White Hat SEO vs Black Hat SEO. What's the Difference?
What’s in this article
This article contrasts white hat and black hat SEO, explaining their differences in terms of techniques and impact. White hat SEO follows Google’s guidelines, focusing on quality content and user experience, while black hat SEO uses manipulative practices that can lead to penalties.
What is the difference between White Hat and Black Hat SEO?
The short answer is white hat SEO complies with Google’s recommended practices, also known as Webmaster Guidelines, while black hat infringes upon them. As you can see in the document, the guidelines are extensive, so some webmasters may actually find themselves falling afoul of Google without even knowing it. While the aim of all SEO is to improve the search engine rankings and visibility of a given website, white hat and black hat uses different methods to achieve this.
The following provides a quick summary of the main differences between white hat and black hat SEO.
Getting back to the previous point about user experience, slow websites that cause people to abandon your site are naturally going to affect your conversion rates. While this is bad news for any site, it can be downright disastrous for those who operate an eCommerce site. Slow performing sites are going to result in the loss of countless sales.
Site speed is a rankings factor
| White Hat SEO | Black Hat SEO |
|---|---|
| Focused on providing a quality user experience | Focused on search engines rather than users |
| Well-written on-page content | Poorly written content that is keyword stuffed |
| Strengthens website credibility and authority | Diminishes user trust, resulting in lower conversions |
| Carries no risk of Google penalisation | High risk of Google penalties |
| Concerned with quantity over quality | Focused on quality over quantity |
| Complies with Webmaster Guidelines | Infringes upon Webmaster Guidelines |
What are examples of white hat SEO?
White hat SEO is all about creating value for users and such practices include:
- Ensuring all written content throughout a given site is of a high standard
- All on-page content is optimised according to Google’s best practices
- Using internal links that provide clear meaning to users
- Obtaining backlinks naturally; that is, by writing unique and compelling content that users will want to link back to
- Ensuring all pages on your site are mobile friendly, free from broken links, and optimised for maximum speed to ensure the best possible PageSpeed results
Need help building quality backlinks to your site?
If you do wish to build links for your business site, get in touch with a trusted Gold Coast SEO company such as SEO Web Logistics, who provide eCommerce SEO services, Google Ads services and much more.
What are examples of black hat SEO?
Black hat SEO practices are aimed at increasing a website’s rankings and visibility without any regard for the user experience. This is by no means an exhaustive list and there are countless examples of black hat SEO practices in use today, but some of the more common ones include:
Keyword stuffing
Of all the black hat tactics featured in this list, keyword stuffing is the one that is most likely to be used accidentally, by those who aren’t familiar with Google’s stance on such practices. For those new to SEO, the importance of keywords is one of the first things they’re likely to come across. Naturally, many will assume that placing keywords heavily throughout their content is going to guarantee a better result
Duplicate articles
This is one of the laziest methods of backlink creation. A user will create a single article with links pointing back to their target website (backlinks) and publish the article on numerous different sites across the web. At best, this content will be identified by Google and devalued or rendered completely worthless, but in a worst-case scenario, it may result in Google penalising your site
Low quality article sites
There are a large number of article sites still in existence today that allow poor quality content to be submitted and published on their sites. Submitting poor quality articles to these sites with the express purpose of generating backlinks, is another common black hat strategy
Message forum profile links
Many forums allow users to specify their home page URL and advertise it on their forum profile. This has become a quick way for black hat SEO practitioners to generate countless backlinks for a target website. While still in use today, such profile links now almost always include the rel=”nofollow” tag, rendering them useless for SEO purposes, where rankings are concerned
Spammy blog comments
This is another tactic that, while still in use today, has largely become ineffective for SEO due to the inclusion of the rel=”nofollow” tag. Essentially, users would leave comments on blog posts, and either adding a link to their desired URL from within the body text of their reply, or by specifying a URL in their user name
Link farms
Also known as link schemes, this involves multiple sites linking to each other, all for the purpose of strengthening each site’s rankings. The sites will often be totally unrelated to each other and contain poor quality content. One of the simplest forms of a link farm can be a reciprocal link. This is where two websites link to each other. Similar to link farms, reciprocal links are once again a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines
False job listings
When you create a job listing on an employment site, they will typically give you the opportunity to post a link to your website. This has naturally given rise to people using (false) job listings as a means of obtaining potentially lucrative backlinks from high authority employment websites. Users simply create a job listing for a non-existent employment position, indicate their web URL and hey presto! A free backlink. Similar to forum profile links and spammy blog comments however, many employment sites now include the rel=”nofollow” tag, ensuring that users cannot exploit the backlinks for their own personal gain
Cloaking
This involves displaying different content to users and the search engine bots that crawl the pages. There are several different types of cloaking, including user-agent, IP-based, JavaScript cloaking and more
Doorway pages
Also known by various other names including portal pages, gateway pages and so on, doorway pages are web pages designed to manipulate search engine indexes. When a user clicks on a doorway page in search results, they will often be redirected to a page that is completely unrelated to their search query and unrelated to what they were expecting to find when they clicked on the page in search results. These naturally creating an undesirable user experience are violate Google’s Webmaster Guidelines
Plagiarism
Writing content is very time consuming. You have to perform research, create a draft, revise everything and finalise all changes before publishing it. On the other hand, users know that they can churn out content for their landing pages or articles in a fraction of the time by copying and pasting bits and pieces of high quality content that others have already written elsewhere. Needless to say, plagiarism is not only unethical and unfair to those who took the time and made the effort to write the original content, it also goes against Google’s Webmaster Guidelines
Can black hat SEO harm your website?
Google’s algorithm is constantly evolving and any websites discovered to have employed black hat SEO tactics, put themselves at a far greater risk of being subjected to a manual or algorithmic penalty. Such penalties are extremely damaging to a website’s rankings, search engine visibility and by extension, enormously harmful to a business’ earnings. Once a website has been penalised, it can take many months before it is finally removed and by then the harm will most likely already be catastrophic.
Conclusion
White hat SEO focuses on ethical practices that comply with Google’s guidelines, providing long-term benefits and avoiding penalties. In contrast, black hat SEO employs manipulative techniques aimed at quick gains, but carries high risks of penalties and long-term harm to a website’s rankings and reputation. Well, this article has discussed more facts you should know about the topic.
Frequently asked questions
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Search Engine Optimisation, or SEO for short, are the steps taken to appear highly on Google search results, or other search engines. For example, if you are based on the Gold Coast and have a power outage, you will need an electrician. In 2022, the first thing most people will do is an online search for “Gold Coast electrician” and then contact one of the highest-ranking businesses in the search results.
For the electricians that appear high in the search results, their ranking can be incredibly valuable and a steady source of new business. For those who do not rank highly, and appear beyond page one of the search results, they often rely solely on word of mouth and / or referrals to attract new business. For most businesses, limiting new business to a network of contacts can make growth almost impossible.
A good SEO agency can help get your business to the top of the Google rankings and turbocharge business growth.
A well-designed website is only half the battle. Afterall, a stylish website is of no value if no-one ever visits it. Most businesses need a steady flow of visitors to ensure their website is front and centre for customers when they search for a specific product or service…and on Google there is more than enough traffic to go round – every second (on average) there are 63,000 Google searches!
Beyond attracting traffic, there are many other SEO benefits:
- SEO offers much higher close rates (about 15 per cent) for new leads when compared with other forms of marketing (often less than two per cent).
- SEO brings quality traffic to your website. When you begin an SEO campaign, your website is updated to incorporate specific keywords relevant to the traffic you need to attract. This ensures that you zero in on your preferred audience that are most interested in your business’ product or service.
- SEO is very measurable, making it easy to understand results and return on investment.
- SEO, particularly for e-commerce businesses, ensures your business is open 24/7. This means that potential customers can engage with your business, leave enquiries and even make transactions when your business is not ‘open’.
- SEO can level the playing field among businesses sizes. We’ve helped small retailers outrank conglomerates like Myer and a family construction business dominate multi-nationals, among countless other examples. None have the budget of the bigger companies, but with a well-executed SEO campaign, they can thrive online.
- SEO is very sustainable. For a relatively small budget, SEO can be an ongoing strategy that can be more effective than traditional marketing and thereby reduce spend in these areas.
- SEO need not be tied to geographical boundaries. You can expand your SEO campaign as your business grows, with minimal additional expanse. For example, if you are a Gold Coast business looking for customers in Brisbane, or vice versa, increasing this reach is possible via an SEO campaign.
- Utilising SEO techniques ensures you have a better website. At the heart of effective SEO, is an ongoing obsession to improve the user (visitor) experience. When Google sees this, they improve rankings, but it also means that websites that do SEO properly are generally more functional and easier-to-use.
A do-it-yourself approach is always a possibility. However, it is worth considering that the learning curve is incredibly steep (and the goal posts move regularly!). Those taking on an SEO campaign themselves will need to consider page optimisation, conversion rate optimisation, keyword research, Google My Business, link building, content creation, use of metrics ….the list goes on. The reality is that there are many moving parts in any successful SEO campaign.
Given these challenges, we think it makes sense to work with a reputable SEO agency. And our experience over the years has told us that the agency approach will always prove more successful, cheaper and faster than keeping SEO in-house.
Working with a team that lives and breathes SEO each day will represent your best chance of SEO having a material impact on your business’ growth.
With more than a billion websites in 2022, SEO campaigns can take a few months to gain traction. This is most relevant in competitive industries and/or major metropolitan locations. For more niche businesses and / or smaller geographic locations, we’ve often seen a surge in rankings within weeks.
SEO is not a short-term fix though – it does require an ongoing commitment from clients. Along with hard work, patience and expertise from your chosen SEO agency.
Brace yourself for a frustrating answer (sorry!) – it depends. The cost of SEO is determined by several factors including:
- Industry competitiveness – some industries are far more competitive than others. Playing SEO catch up against businesses with well-established online presences, takes time and costs money.
- Geographic locations – to state the obvious, Brisbane is going to be harder market to crack for SEO compared to Southport on the Gold Coast. That is definitely not to say it is impossible to see great results in Brisbane, it just can take more time and resources (which drives up the price).
- Your website – is it SEO ready, or are you going to need major changes before you can launch an effective SEO campaign? Potentially this can add some cost to the start of your SEO campaign.
We’ve have to have a look at your website, as there could be a number of reasons why you’ve seen a drop in traffic.
If your drop in traffic is fairly sudden, we’d encourage you to have a read of our Google Penalty Recovery Services page.
If the drop in traffic has happened over a long period of time, the reasons are likely to be less sinister. One reason could be that your competitors are now focused on SEO and have got the jump on your business. Or it could be time for your business to revisit its own SEO and find out the reason for the deterioration.
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