The Difference Between Black and White Hat SEO

During the early days of an SEO campaign, it is vital that research is carried out in order to put together the most effective proposition. After all, there are a variety of different approaches that a technician can take, however, some of them are considered unethical and should be avoided at all costs. In fact, this is known as black-hat SEO because it is considered the ‘bad guy’ of the industry whereas white-hat SEO is the most ethical way to conduct a campaign. Read on as we go over some of the distinct differences that separate black-hat SEO from white-hat SEO…

Is content important in SEO?

If there is one aspect of an SEO campaign that holds stead above the others, it is content. In fact, content is considered ‘king’ in the industry because it is the most effective and ethical way to build a relationship with the search engine and gradually improve ranking results. With this said, black-hat technicians tend to use duplicated content on a webpage and since this doesn’t convince Google to trust the site and its services, it often has negative repercussions.

What techniques are considered unethical in SEO?

Separating white-hat SEO from black-hat SEO runs much deeper than a definition. After all, it is the techniques that are used that determine which type of optimisation is being carried out. For instance, any technique that gives a campaign an unfair advantage, such as duplicated content, link farms and keyword stuffing, are known as black-hat techniques and should be avoided at all costs.

Are search engines strict on SEO technicians?

In the early days of SEO, there were very few rules in place in order to control the techniques that technicians used. In fact, black-hat SEO was considered the ‘normal’ way to approach a campaign. Luckily, the search engines recognised the unfair advantages that this was providing, allowing low-quality websites the ability to reach page one without any effort, which is why several essential algorithms have been introduced. These algorithms scan a webpage and its content in order to find the websites that utilise black-hat methods and penalises them accordingly, allowing ethical campaigns the ability to hit the top spot.

Here at Internet Marketing Questions, we believe that ethical SEO is the only format that technicians should be using. After all, black-hat techniques like keyword stuffing can damage a webpages’ relationship with the search engine and severely affect its ranking in the SERPs.  To find out more information about the SEO side of internet marketing, get in contact with a member of the Internet Marketing Questions team today!