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Lack Of Guidance Has Killed Many SEO Efforts!
There is a plethora of conflicting information about black hat SEO vs white hat SEO. Additionally, there is a lot of discussion in the content marketing world about white hat vs black hat SEO.
Some people swear by the results they’ve seen from using black hat techniques; others maintain that the only way to achieve sustainable success is by playing by the rules and using white hat SEO methods.
But there needs to be a full picture of the difference between the two.
In White hat SEO, you strictly adhere to the terms and policies of Google. Therefore, the results of white hats are long-term and sustained over a longer period.
Black hat SEO helps in the quick improvement of your search engine rankings. However, here you try to manipulate the loopholes of the search engine and rank your website by unfair means.
Which is the right approach for you?
In this article, we will explore the ins and outs of SEO and help you to discover the most practical solution for white hat vs black hat SEO.
Let’s delve deep into the topic and understand it from scratch.
Search Engine Optimization
SEO or Search Engine Optimization is one of the most sought-after content marketing mechanisms that help your website to rank on the Search Engine Result Pages (SERP).
Primarily SEO Depends On 3 Crucial Factors
- Content quality of your website.
- Keywords that you have used.
- Whether you’re doing off-page or on-page SEO.
Importance Of SEO
- It helps your website’s organic rankings.
- Improves brand awareness.
- Build authority and credibility.
- Attract a steady flow of traffic to your website.
- It builds a relationship with your prospects.
Based on your approach, SEO has two divisions: white hat SEO and Black hat SEO. Unfortunately, people often get confused about white hat vs black hat SEO. So let’s explain in a step-by-step manner.
White Hat SEO
White hat SEO is a more ethical approach where you abide by the search engine’s terms and policies. Here you follow the practices that are morally right and add value to your reader.
White Hat SEO Tactics
- Stick To Guidelines: These guidelines are the collection of illicit practices, and you can’t follow those illicit practices. Research well and learn how Google ranks your website and adheres to the best practices.
- Having A Fast Loading Speed: Do you know that user experience is considered one of the important ranking factors? You can gauge your website’s speed and user experience by using any tool, and if there is room for improvement, go for it.
- User Intent: You need to analyze the keyword you’re writing for. User intent is about understanding what the reader expects from you when they search for a specific keyword.
- Well-Curated Content: High-quality content is one of the crucial pillars of your white hat SEO efforts. Create relevant content with immense value to match the user intent.
- Optimize With Relevant Keywords: It’s no secret that keywords are the backbone of any SEO effort. So place your keyword in your title, body, and meta tags. But make sure you have to refrain from putting keywords forcefully.
- Link building is collecting inbound links to your websites from fellow websites. It is considered one of the important ranking factors. To get the optimum results with link building, you need to acquire links from relevant and high-authority websites.
Why Is White Hat SEO Important?
We all know that Google is particular with its policies. By violating those policies, your site might get banned. Banning can cost you a lot of traffic, making you less relevant to users.
What Is Black Hat SEO?
Contrary to white hat SEO, black hat SEO is a manipulative approach where you violate the terms and conditions of your search engine. Here you try to bypass the Policies of search engines.
Black Hat SEO Tactics
- Keyword Stuffing: Keyword stuffing is where you over-emphasize a single keyword in your article. You aim to over-optimize the article with that specific keyword and rank it.
- Cloaking: Many times, we click some link, image, or content on a website, and it redirects us to another website. Has that happened to you? We can refer to this situation as cloaking. And it is an unethical way to garner traffic.
- Hidden Texts: Black hat SEO practitioners use this technique to put more keywords into the text. Hidden texts are not visible to the reader. However, HTML can recognize hidden texts.
- Doorway Pages: It helps in getting higher ranks. They are stuffed with keywords and will redirect you to the other page where the website wants you to visit.
- Poor Content Quality: Putting irrelevant, valueless content comes under the practice of white hat SEO. Here you steal content from other websites or write something without context with a keyword.
- Paid Links: Google is very strict about buying and selling links. The practitioners of black hat SEO use paid links to manipulate search engine results.
- Article Spinning: This is another unethical way where you steal content from your fellow websites and rewrite them. It’s about copy-pasting the existing article or tweaking it with the help of AI.
- Clickbait: Imagine you have come across a catchy, tempting title, and when you click on that text, you end up landing on a page far from what you expected it would be. The aim of Click baits is clicks and traffic only.
Impact Of Black Hat SEO
The tactics of Black Hat SEO do not consider the reader’s well-being. By violating Search Engines’ policies, your website might get penalized.
As of now, you have understood the topics individually. Let’s now understand white hat vs black hat SEO as a whole.
White Hat vs Black Hat SEO
| White Hat SEO | Black Hat SEO |
| Strictly follows the policies of search engines. | Unethical way of applying tactics where you violate the terms and policies of Search Engines. |
| As it’s a process-driven mechanism, you must wait for some time to experience the results. | As black hat SEO involves unfair means and doesn’t really care about the user, the results of Black hat SEO are prompt. |
| The backlinks you put here are relevant to your niche. | The Black hat approach doesn’t care about the relevancy; here, you try to collect as many links as you can. |
| The content quality is much superior and well-researched, which fulfills keyword intent. | It doesn’t really care about providing much value to your readers. |
| When it comes to white hat SEO, keyword stuffing is strictly prohibited. | Keyword stuffing is a kind of spamming by overutilizing a specific keyword. |
| White Hat tactics address the keyword intent successfully. | It doesn’t fulfill keyword intent. |
| Here, our goal is to improve content quality. | We usually use hidden text here. |
| We strictly adhere to organic means. | Here we try to manipulate the search engine. |
| It enhances user experience. | Here we pay heed to improving the user experience. |
| The purpose of white hat SEO is to improve your website’s credibility and trustworthiness. | Black hat SEO negatively impacts your website’s credibility. |
| The result of white hat SEO lasts for a long time. | The results of black hat SEO disappear after some time. |
| White hat SEO comes with a fast loading speed for your website. | Black hat SEO doesn’t pay heed to user experience, therefore, people don’t consider loading time. |
| White hat SEO is a natural link building process. | It involves buying and selling links to gain quick traffic and rankings. |
| Here you write properly optimized meta tags. | Black hat SEO comes with spammy keywords. |
Which One To Choose: White Hat vs Black Hat SEO?
Given the different types of hats, you might be thinking about which one is right for you.
White hat vs black hat – Is it only ethical or unethical? Are there more practical factors?
Apart from the ethical aspects, there are more tactical sides to it. Here are the three things you should consider:
1. Value-Rich Or Valueless
Let’s be very frank. Here value refers to your website and your users. Do you want to write something that will add value to your audience? Or are you just doing it for the sake of your ranking? These are the two questions you must ask yourself.
2. Long-Term Or Short-Term
Do you want to experience the results for a longer period? If the answer is YES, you should focus on white hat SEO.
You can go for the black hat technique if the answer is no.
3. Risk Appetite
Are you a risk taker? Can you bear the pain of penalizing your website?
Without any doubt, Black hat techniques are not safe. And with every algorithm update, it becomes riskier.
These are the three key essentials of white hat and black hat SEO. Now It’s up to you, depending on your priorities.
We hope you found this article worth reading! We have tried to cover all the deciding factors that come under black and white hat SEO.
If you have any questions regarding this topic or want us to speak on any other topic, let us know in the comments.
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