White hat and Black hat SEO??

[Cannon]

I recently attended a short course on whitehand SEO and i have there is also a method of SEO called "blackhat". Well i know the difference between "white hat hackers" and "black hat hackers" i assume that "white hat SEO" and "black hat SEO" are similar.

If so is black-hat SEO actually illegal? or it is a victimless crime? and what are its benefits over white hat SEO??how can we do it?will we be penalized for that? or i am getting this white-hat black-hat SEO all wrong

[Wozcreative]

I'm no SEO expert but my understanding is that BlackHat SEO is seo that tries to force google to rank you high by "cheating" techniques. This may or may not work.. but only for a few days.. and then google blacklists your website (or puts you way down lower).

You must implement whitehat SEO techniques to your website to be google friendly. Now what those techniques are, you should do some research on that.. SEO rules change month by month. You need to keep updated on those.

[billbenson]

I'll add that black hat techniques 'may' get you caught and removed from the G SERPS. Some get away with it. In general, only use black hat techniques with a throw away site.

With black hat, you are violating search engine rules not laws, at least that I can think of. Search engines can ban you including Google, but they can't send you to jail.

[Harold Mansfield]

From what I see, black hat SEO tactics always get caught. I wouldn't risk it on a domain or website that I cared about. The penalty is getting banned, put in the sandbox, de-indexed, or whatever Google decides to do with you. So the consequnces are pretty finite, and abrupt. So why risk it? Why not use that energy to just do it properly?

I should add that includes Social Media tricks. Facebook, Twitter, and You Tube are hip to fake followers, fake hits and fake video views just like Google is hip to fake traffic bots.

[dianecoleen]

I don't think that Google will be fooled again by black hat spammers. I mean is with the strict implementation within their algorithm, I don't think that they will let spammers come in the higher search engine result. You may rank higher using black hat SEO, but I assure you that won't stay for long. Also, if you really care and value your business/site, then it's a bad idea to use black hat SEO. Just to cut it short, White hat is GOOD and Black hat is BAD.

[ericw]

Long term, the churn-and-burn strategies of black hat SEOs will always hurt a legitimate business. One of the main advantages of legitimate SEO is that it normally has a snowball effect - over time, the benefits only increase.

Stick to techniques and agencies that you wouldn't be ashamed to tell your customers about.

[patrickprecisione]

Long term, the churn-and-burn strategies of black hat SEOs will always hurt a legitimate business. One of the main advantages of legitimate SEO is that it normally has a snowball effect - over time, the benefits only increase.

Stick to techniques and agencies that you wouldn't be ashamed to tell your customers about.

I think I need to print this out and tape it above my desk. I can look at it every time I'm tempted by some link scheme being sold on Fivver :)

[funnyelizh]

Stay well away from black hat SEO. Since the penguin update they have been punishing people hard for spammy, often automated backlinks. They also released a disavow tool for webmasters to uncount their spammy links. The result? Crowd sourcing a problem. They have all but admitted they are building new datasets from the site's people have submitted, so they will only get better at it in time.

[HeadStartSEO]

In the past it use to be all white hat, or black hat. Now there Gray hat. I will get into more details within a bit, let me hit on some questions first.



From what I see, black hat SEO tactics always get caught. I wouldn't risk it on a domain or website that I cared about. The penalty is getting banned, put in the sandbox, de-indexed, or whatever Google decides to do with you. So the consequnces are pretty finite, and abrupt. So why risk it? Why not use that energy to just do it properly?

I should add that includes Social Media tricks. Facebook, Twitter, and You Tube are hip to fake followers, fake hits and fake video views just like Google is hip to fake traffic bots.

Blackhats aren't always getting caught, in fact most of the whitehat stuff now is a water down copy from blackhat guys. I have a few sites that are all blackhat.... payday loans... shhh! I've had them for years, when I started this stuff. While I might be trying to go into a real business aspect, ie why I joined here. Blackhat aren't getting caught every often, real blackhat stuff. None of these dumb things kids are doing on the public forums. If you're doing something that is public within the public blackhat community you will likely get caught, and soon. It's something that becomes public, so it will likely be dealt with by Google. Although, things like bots, or even using WEB 2.0 for links was something done a few years ago by the now public blackhats. Pat Flynn link wheel was isn't new, in fact he posted about that when the thing was dying off.

Think of this information like a new product, when LCD's came out, they cost a lot of money. Only a few people owned them, then they got cheap, and now everyone owns them. Blackhat is the same, things go through the same process. Let me tell you, none of the really really good things are getting shared privately or publicly. It's like fight club, there one rule... No one talks about fight club.


Here my spin on this, whitehat and blackhat are the same thing even grayhat for that matter, one is just more spammy than other. Google use to say, get guest post!! Now, Google is saying guest posting can be viewed as spammy. If you listen to what Google said 5 years ago, you would be a blackhat today. They change their minds daily it seems like.

Here my take, if you don't know what you're doing stick to whitehat. It's more notably accepted, but don't think it's something you will be able to say it's still whitehat in 5 years. Although, its harder to do whitehat, you should stay with it. However, anytime you're creating links that wouldn't be there in the first place is blackhat in my mind. If you're emailing a webmaster, or posting your link on some forum, or even making a web 2.0 site. It's all creating, and isn't whitehat whole idea is earning, or naturally getting something?

Here is my rule of thumb, if you create a link.... Make sure it adds value no matter what. If the link doesn't add value to your client, vistor, or even you... Then don't post it.

[Harold Mansfield]

Smartest blackhat scheme in the history of the internet, Shawn Hogan, EBAY and cookie stuffing. Now facing federal prison and restitution of $28 million in affiliate payouts. At the time that was seen as "real blackhat" stuff.

It's not worth it.

[HeadStartSEO]

Smartest blackhat scheme in the history of the internet, Shawn Hogan, EBAY and cookie stuffing. Now facing federal prison and restitution of $28 million in affiliate payouts. At the time that was seen as "real blackhat" stuff.

It's not worth it.

That wasn't blackhat, that was affilate scams and hacking. Blackhat is an SEO thing, and he didn't get that due to blackhat. He was misleading people on products, and lying about services, hacking into people's sites, tracking people, and selling the info... Oh also taking down people's site's. I knew him back in the day via a forum, I didn't agree with him, but it wasn't blackhat that did anything to him. Hacking isn't SEO, you can use hacks to get SEO things done sure. Although, that was like 4-6 years ago. Today blackhat isn't anything like that.

Also, what the media says is blackhat most likely isn't. He was loading cookies up with longer lasting power for affiliate sales. Affiliate cookies mostly last for a 30 or 60 days. SEO blackhat isn't hacking. Two different things, two different aspects of the game.

Also, blackhat is not illegal. It's about putting links on places like purevolume.com(cough profiles cough), and getting link juice from a authority site like that. It's about gaming the system in a way that is not natural.

However, I wouldn't suggest it to anyone if you don't know what your doing. I also, wouldn't hire someone that doesn't know what these things are, or won't tell you where they place their links.

[Harold Mansfield]

If it's not illegal, against the rules or trickery in any way, then there is no problem.
I'm just against shortcuts and gaming the system in any way. I'd rather do it the right way and just put in the work.

[HeadStartSEO]

If it's not illegal, against the rules or trickery in any way, then there is no problem.
I'm just against shortcuts and gaming the system in any way. I'd rather do it the right way and just put in the work.


I agree, I'm simply saying any work is likely to be gray or blackhat. White hat is mostly natural, or creating hype about a company. Today, I don't know of any SEO company that can truly do all white hat in Google's eyes. Today it seems like even guest posting isn't a good idea to them. Look at Distilled SEO, they recently got caught doing some blackhat and gray hat stuff. That's a huge company, some say the number one company out there.

[jimr451]

One thing I'd add is that some "blackhat" techniques actually target competitor sites in an attempt to sabatoge their rankings. So blackhat SEO is not victimless, and can cause real damage to legitimate businesses. So I'll just reiterate that you should be very careful about who you hire to handle your SEO efforts.

-Jim

[HeadStartSEO]

One thing I'd add is that some "blackhat" techniques actually target competitor sites in an attempt to sabatoge their rankings. So blackhat SEO is not victimless, and can cause real damage to legitimate businesses. So I'll just reiterate that you should be very careful about who you hire to handle your SEO efforts.

-Jim

I think we're all using the term blackhat very loose here. Sabatoge SEO isn't completely different than using blackhat SEO. Sabatoge is more about spamming things Google already noted can cause problems for a site. Blackhat is about getting away with things, and if you search your payday loan stuff it still works at times. Most people just don't know about the real blackhat stuff. I'm talking about 30+ tiered networks costing $200,000 plus, kind like how Disney has for their publishing sites. Do some research on their links for "casserole", on their media sites. (not Disney world, but their media sites they own).

I think the problem I'm having here the most, is there marketing, and real deal stuff. Most of the views here seem defined through an marketing view point than in reality. I don't mean to sound hash, but I think this is why most people are so confused with SEO these days. Techie people like ourselves read a bit about SEO, and say hey I know a bit about that, and give advice.

I've seen sites still using the old blackhat stuff and still ranking, ie look at the car donation niche, or even payday loans. I've seen sites ranking for years with this stuff. I don't teach this kind of stuff, nor do I do this for clients. However, SEO and search in general is a risk game. It all is depending on how much risk you want to take on, and not take. Even natural sites get hit, and some spammy ones don't. Blog networks still work, and so does comments on good sites. These still work if you're smart, but maybe not spammy like Sabotage SEO needs to be to work.

Sabotage SEO is ordering like 100,000 links all in one day on a site, blackhats would never do that less they are mindless people. People doing Sabotage SEO are doing mindless spamming for the sack of doing it mindlessly, so they can get hit a trigger with Google.

It all depends on the site too, if you have like 100 amazing useful links, you can get away with 10 bad links maybe. If you try to Sabotage a site that has a amazing link profile, and has around 100,000 links already. Your Sabotage SEO is going to have to in the millions of links to affect them.

If you were to listen to Moz, or Google Web Spam team, every guy with a plumbing company would be making videos on how to do things you pay them to handle. Writing post about bathroom things you wouldn't wanna read in the first place.( Gross I know).

SEO natural, or not is a game about risk.

I hope that helps everyone.

[patrickprecisione]

I've seen sites still using the old blackhat stuff and still ranking, ie look at the car donation niche, or even payday loans. I've seen sites ranking for years with this stuff. I don't teach this kind of stuff, nor do I do this for clients. However, SEO and search in general is a risk game. It all is depending on how much risk you want to take on, and not take. Even natural sites get hit, and some spammy ones don't. Blog networks still work, and so does comments on good sites. These still work if you're smart, but maybe not spammy like Sabotage SEO needs to be to work.

That's interesting. I suppose it takes time to catch up with all the black hat SEOs? I feel like even if they've devalued the current black hat tactics, those SEOs would find something new to game the system.

[Patrysha]

Ever since I interviewed Aaron Wall a few years ago, search engine optimization has seemed much less mystical to me.

When you break it down to it's most simplistic forms, all this conversation about black hat and white hat, is just smoke and diversion for the average small business owner serving a local marketplace - such as the plumber, hairdresser, retail store or restaurant.

Concentrate on providing your web designer good content to work with (or hiring writers who can deliver that content) and delivering the best service/products to your customers and the marketing will start taking care of itself through word of mouth if you are good at what you do and augment it with offline efforts...

They don't need to game the system or play around with more than the very basics to drive the appropriate type of eyeballs to their pages.

Come to think of it, many of the people I know who serve an international market and are making money at it don't put much beyond a token effort into SEO - preferring to utilize networks and list building/marketing to bring eyeballs to their pages - much less effort (if you're doing your own) and much cheaper (if you're hiring it out)...

[OlegLola]

Have you heard about gray hat SEO?
This technique is more hazardous than white hat SEO, but unlike black hat it has less chances to be banned by search engines. Still gray hat SEO is questionable, but I think you can try it without running so great risk while using black.

[Khalifa]

White Hat: Building links the old traditional way, placing links manually in blog comments, guest posts, forum signatures, social networking pages, bookmarking websites, etc. Using unique, helpful and rich content that add value to users.

Black Hat: Using tools to place these links on websites, like auto blog commenters, forum spam, etc.

However, Black Hat isn't just about automation. There are also blog networks, paid links, etc. Good Black Hat is actually HARD to be spotted by search engines, when there are no footprints left. For instance, posting on different websites with different IPs, C blocks, nameservers, etc.

And yeah, always go for White Hat because the risk is minimal compared to Black Hat. You never know when Google is going to penalize you, even if you get some Google Love for some time.

[websiteop]

There's also Grey-Hat SEO, Black-hat is not illegal, manipulating the search engines and hacking into corporate data centers to get peoples social security numbers are two very different things (as with black-hat hacking). Black-hat SEO is something that Google frowns upon, they don't want spammy sites showing up in there results, which makes perfect sense because people would just not use Google if everytime someone looked up "alice in wonderland" and they clicked on a porn site called "alice in wonderland", lol.

On a more serious note, big companies do use black hat techniques sometimes and they caught too and Google demotes their sites, search for "JC penny search manipulation". So there will always be companies and people who try to manipulate the SE's and whenever Google combats this type of thing, the Black-hatters change tactics and figure something else out, its a cat-n-mouse game - same as with hackers and code. Unless you really know what you are doing, I would stick to the white-hat methods - sometimes the line can be blurry, this blur is grey-hat.

[Entreb]

I would recommend to just forget the terms. Just do what you think will help your readers, audience and customers. Create quality content, promote them anywhere without annoying people, and provide value to anyone.

[singhabhishek251]

As the name suggests black hat is not a good thing to go ahead with definitely your website will be penalized today or tomorrow. This is something people prefer, if they want to get ranking sooner and they do not care about the ranking after some time may be 1 week or 1 month whatever.
I have seen some people doing it if their main website got some issue and they are still working on that for ranking on top, then they will create a secondary website and work on that with black hat to get ranking for some time and generate some lead.

[Adel Landman Steyn]

There is illegal black hat and then there is legal black-hat.
Illegal black-hat includes things like hacking other sites and installing malware or unauthorized back links. (Please tell me you don't see this as a "victimless" crime.)
HeadStartSEO is right - people don't share their trade secrets. If there is a really great way of being black-hat, someone won't tell you about it on a YouTube video.

Black-hats don't always get caught, but if you don't know what you are doing, then you probably will.
Not only that, but some of the less effective black-hat methods like keyword stuffing makes you look really stupid. I would not hire or visit anyone who wrote like this:
"At Pappy Pizza we make the best pizza. Our pizzas are made from thin pizza dough. The pizza dough is imported from Italy. Come get your best pizza today at Pappy Pizza. We are looking forward to making your pizza and to see how much you enjoy your large pizza."
Then there are examples that are even worse:
"At Cobblestone, builders we pride ourselves builders on being builders excellent builders. Cobblestone has builders an excellent reputation builders."
I mean, come on! If you have a professional site, or a domain you care about in the slightest, this is not something you ought to be doing.

Additionally, do you really want links to your site from dodgy websites? Yes, previously webmasters could hide them in the code, instead of displaying them publicly, but with improved algorithms, organic links are much more highly favoured, which means that your link has to appear in the actual body.

Things like doorway pages are in my mind, much more suited to the much more disreputable industries. If I arrive at a legitimate business from a source that I did not expect, I won't trust that business, especially if it has anything to do with consulting.

I agree with HeadStartSEO that many things that were considered white hat five years ago, are not considered white hat anymore, especially things like guest blogging.
The problem is that guest blogging was supposed to be something to be coveted - an opportunity to reach out to other community members and to build solid relationships.
I doubt that Google is going to penalize small scale guest blogging. If you post on someone else's site once a week, or once a month, that is not spam.
The problem was, some people saw the opportunity for a quick fix and ruined it for everyone else.
They started writing "thinly-veiled" marketing material and started syndicating the exact same material widely across many different sites.
So, in effect, despite the fact that they say that they don't officially de-rank duplicate content, some of the algorithms do check how many times your content appears across a number of sites. It is not a penalty, but at the end of the day, the results are the same, you will be ranked lower.

All the best with your business!

[krymson]

White hat seo-Follows google guidelines
Black hats seo-does not follow google guidelines.some of the black hat techniques are doorway pages,cloaking,hidden text,keyword stuffing.

UGH!!! I hate people that bring up posts from years ago to link drop

[Goldnote]

These "titles" people put on SEO is dumb. Call it what you want. Most SEO would be considered "Blackhat" if you think about it. G00gle says attempting to manipulate your rankings is against their policy. So anytime you place a backlink anywhere for ranking purposes would technically be "blackhat" in G00gles eyes. Don't forget there is also On-page SEO as well as this Off-page SEO.

If you posted a great article on your site and I came across it and liked it, then linked to it, that would be a natural link-"whitehat". You had no influence over getting it.
The other subject you guys mention(sabotage SEO) is called Negative SEO. This is where someone sends tens of thousands of crappy/spammy links to a site in attempt to get it penalized. This is actually harder to pull off than you think and unethical.

I do blackhat SEO on my sites. If not I wouldn't ever have great rankings and it would take forever(or not at all for that matter). It works great and allows you to rank faster/make more money. Most people are behind on the current methods of SEO and that's how they get caught. Not knowing what they're doing is also a big reason. To use blackhat SEO you have to know what you're doing or you'll get penalized or even worse-deindexed.

The fastest way to get caught is using crappy Fiverr gigs.

[canirank_mel]

Black hat SEO short & sweet is anything that goes against Google Guidelines and tries to beat the system.

Lots of the popular BlackHat methods (link spam, keyword stuffing) have been penalized by penguin and panda. BlackHat is manipulating the SERPS through unnatural means (pbns or GSA blasts or tiered link pyramids).

[printshop1]

White hat SEO means performing SEO according to search engine guidelines while black hat SEO means using any technique violating those guidelines in-short White Hat SEO means long lasting SEO using ethical SEO techniques where as Black hat SEO means short term benefits using cloaking, hidden text or bulk links.

[jeffscott]

For this generation now Google is only ignoring spam links while the search engine is continuously updating its algorithm to understand more the users.

[matheuuv]

White hat SEO is the best one to follow but, this is the long term process. It helps to sustain the keywords in the search engine result page.

[Aronsmith]

Black Hat SEO definition: Black hat SEO is a practice that increases a page's rank in search engines through means that violate the search engines' terms of service. The term "black hat" originated in Western movies to distinguish the "bad guys" from the "good guys," who wore white hats (see white hat SEO). Recently, it's used more commonly to describe computer hackers, virus creators, and those who perform unethical actions with computers.

[davidlee21]

Don't use blackhats techniques, it might seem that blackhats techniques will help you rank easily but it's will hurt your website in long run. Use whitehat techniques that is the best way to rank your website.

[davidlee21]

when you follow google guidelines to rank that's whitehat and when you don't that's blackhat.