Loading ...The debate between white hat and black hat SEO practices has been raging for a long time and the more competitive internet marketing becomes, the hotter the debate gets. The two factions approach optimisation from opposite ends. There are not fence-sitters where the two concepts of SEO are concerned. You have to choose your side as the two can never mix. It is no secret that the search engines try to stamp out black hat tactics whenever detected.
Wearing the white hat
White hat SEO is doing it by the book from the word go. From the creation of the website when clean source coding is used and throughout the entire website construction. Those that use white hat tactics follow how the algorithms work. They optimize the website according to what users are searching for. Each addition of content is relevant and unique and only legitimate inbound links are sought.
No links from dodgy websites or irrelevant websites are accepted. White hat optimisation use website design that makes it easy for the search engine spiders to crawl and index the web pages. White hat tactics eschew the abuse of computer systems to try and manipulate search engine results. They never use any unethical methods to artificially boost the website in the SERPs.
Doffing a black hat
People that indulge in black hat optimisation have the mindset of ‘I want results right now, no matter how’. They are simply not interested in doing ethical SEO that is slow and takes time to develop. They want instant success, no matter how much it affects anyone else. Here we are talking about keyword stuffing, cloaked pages, hidden text and using link farms.
Keyword stuffing is a top black hat tactic that devalues the content and makes it unreadable. Using the same font colour for text as the page background does not fool the search engines. Cloaked pages are picked up by the search engines as well.
Using link farms to harvest large amounts of totally irrelevant inbound links also lead to penalties from the search engines. Black hat optimising tricks often lead to competitor websites reporting the offender as well. The bottom line is that black hat SEO tricks bring a quick and very short-lived success. Then the website faces penalties from the search engines.
Ethical SEO takes dedication
Breaking the rules and being a rebel gets you noticed, that is true. Getting fast success and not having the patience to do optimisation right is much like the juvenile that breaks the rules. When they are caught, they go into a sulk declaring the world hates them and it’s not fair. White hat SEO brings long-lasting benefits, credibility and trustworthiness that is invaluable for a business.
Black hat tactics land you in trouble and the search engines do not put you in juvenile detention; you ultimately face being barred from the search engine results pages. Your website simply disappears and being invisible on the web is the death sentence for your business. So that momentarily success is not really worth it, is it?
Related posts:
- How white hat SEO differs from black hat SEO
- Seeing black, white and grey
- Black hat SEO tactics
- Little known black hat link tricks
- White Hat SEO vs Black Hat SEO
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