There are different techniques used for search engine optimisation, or SEO. One way that these techniques are classified is with the various hat terminology: white, black and gray hat SEO. Ethical SEO efforts are referred to as white hat SEO, while black hat is considered completely unethical. The gray hat techniques are considered to be that fine line between the white and black hat methods.
White Hat SEO Techniques
This is considered the ethical type of SEO. It is also the type of SEO techniques that search engines will accept without exception. These techniques will not only be beneficial for the search engines, but also the site visitors. The ultimate goal of white hat SEO is for improving the websites ranking based on methods that will not cause any type of site penalties. When white hat SEO is done properly it will be slower than the black hat techniques and something that is ongoing.
Black Hat SEO Techniques
This is when you use techniques that are not acceptable to the various search engines in order to boost your sites position in the search results. The techniques are actually used in order to “trick” the search engines into providing higher positions in the rankings, when the pages do not offer any type of benefit to the visitors of the site. The goal of these techniques is to improve the ranking of a site, no matter what it will take to do so.
There are two reasons that black hat SEO is used: it works, until the search engines discover then and some people don’t fully understand the fact that these techniques can cause your site to be penalised, or completely banned from certain search engines.
Gray Hat SEO Techniques
These are SEO techniques that take more risks than the white hat techniques, but they are not so bad to get your site completely banned from the search engines altogether; however, they may be severe enough to result in some type of penalty. While they do use a number of questionable techniques, they are not in the same category as the black hat techniques.
When you understand that there are certain techniques that you should not use to get your site ranked, you will be able to ensure that you are found by people who are interested in whatever it is that you are offering.
