The web is saturated with all sorts of SEO advice and covers many topics which are both white hat and black hat practices. Search engines are updating their algorithms constantly and changes can range from minor, barely noticeable changes to major industry overhauling changes. It’s very important for the SEO specialist to keep up with the most recent changes and make adaptations to keep from being penalized. The updates are really geared towards combating black hat SEO practices but unfortunately sometimes well meaning websites receive penalties. In many cases this is due to using outdated SEO strategies which were effective at one time but are now outdated. There are several SEO practices that are outdated and are now considered to be black hat or bad practices. It’s best to avoid these outdated SEO practices.
Directory submissions used to be a valid, white hat SEO strategy. The goal of a directory was to offer a site on which content could be placed and then linked back to another website. Essentially, it was at that time a good way to get lots of inbound links which made it perfect for SEO purposes. However, with the recent updates to the Google algorithm, specifically the Penguin update, a once popular and legitimate practice has become black hat.