SEO TECHNIQUES: UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN WHITE HAT Vs. BLACK HAT

As discussed previously, the term "SEO" refers to the process of optimizing or improving the quality of traffic to a website. And of course, the ultimate objective of crafting our website is to invite more internet users or the so-called web visitors to come and view all the elements of our website's content. Owing to the rising significance of search engines such as Google, SEO is a much sought-after internet marketing strategy applied in today's digital era. Additionally, in order for our website to be ranked higher, it takes a rigorous amount of efforts for which in some ways, they can either be ethical (White Hat SEO) or unethical (Black Hat SEO). Bottom line, keep in mind that search engines determine our website's rankings through algorithms which are secret and closely guarded based on the above ethics. Hence, when search engine optimization seeks to put in place these two principles (white hat & black hat); we need to at least have a grasp of their differences beforehand so that we will understand and become fully aware of what we are doing with our SEO techniques.

WHITE HAT SEO

The White Hat SEO for website optimization adheres to all the rules and policies of the search engine while integrating website positions on SERP with correct and legal techniques. Its main aim is to promote accessibility which does not only follow all the SEO guidelines, but ensures that all the content indexed by search engines is the same as the content that a human user will see. As it focuses on readability, relevance of content, well-structured and well-written content that will be useful to people who read it, this White Hat SEO also concentrates on cross-linking pages internally on a website where appropriate, as well as building relevant inbound links from trusted sources. Due to the fact that White Hat SEO is done by following all the rules, the result may take some time to fully come into effect. Thus, White Hat SEO is done with all the ethics which is the reason why it is called an ethical SEO technique.

Furthermore, the White Hat SEO is more concerned with adding true value to our website on the basis of a customer’s or visitor’s experiences. There are several examples of White Hat SEO techniques used by top performing marketers on internet such as good content and services, keyword research, site performance, rich meta-tags, right backlinks, and so on. If we want to keep a long-term relationship with our visitors, then we have to keep our content and website structures according to the policies which will render a good experience for them to come and view our website. This is because when we offer them a plenty of rich and useful content, they will surely remember our website and the chances of revisiting or coming back are also greater. Therefore, if visitors have a good experience with our website, then they can refer to our website as a friend and this is what the White Hat SEO is all about.

BLACK HAT SEO

Unlike the White Hat SEO technique which conforms to search engine rules and involves no deception, the Black Hat SEO on the contrary is used to get higher search rankings in an unethical manner. This is because when a website exerts all the aggressive SEO techniques for the sake of increasing traffic by breaking the rules of search engines guidelines, there is a high risk of the website being penalized and removed from the indexing. Although this particular SEO technique can grant imminent results which makes it so tempting, however, we as a website owner will be heavily penalized to the point where our website will also be banned (de-indexed) as a consequence of unethical practices. For those whose business nature is not for long-term goals, the Black Hat SEO may be the solution to drive more visitors in a short-term period. After all, there are some examples of Black Hat SEO technique used which could possibly yield a quick return to business such as:

1. Spam Indexing: The practice of repeating unrelated phrases to manipulate the relevancy or prominence of resources indexed by a search engine.

2. Keyword Stuffing: The practice of packing long lists of keywords without proper formation.

3. Invisible Text: The practice of placing keywords in white text on a white background in order to attract search engine crawlers.

4. Page Swapping (Bait-and-Switch): The practice of allowing a page with white hat techniques to rank well in the SERPs, and then swapping it out with content from a less-optimized page. In other words, site owners who implement this page swapping practice will keep the page title, meta-description, and their URL the same to maintain their page rankings, but change the page content repeatedly without having to invest in creating a better content.

5. Cloaking: The practice of serving different versions of content to users (humans) as opposed to search engines. Simply put, the content presented to search engine crawlers is different from the one presented to the users’ browsers.