Mobile-Net

SEO Strategy: Black, Grey, and White Hat SEO

An SEO strategy is usually referred to as being white, black, or grey- depending upon what search engine optimization practices and techniques are being used.  In general, black hat SEO utilizes techniques that are unethical and normally in violation of a search engine's policies.  White hat SEO makes use of well-established practices that are in-line with policies created by the search engines.  Grey hat SEO is…well, a grey area.  Grey hat SEO may make use of both white hat and black hat techniques, or it may utilize practices that are questionable enough to not easily be classified as either.  Whatever the case may be, white hat techniques are considered the safest and most legitimate tactics- although not every SEO expert or web developer agrees.

 

Many SEO consultants believe that it is wrong for search engines to dictate how websites should be constructed and managed.  In fact, most black hat techniques were at one time considered legitimate, causing great difficulties for SEO's who have been in the industry for a long period of time.  However, search engines are actually not dictating anything- in most cases, they're really saying: "in order to compile fair and accurate information and rate it accordingly, we use the following criteria…"  Whether a business chooses to cater to that criterion is essentially up to them.  However, eventually the search engines will discover black hat and even grey hat SEO techniques in action and offending websites will be penalized or even banned.

 

If you want to develop the best SEO strategy possible, creating an understanding of what the different types of SEO practices are is essential to choosing what techniques will work best for you.  The following is an explanation of each of the SEO styles.

 

Black Hat SEO

 

Black hat SEO techniques often help to significantly boost a site's search ranking.  However, the effects of this technique are temporary, and eventually the search engines will catch on and penalize the site accordingly.  Some black hat practices include:

 

Keyword stuffing- The practice of filling web content with keywords that either do not offer any supporting or related information, or content that far exceeds acceptable keyword densities.  This is a major violation that will eventually result in penalization or even a ban from the search engines.  Additionally, keyword stuffing offers little value to consumers who will likely bounce away from the offending website.

 

Invisible text- Web masters or web developers may try to embed invisible text on the site by placing white text on a white background or black text on a black background.  In this way, keywords can be added to the site without any related content, without impacting the user's experience.  Nevertheless, search engine algorithms are adept at picking this technique up and penalizing offenders.

 

Doorway pages- This is the practice of creating web pages that were designed to be "read" by the search engines and included in search results, but when visitors click on the link they are re-routed to a different site that may be entirely unrelated to what they were searching for.  Like many black hat SEO tactics, this may improve page rankings temporarily, but eventually the practice will be discovered and will likely result in a ban.

 

Link farming- In the early days of the internet, link farming began as a way to capitalize on the fact that search engines of the time were relying almost exclusively on the number of inbound links to a site to make rank determinations.  In response, web masters began building cooperative groups that listed massive amounts of reciprocating links that a website could be featured in.  This practice is still used today, but search engine algorithms have adapted to weigh the quality of the link when making page rank determinations.

 

White Hat SEO

 

White hat SEO techniques are usually tried-and-true practices that have been well accepted by internet marketers and search engines alike.  White hat practices take the long but high road, where it may take a considerable amount of time to climb the search page rankings, but once at the top of the page, businesses that use white hat tactics usually remain there and build solid roots throughout the web that help to bolster its credibility.  However, even the best white hat SEO tactics will eventually begin to fail if they are not continually adapted to changing trends.  The following are some examples of best white hat practices.

 

Relevant keywords- Only keywords that are directly relevant to the site should be used in titles, Meta tags, and web content.  For certain industries, this might make it exceptionally difficult to rank for valuable keywords.  In this case, it is important for newcomers that are seeking fast ranking to attempt to rank for a niche or specialty area of their industry in order to create a more unique presence on the web.

 

Fresh Content- Building a site and then forgetting it is not a good practice for anyone.  One of the most effective white hat SEO techniques is to continually update a website with fresh, relevant content that continues to be in-line with an established SEO strategy.  This is one reason why blogging is so important to achieving higher page rankings.

 

Linking- It's perfectly alright to solicit links from other websites.  White hat tactics involve seeking out similar or complimentary businesses and propositioning them to exchange links.  This is not the same as link farming and will help to build a website's rankings, but it does take time and effort and not every webmaster will respond to such requests.  However, depending upon the linking site, the weight of some links exchanged can be more significant than dozens of links obtained using black hat techniques.

 

Article marketing- By offering readers all over the globe free, useful information in a field you or your author happens to be an expert in, you not only provide extra value for your readers, you also build links, establish authority, and create legions of followers if your articles are picked up for syndication.  This is also an intensive process, but one that will pay-off if high quality content is used.

 

Grey Hat SEO

 

Grey hat SEO is almost exclusively defined by the fact that practices used are questionable- they are not clearly white hat, and not clearly black hat either.  As a result, grey hat techniques are far less likely to result in a ban or penalization than black hat techniques.  However, some grey hat SEO practices will eventually be discovered and deemed unethical, and some are penalized but with less consequences than outright black hat tactics.  For this reason, it is advised to never use grey hat SEO techniques- the penalties are inconsistent and difficult to determine and the line between grey and black may at times run quite thin.  Nevertheless, it is still important to understand what practices are involved in grey hat SEO so that you can avoid using them yourself, recognize when someone else is using them, or to use them wisely if you choose to take that risk.

 

Higher keyword density- Most white hat practices adhere to a 3-4% keyword density guideline.  More than this and the content may be considered spam.  However, grey hat techniques push the variance limits of the search engine algorithms.  While the precise variances are unknown by those outside of the search engine's inner circles, grey hat SEO techniques stretch the limit by writing content with 5-6% keyword density.  It's often not enough to get banned or penalized and still provides decent enough content.  However, any honest SEO who is experienced creating content knows that 5-6% density makes it difficult to write naturally, and the "sales effort" imparted by a density that high will probably be noticed by the reader.  And possibly by the bots, so beware!

 

Paid linking- Referring to the information on link farming above, consider this: If a links are purchased by a business in order to have the potential for traffic, leads, and sales, then the resulting link popularity is an unintended side effect and cannot be misconstrued as link farming, right?  In fact, this is correct- it is a legitimate practice to buy links for advertising purposes, and those same links will help your link popularity without eliciting the wrath of the search engines.  It's a grey area which makes it perfectly suited for grey hat SEO.

 

Duplicate content- Duplicate content is a monstrous problem on the web.  When detected, search engines attempt to determine where the original content came from and eliminate the duplicate.  However, by examining social media sites such as Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon and Twitter, it's obvious to grey hat SEO practitioners that duplicate content can be used on a website without penalty.  The reason for this is due to the great variety of links, tags, and summaries used by social media sites.  One effective grey hat technique is to scrape content from sites such as these and repackage or re-write the material for their own website.  This usually requires some in-depth knowledge of content management, but many grey hat SEO's are quite adept at this.

Cloaking- Some grey hat SEO techniques employ cloaking as an effective way to improve their SEO strategy.  This is done by offering one set of content to the search engines and one different set to the visitor.  Often this is cleverly hidden by using private "member's only" areas or by masquerading a website as a primarily image-driven site.  While this tactic does work effectively to improve search page ranking, it often warrants a ban if it is discovered.  In fact, some white hat practitioners may unthinkingly be doing this as well out of necessity.  In either case, it is always wise to contact the search engines directly and make an attempt to justify your need to do this.  Or, hide it for as long as you can and hope for the best…

 

 

Any and all of these SEO strategies may work- and work well. However, anything but white hat SEO is not only unsafe, it's imprudent.  Grey and black hat SEO techniques are usually only employed by self-serving SEO consultants and experts.  A true SEO professional will understand intrinsically that the client's best interests should be placed first.  Even if a client demands immediate results and states they don't care how you get them, it is your responsibility to educate your customer that ultimately, sketchy practices could lead to a ban and effectively end the online life of that business.

 

White hat SEO takes longer, it requires more effort, and it costs more.  However, any professional worth their salt will know that this is the sign of the high path- if it sounds easy or too good to be true, it probably is.  As with everything in life, nothing worth having is easy, and that includes high keyword ranking and search page rank.

 

About the Author

Content for Conversions provides professional SEO web content that sells.  Please contact us today to learn how we can help to propel you to the forefront of your respective markets and niches.  http://www.contentforconversions.com

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