Black Hat SEO vs. White Hat SEO
One of the most essential steps in optimizing a website and landing page for peak search rankings is to obey the regulations set forth by the search engines. Failure to do so may not only harm a site’s ranking, it may also cause a site to be banned from the search results entirely!
What is the Difference between Black Hat and White Hat SEO?
Black Hat SEO
The term “Black Hat SEO” refers to any unethical practice which is used for the purpose of attempting to achieve higher search ranking. Any such practice violates the rules of search engines and will cause your site to be penalized.
Engaging in Black Hat SEO is therefore unwise since it has an ultimately negative effect. It will not help a webmaster reach your goals in terms of sales conversions. On the contrary, it can cause detriment to a site’s web traffic.
Examples of Black Hat SEO practices you should avoid include: keyword stuffing (awkward or overuse of keywords); invisible text (text color and background are the same or very close in color); meta keyword stuffing (awkward overuse of keywords in meta tags); and doorway pages (those intended to only be seen by search engine spiders). In essence, Black Hat SEO methods fail to create genuinely good content for internet users.
White Hat SEO
“White Hat SEO” covers any methods that are ethical and accepted by the search engines which result in higher search ranking and increased web traffic. The process of instituting White Hat SEO is as simple as creating good, natural content for the sake of doing so – and never using content creation techniques that hinder the user experience in any way.
The purpose of search engines like Google is to provide a free public service of matching its users’ desires with websites that will help them achieve those desires. That can be information, entertainment, paid or free products and services.
White Hat SEO techniques include: using keywords in a natural, expressive way; using synonyms that make sense rather than overusing a keyword or phrase; writing informative and natural meta data; consistent use of relevant keywords (without overdoing it); and having quality inbound links (having your site linked to on well-regarded sites).
