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Black hat SEO, Gray hat SEO or White hat SEO - What color is your SEO hat?Tyler Banfield, 01-10-2007 |
One of the most debated (and confusing) issues in the search engine world is the difference between white, gray and black hat SEOs.
Here is an unbiased look at each type of SEO:
White Hat
In modern SEO, White Hat has become more of an idealistic principle.
The definition of a white hat SEO is someone who strictly abides by the Search Engine Guidelines. As Wikipedia states, “White Hat advice is generally summed up as creating content for users, not for search engines, and then make that content easily accessible to their spiders, rather than game the system.”
In reality, being a pure White Hat SEO is nearly impossible because many of the guidelines set forth by search engines are extremely vague. When you think about it, the term “White Hat SEO” is actually an oxymoron!
Gray Hat
Most SEOs, even many of those who are self-proclaimed White Hats, fall into the category of Gray Hats.
Gray Hats straddle the fence between White and Black Hat SEOs. A Gray Hat SEO is someone who does not intentionally do anything that would result in being banned from a search engine, but they are also not obsessed with following every single guideline. Gray Hat SEO can basically be summed up as “practical SEO.”
Examples of Gray Hat techniques include link buying, semantic linking, keyword file naming and keyword density manipulation.
Black Hat
Out of the three types of SEOs, Black Hats are guaranteed to cause the most controversy.
The term Black Hat, which is often interchanged with spammer, refers to the use of any techniques prohibited by Google and other search engines. This includes techniques like cloaking, hidden text and keywords stuffing (which is an old-school Black Hat technique at this point), trying to get a competitor’s web site banned and many other (often cutting-edge) techniques.
Although they have a very bad reputation, Quadzilla (a well-known Black Hat SEO) recently discussed the varying levels of ethics within the Black Hat community, along with examples of several situations where Black Hat may not be as bad as it seems.
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In summary, when considering a Search Engine Optimization firm, go for the one who understands the principles of white/gray/black and knows how to utilize each approach based on the ultimate goal of your project.
Here is an unbiased look at each type of SEO:
White Hat
In modern SEO, White Hat has become more of an idealistic principle.
The definition of a white hat SEO is someone who strictly abides by the Search Engine Guidelines. As Wikipedia states, “White Hat advice is generally summed up as creating content for users, not for search engines, and then make that content easily accessible to their spiders, rather than game the system.”
In reality, being a pure White Hat SEO is nearly impossible because many of the guidelines set forth by search engines are extremely vague. When you think about it, the term “White Hat SEO” is actually an oxymoron!
Gray Hat
Most SEOs, even many of those who are self-proclaimed White Hats, fall into the category of Gray Hats.
Gray Hats straddle the fence between White and Black Hat SEOs. A Gray Hat SEO is someone who does not intentionally do anything that would result in being banned from a search engine, but they are also not obsessed with following every single guideline. Gray Hat SEO can basically be summed up as “practical SEO.”
Examples of Gray Hat techniques include link buying, semantic linking, keyword file naming and keyword density manipulation.
Black Hat
Out of the three types of SEOs, Black Hats are guaranteed to cause the most controversy.
The term Black Hat, which is often interchanged with spammer, refers to the use of any techniques prohibited by Google and other search engines. This includes techniques like cloaking, hidden text and keywords stuffing (which is an old-school Black Hat technique at this point), trying to get a competitor’s web site banned and many other (often cutting-edge) techniques.
Although they have a very bad reputation, Quadzilla (a well-known Black Hat SEO) recently discussed the varying levels of ethics within the Black Hat community, along with examples of several situations where Black Hat may not be as bad as it seems.
--
In summary, when considering a Search Engine Optimization firm, go for the one who understands the principles of white/gray/black and knows how to utilize each approach based on the ultimate goal of your project.
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