Difference Between Black Hat And White Hat SEO

Using black hat SEO to optimize your webpage is something you would be best advised to avoid. Black hat SEO may seem successful in a matter of days. But make no mistake – more often than not, search engine bots will sniff out the unusual patterns and either start to ignore your website or completely ban it. Most website owners and administrators would want to steer clear of black hat SEO and only use white hat techniques. That is why it is important to for you to know the differences and distinctive features of both white hat and black hat SEO. Here are some of the main ones.

Meta tags – In black hat SEO, one of the main techniques is to spam and keyword stuff the site’s meta tags. Keyword stuffing is the use of a string of keywords that do not make sense and are not in sync with the actual content of the site. In white hat SEO, the keywords that go into the meta tags are carefully chosen and logical. The keywords used are the same ones found on the pages of the site.

Content – Black hat SEO manipulates the site’s content to trick search engine bots into driving more traffic to the page. There are a number of ways this is done. One of the most often used one is creating and then hiding dummy keyword stuffed text on the website. The text is hidden by placing the text on a similar color background – usually, white text on a white background. It is visible to search engines but not to human visitors.

The idea is to mislead search engines to direct users to the site. In fact, in a number of instances, visitors may encounter content that is starkly different from what they were really looking for. White hat SEO on the other hand takes a more straight forward approach. Here, on page content is keyword optimized while maintaining a natural, logical flow of the text. Users directed to the site find what they were looking for.

•Linking – Backlinks are one of the most important factors considered by search engines when calculating page rank. There is a black hat approach to back links just as there is a white hat approach. Black hat SEO practitioners use link farms to exchange numerous links with other websites. The links are often used without any logical context. Ordinarily, search engines will check the number of websites that link back to your site to determine how your site rates for a particular keyword. The problem is that the use of link farms is considered spamming and your site will eventually be blacklisted.

White hat SEO relies on the natural exchanged of links often in the context of online discussions, news pieces, article submissions and social media sites. Such links may take much longer to acquire, but they provide a more sustainable result.

If you want to learn more on how your business can benefit from increased traffic check our traffic guide and enjoy the true benefits that comes with more visitors in your business.