Predatory SEO
noun
A service provider or other malicious actor with administrator access granted to them by a website owner or business that abuses this access to a website in order to use keywords in the website’s copy to build links to their own site or otherwise abuse the site for their own immediate SEO gain or to gain financially by helping improve the SEO of another client or website.

Examples

Examples 1:
An SEO agency gains access to a local website and injects links to their website from the client’s local keywords. For example linking the word “Dallas” in their client’s copy to their page about “Dallas SEO” on their website.

Example 2:
A website designer builds a website and inserts a link to their business in the footer when the site is completed. This is not predatory on it’s own (though you shouldn’t do this, and businesses should always remove this link) since the client is given editorial review of the site and the ability to remove the link at any time. However, months later someone offers to pay that designer $,$$$ to insert a link to their site in the footer as well and the designer obliges, this is Predatory SEO as the designer abused the clients site to aid the rankings of another business and financially benefites from teh arrangement without the client’s knowledge.