Black Hat vs. White Hat SEO
Does the Color of My Headpiece Really Matter?
Anyone who does any research online about search engine optimization will eventually run into a plethora of concerns about the color of one’s hat. Some techniques are white hat, some are black hat. ( Why no green hats? ) It can get a little confusing for someone who isn’t in the industry. What exactly makes something white or black and why does it matter?
Specifically Vague
The first thing we need to do is consider what SEO is really about. When you perform SEO work you are trying to make search engines stand up and take notice of your website. The more Google or Bing likes your website, the higher in the rankings you’ll appear.
Great, so far so good. So what makes a search engine like your website? THAT is a tricky question because search engines don’t like to get specific. Google recently admitted that they change how they rank websites over 1000 times a year! I’m sure Bing and Yahoo are equally industrious. Detailing every single one of those changes would be difficult. Plus, it could lead to people finding loopholes and gaming the system.
Despite the lack of specifics, over the years Google and the other search engines have talked about their vision of what a good website is all about. Some of the highlights include writing good quality original content, good spelling and grammar, don’t link to spammy websites, and a host of other commandments.
Differing Philosophies
The problem for the search engines is that it isn’t always possible to catch people breaking their guidelines. It takes a lot of computing power to read every website, follow how they link to each other, and infer intent. This is where we can now draw a distinction between the hats.
A White Hat SEO will try to work within the intentions of the search engines. They follow Google’s best practices as closely as they can and try to be a “good neighbor” according to the search engines. Black Hat SEO, on the other hand, doesn’t mind breaking with Google’s intentions as long as they can get away with it. This can offer them significant gains over a White Hatter, as long as they don’t get caught.
Let’s make a crazy example. What if Google hated the letter Z? For whatever reason ( maybe to get back at an old schoolyard bully named Zack ) they didn’t like ‘Z’ anymore and wanted to limit it’s use on the internet.
In our example, the White Hat SEO would try to avoid using the letter Z wherever possible. One or two might be necessary ( say, on a Zoo’s website ) but they avoid it if at all possible. The Black Hat SEO, on the other hand, would push the limit. They might discover that Google allows you to have up to 50 Z’s on a website but no more. So the Black Hat’s website would have 40 or 45 Z’s, even though they know Google doesn’t like Z, just to gain a competitive advantage. ( Apparently searching for the letter Z is a popular pastime. )
Why You Should Care
No harm, no foul, right? In a competitive business world, if Google lets you have 50 Z’s then what’s the harm in pushing the limit? Remember those thousands of updates search engines make to their algorithms every year? Well, you know Google doesn’t like the letter ‘Z’. Maybe next year they decide they were being too generous and cut the limit down to 20. Oh oh. Now your website has too many Z’s. Google sees your website as a problem. Your ranking on the search engines could drop, or worse: You could be completely delisted.
While the notion that a search engine would ban a particular letter is absurd, the key lesson of that example is real: If you care about how you’re ranked on the search engines, you should play by their rules. Hence it is important that your SEO firm is playing by the rules too.
In our next article we’ll look at some questions you should ask your SEO company to make sure they are playing by the rules.