Every time we think of digital marketing, websites, brand pages, or any kind of digital interfaces, one thing that remains constant is Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO is a field that overlaps with nearly all of these and thus, remains extremely essential to almost each digital endeavor. The reason for this lies in the very definition of Search Engine Optimization. It chiefly refers to all the practices, techniques and methods employed by marketers, businesses, brands and other individuals or organizations in order to improve their rankings on search engine result pages like the ones on Google. Through SEO, they can boost their online presence as well as visibility and thereby drive more traffic to their page, product or service.
When it comes to any realm of digital media or marketing, ethics and guidelines always take the backseat. They are often overlooked in pursuit of seemingly more rewarding things like grabbing audiences and capturing their attention to increase traffic and leads. However, search engines like Google always tend to have strict guidelines when it comes to content and SEO. In this case, certain methods are outlined as bad while others are purely excellent. While the former can affect the way these search engines sift through your content and prove to be detrimental to your overall rankings, the latter can help you stand out and thus achieve higher positions. Two practices called black hat SEO and white hat SEO techniques are outlined to help distinguish ethically harmful and ideal methods of search engine optimization. Furthermore, there is one kind of method that falls in the gray area, where it can neither be classified as entirely ethical or dismissed as bad. This is known as gray hat SEO. Find out more about these SEO tips and tricks in the following article.
Difference between gray hat, black hat and white hat SEO techniques:
White Hat SEO: Simply put, white hat SEO refers to when the rules and guidelines laid down by the specific search engine are followed. There are a few examples below which can further help you understand which practices can commonly be categorized as white hat SEO techniques.
> Creating highly informative and valuable content that not only works best to attract users but also delivers quality. Besides helping generate more clicks due to high rankings, good content can also encourage other websites, blogs or pages to add a link or reference to it, further boosting traffic as well as reputation.
> Updating content to keep it trendy and relevant.
> Aiming for long-term tactics to build content that can be reliable, trustworthy and accurate.
> Avoiding risks by sticking to search engine guidelines.
Black Hat SEO: Black hat SEO is the exact polar opposite of the above. It indicates tactics that entail any kind of manipulation, false claims, buying references and links, repetition to get noticed, inaccuracy, hidden plagiarism, etc. to inorganically, dishonestly or forcefully attain higher rankings. Here are some examples of black hat SEO techniques for more clarity.
> Keyword stuffing; that is, unnecessarily adding too many keywords or repeating them too much only to manipulate search engines
> Paying for backlinks; that is, paying other websites and pages to add your own links to their content for reference.
> Making false claims in your content, only for the sake of pulling more traffic.
> Including misleading and inaccurate information to your content with lack of research.
> Less obvious plagiarism from other better sources.
> Compromising on authenticity for short-term benefits.
> Cloaking; that is, tricking search engines as well as users by showing each of them completely different content. In this case, the real content is masked underneath better and optimized versions of it for search engines.
> Having a large number of nearly identical pages with very little difference in terms of content.
> Being a part of PBNs or private blog networks that purposely and mutually cross-link each other’s content to misguide search engines.
Gray Hat SEO: These SEO techniques lie in the ethically ambiguous or gray area. When practices cannot be directly classified as purely good or bad, and thus cannot fall under either white hat SEO or black hat SEO, they fall under gray hat SEO. Following are a few examples.
> Paying for reviews
> Paying for testimonial
> Content Spinning; that is, rephrasing certain content to publish it multiple times or in multiple places
> Mindful Keyword Stuffing with very minor changes
> Clickbaiting with highly attractive and clickable content that does not live up entirely to its promised value
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