Different Hats of Search Engine Optimizers (SEO)
Did you know that Search Engine Optimizers wear many different hats? And the color of their hat is determined by their philosophy and the methods they use to optimize websites/blogs. There are three of them, the Black Hat SEO’s, the White Hat SEO’s, and the Gray Hat SEO’s. Let us differentiate them.
Black Hat SEO
Black Hat SEO, also known as search engine spamming, are those who creates web pages/posts that have little or no value, intended to trick the search engines into offering irrelevant, redundant or low-quality search results. Black Hat SEO’s disregard the rules and the goals of the search engines in an attempt to lure visitors to their website/blog through deceptive practices. They often take pride in gaming or out smart the search engines.
Black Hat SEO’s will heavily leverage technology and automation in order to create tons of poor-quality pages/posts and gain inbound links from other websites (link spam). Once the visitor has arrived at their site they will often use some kind of cloaking or redirect to show the visitor a "sales friendly" page. Black Hat SEO’s are all about getting fast results. The methods they use to optimize their websites/blogs will often propel them to the top of the search results very rapidly, but when the search engines catch-on their websites/blogs crash-down and burn. This is of little consequence to many Black Hat SEO’s as they can easily reproduce their results with a new website/blog. Below is a list of some Black Hat SEO techniques:
Black Hat Strategies:
- Keyword stuffing
- Scraper sites
- Mirror/duplicate content
- Tiny or unreadable text
- Doorway pages
- Link Farms
- Cloaking
- Keyword stacking
- Hidden text
- Domain Spam
- Hidden links
White Hat SEO
White Hat SEO’s focus on building quality content first and search engine optimization second. They like to play by the rules and tend to stay away from techniques that would jeopardize their website’s search engine listing. White Hat SEO’s may use technology and automation to build their websites too, but they use it to accomplish different goals. They write content for people, not search engines. White Hat SEO’s tend to rely more on their writing and marketing skills to achieve a top ranking, rather than automated programs. White Hat SEO’s understand that good search engine rankings take time and don’t try to rush results. White Hat SEO’s are able to get more inbound links from other websites because their content is considered valuable. When you use White Hat SEO tactics you run absolutely no risk of being banned by the search engines. Visitors who come to your website will also be more likely to convert.
Gray Hat SEOMost SEO’s fall into the Gray Hat category. And there are many shades of gray out there. Some Gray Hat SEO’s tend to use more questionable tactics and take greater risks. Other Gray Hat SEO’s may not do anything controversial, but may place more emphasis on optimization over content. Gray Hat search engine optimization is all about risk vs. reward. And some Gray Hat techniques may be frowned upon by the search engines, including White Hat SEO’s techniques, but are not necessarily against their rules, while other techniques may be more risky and should be used only after careful consideration.
