{"id":21880,"date":"2019-11-08T07:00:59","date_gmt":"2019-11-08T12:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.junglescout.com\/?p=21880"},"modified":"2022-11-25T19:22:42","modified_gmt":"2022-11-26T00:22:42","slug":"avoid-black-hat-tactics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.junglescout.com\/blog\/avoid-black-hat-tactics\/","title":{"rendered":"Play by the Rules or Get Sued — How Amazon Is Cracking Down on Black Hat Sellers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Fake reviews, search engine manipulation, and other dirty tactics won’t win you a lot of friends with the big, orange ecommerce giant in Washington State. <\/span><\/p>\n

According to <\/span>GeekWire<\/span><\/a>, Amazon is suing two “Amazon seller gurus” for overpromising on Amazon success, giving paying customers tips on “fake reviews, dishonest marketing, infringement of Amazon’s trademarks” and more. <\/span><\/p>\n

The gurus promised get-rich-quick schemes using Amazon. <\/span><\/p>\n

But as we’ll cover in this article, Amazon is not a get-rich-quick scheme, and thinking like that could place you on Amazon’s legal team’s bad side.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why do Amazon sellers continue to use black hat practices?<\/span><\/h2>\n

Some of the paint points many new Amazon sellers face include difficulty in getting reviews, increased competition, and an ever-changing marketplace. <\/span><\/p>\n

Since the <\/span>infamous <\/span>October 2016 change<\/span><\/a> in Amazon’s terms of service — <\/span>which changed to forbid the practice of giving away free or heavily discounted products in exchange for product reviews — many sellers feel that getting reviews on new products has become increasingly difficult. <\/span><\/p>\n

They believe it’s tough to sell a product if it has zero or few reviews.<\/span><\/p>\n

And a product with one bad review can effectively ruin a product’s chances of performing well on Amazon. Therefore, desperate sellers use services like the aforementioned bad actor “gurus” offered to help them get around these hurdles.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here are a few of the consequences you could face if you’re caught using black hat tactics:<\/span><\/h4>\n