in their websites.
Summary and Further Reading – Avoiding Dark Patterns as Black Hat SEO
To summarise, dark patterns are tricks that are mostly hidden within websites. They are designed to trick users into actions they might not agree with. These actions benefit the business operating the website. They are disturbingly common even in trusted and well-known online services. Some dark patterns resemble black hat SEO techniques which search engines recognise. This will damage the site’s search engine ranking. Dark patterns may anger visitors and users, which can lead to a ruined reputation.
Dark patterns can be implemented unintentionally due to lack of information. Avoiding dark-pattern related problems (search-engine related and otherwise) is doable. People of all backgrounds should learn more about dark patterns and call them out when they recognise them. Raised awareness and less tolerance of dark patterns will help to fight deception and the use of it for profit at the expense of customers.
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