What's the Difference Between White Hat and Black Hat SEO Marketing Techniques
17 March 2010
There are so many different marketing terms youll come across while researching for a business. The lingo can really be daunting at times. What does it all mean? One of the most confusing terms is white hat marketing. And if that isnt confusing enough, theres also black hat marketing, really making it hard for people to tell the difference. Is there any difference at all in the two supposed techniques? The answer is a simple yes. These terms are encompassing and, basically, broad enough to hold all the various SEO (
Search engine optimization) techniques under one or the other. The question becomes which. First up, lets talk about what qualifies as a white hat marketing technique. Its really simple, once laid out in plain English. Essentially, any technique or tactic that follows any particular search engine guidelines will be considered a white hat SEO technique. See, its fairly broad.
These techniques are reputable and meant to traffic your site to a higher page rank without any deception or trickery. With white hat marketing, your site strictly adheres to all rules and displays the relevant information it should. Your page will then climb the ranks based on keywords and content. Although there are many other techniques that qualify as white hat, you can basically sum it up as straightforward, honest quality. People using white hat SEO techniques work to deliver quality, follow the rules, and build up their business popularity without any shady tactics. White hat tactics help gain reputability and respect. Of course, like the devil on the opposite shoulder, black hat
SEO marketing techniques work by a shady set of principles. However, the search engine deception can work well enough to earn a high ranking, and thus more people try it.There are strict consequences to deal with when using black hat techniques. But that still doesnt deter many from stuffing their pages and cloaking in order to trick traffic and scheme the ranking system.People using black hat techniques may leave out the text that is supposed to be visible to viewers. They may also overload their pages with keywords; their content may be nonsensical and stuffed with links; and some even mask their links as something else, and drive unsuspecting people to their specified sites.All of these tactics are done solely to increase page rank. Although you would definitely want to avoid black hat techniques in the long run, many find that theyre suitable to earn a #1 spot right away. If youre a business owner, white hat is the only way to go. Sure, it may not be as easy to get your page ranked highly, but it will pay off in the long run. If customers are aware that youre cheating search engines and using shoddy tactics to get results, what faith can they have that the product youre trying to sell is worth the money?
