What Do The Terms 'White, Grey And Black Hat" Mean In SEO?

SEO, standing for Search Engine Optimization, is a method by which a website's visibility through search engines can be increased. A good search engine optimization strategy can be the key to a successful website.

With the internet being such a fiercely competitive domain, it is important that websites stand out from the crowd if they are to succeed. SEO enables websites to improve their rank in search engine results, therefore increasing their visibility and traffic. There are various techniques used in SEO, some good, some bad.

Depending on the legitimacy of the techniques used, SEO can be put into one of three categories: white, grey and black hat. Here is a breakdown of each type of practice, and why to avoid certain SEO methods.

Search Engines

Using a search engine such as Google, Bing or Yahoo! is a quick and convenient way to find content online. In a fraction of a second, a few keywords can result in millions of websites being presented to the user. Usually however, users won't bother looking through page after page of results.

Instead, most people will probably click a website that appears in the first handful of results. Because of this, any website that doesn't appear high up on the list will end up being ignored.

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How do Search Engines work?

Search engines find websites with the use of complex algorithms called web-crawlers.
Web-crawlers systematically search through the internet, finding and analysing the websites that they come across. These websites are then indexed accordingly and stored in a massive database, which can be queried by entering search terms into the search engine.

In an effort to provide users with the most relevant and useful content possible, search engines rank websites according to certain criteria. Factors such as content, keywords, links and metadata are taken into account when ranking websites. The higher a site's rank; the higher on the list of relevant search results it will appear.

Black Hat SEO

Understandably, those with knowledge of the inner workings of web-crawlers may want to take advantage of them, in order to promote a website as quickly as possible. Despite their illegitimacy, back hat SEO methods have been successfully used to boost the ranking of websites.

One technique that is often employed in black hat SEO is inserting hidden or “cloaked” content into a website. Things such as keywords and phrases can be hidden within a website's code in order to fool web-crawlers.

However, many search engines are now taking measures in order to prevent black hat SEO from tainting their search results. By changing the way that web-crawlers categorise websites, those sites that are found to be using black hat SEO are blacklisted and demoted. This can seriously harm a websites performance and reputation.

White Hat SEO

Those who wish to improve their website's search ranking legitimately need to demonstrate to the web-crawlers that their site is of good quality. Nowadays, search engines are only promoting sites that are both relevant and contextually appropriate (which is great for the end user). One popular white hat method is creating quality inbound links.

Every quality inbound link is analogous to a positive vote, with poor links leading to a negative vote. The more positive votes a website gets, the higher its search ranking will become. For an inbound link to be considered positive, they must come from a website with relevant and high-quality content.

Grey Hat SEO

As the name suggests, grey hat SEO is the middle ground between black and white hat techniques. In essence, the techniques used in grey hat SEO can be considered either good or bad depending on their context.

For example, the black hat method of using hidden information can actually be used in a legitimate sense too. Sometimes websites may need to convey certain information to web-crawlers whilst displaying it to users in an alternative way. In this sense, “cloaked” information would not be considered black hat.

Conclusion

Those wishing to promote their site using SEO should try and stick to white hat techniques. Grey hat SEO should only be used when necessary, and those tempted to join the “dark-side” could end up destroying their site's reputation.

Bradley Houston

About the Guest Author:

By Bradley Houston, who recommends White Hat SEO Agency, Distinctly Digital, Hertfordshire, England.