What’s the Difference Between White Hat and Black Hat SEO?

A common debate in the SEO world, here’s what you need to know.

Chances are you’ve heard of the two phrases “white hat SEO” and “black hat SEO”, whether in passing or direct conversation.

We will explain both these practices for you:

Firstly, SEO stands for search engine optimization. This is the process of optimizing a website and its content to rank well in search engines.

White hat SEO quite simply refers to “following the rules”, when it comes to optimizing a website whereas black hat SEO involves “risky practices”, often not following these rules.

However, these rules aren’t just made up either – popular search engines such as Google provide these guidelines for best SEO practice.

We will now break down both White & black hat SEO in more detail.

White Hat SEO

White hat SEO involves doing things the “right way” or at least the way search engines such as Google originally intended.

A classic example of this would be writing content you want to write about and tailoring this content to answer a customer’s question, gaining backlinks naturally.

White hat SEO follows these guidelines set out by search engines such as Google, sticking to these guidelines will not get you penalized or your website banned.

Black Hat SEO

As previously mentioned, black hat SEO is often seen as a much more “risky” approach when it comes to SEO.

Examples of black hat SEO may include buying backlinks, including buying these in bulk, and generally having zero intention of customer interaction, instead focusing your SEO strategy on ranking and ranking alone.

Other examples of black hat SEO include keyword stuffing, invisible text, doorway pages, and un-related keywords on pages in hope of ranking for these.

So, what’s the difference?

We strongly advise all those working on websites and/or blogs to follow white hat SEO techniques.

Black hat SEO could get your website banned for manipulating search engines with the sole intent of increased traffic and rankings.

Stay away from purchasing backlinks, keyword stuffing on your site, and writing content for the sake of writing it.

Remember, you must think of the customer first– if it does not provide value or your solely manipulating a page to improve your website rankings then you may be crossing into the land of black hat SEO, or perhaps somewhere in the middle.

Are you still unsure?

If you’re still unsure then maybe we can help you, at Topsparkmedia we provide SEO solutions for your business.

We focus solely on white hat SEO, following search engines such as Google’s guidelines to protect the reputation of your website while naturally and organically increasing traffic and business leads.

This is achieved through a mixture of website content, PPC (pay per click), and written content – helping you optimize your business, increase business leads, and taking your business to the next level.

‍