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The Difference Between Black Hat and White Hat SEO

With companies and individuals scrambling to get their websites noticed by the major search engines at all costs, black hat SEO techniques are becoming more and more prevalent. Basically, black hat and white hat SEO techniques are very similar. However, the big difference between them is that white hat SEO is seen as a ‘good’ thing, which will help your site get noticed by the big search engines, such as Google, Yahoo and MSN. Black hat techniques are seen as a bad thing. Search engines see them as unethical, and if your site is found to be using black hat techniques, they will ban you from their search engine.

 
One black hat technique that is widely used by search engine optimization companies is keyword stuffing. This means that they fill your site with nearly unintelligible information, stuffed with keywords. You can also write a bunch of keywords, using white text, on a white background. This would make it almost impossible for the human eye to see, while still fooling the search engine spiders, which can see it.

 
Both of these techniques can get your site banned by the search engines. Both are highly unethical, and if readers are forced to read text that is obviously SEO’d to the point where it’s useless to them, you’re liable to never see them again on your site.

 
Spinning software has also added to the black hat repertoire. Companies can write just one article, spin it into multiple (hundreds) of articles and use them as directory articles. Most of the spun articles turn out very badly, and can hardly be read. Yet companies continue to use these articles as a means to link to their site.

 
The search engines see white hat SEO techniques as being beneficial to them. They want to create the best search results for their users, and a few well-placed keywords can go a long way to helping them do this. Articles or web pages, that have keywords seamlessly integrated with the text is a great way to get your site noticed. The trick is to have the keywords add to the text, rather than take away from it.

 
The same can be said about directory articles. By writing a wide variety of articles on your chosen subject, and submitting them to article directories, you may get the reputation of being a ‘professional’ in your field, which will in turn draw attention to your website.

 
The biggest thing to remember when talking about white hat vs black hat SEO techniques is that black hat SEO is designed to trick the search engines. The actual reader of the site rarely sees black hat SEO. White hat SEO, on the other hand, is seen by the reader as well as the search engine, and can be a great help to the search engines, when it comes time to index your site. Practicing black hat techniques can also get your site banned, while white hat won’t.

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One Comment

  1. This is GREAT information, thank you!
    It answered alot of questions I had about SEO and Pay-Per-Clicks.
    Very helpful.

    1. HeidiNolan on September 28th, 2008 at 9:59 pm

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