On today’s internet, the best practices of Google and other search engines are designed to facilitate relevant results for searchers.
SEO methods that attempt to manipulate search results through a means of violating best practices are ethically at odds with search engines and stand to be punished for it – this kind of SEO is called “black hat” because it is in contravention of Google best practices.
Those seeking to build healthy backlink profiles and obtain enhancements in their search rankings need to be aware of the importance of not just generating backlinks, but generating the right kind of backlinks–the right way.
In this article we’re going to explore the importance of high-quality backlinks and detail why it is always the best policy to pursue white-hat backlinking strategies.
We’ll also cover off the purpose behind working with domestic writers to hand-craft niche-specific content, and the long-term impact these best practices have in terms of their effect on overall SEO.
Understanding White-Hat SEO
To understand white-hat SEO it must first be understood that all SEO is an attempt to maximize one or more ranking factors for a given website.
In a very real sense you could say all SEO is an attempt to influence, but some SEO is an attempt to manipulate.
This is as true for backlinking specifically as it is SEO generally.
Google is accepting, even encouraging of websites taking initiatives and following their best practices in order to improve rankings while at the same time taking a nearly zero-tolerance stance against manipulation.
The difference between these two treatments is pretty straight forward – anything which threatens the core functionality of search (manipulation of results) is a detriment to Google’s core business.
For many years Google and others struggled with search manipulation, due mostly to immature technologies.
In 2012 Google released the Penguin update which vastly curtailed black-hat SEO practices that were manipulative, such as forum spamming, link farming and more.
These practices are not only no longer viable, they are outright detrimental to a website’s ability to rank as they can incur the wrath of Google in the form of penalties if found to be in use.
What this all boils down to is the fact that following best practices (white-hat SEO) is really the only viable option for websites that want to rank in the long-term.
For this reason and several more, it’s crucial that everyone considering SEO today has a well grounded understanding of these techniques and their impact.
Differentiation – Good, Bad & Otherwise
SEO is believed to exist upon a spectrum ranging from completely unethical and manipulative techniques (black-hat), to somewhat unethical or questionable (grey-hat), on to completely ethical techniques following best practices (white-hat).
Without delving too far into definitions, it’s critical that those in the marketplace are able to differentiate what they are buying and to know where it falls on the invisible spectrum.
How can you know the difference? Well, numerous ways.
Firstly, white-hat SEO services – both on-site and off-site – will adhere stringently to Google’s best practices.
The real issue arises with services that contain, or are composed of, questionable practices such acquiring links from PBN’s (Private Blog Networks) or low-quality backlinks sold by shady merchants.
The problem with the above practices is that while they are frowned upon, they are not directly in contravention of anything technically in a hard and fast kind of way. Therefore in practice, these kinds of SEO service components are in a grey area.
Explicit black-hat SEO services are usually pretty obvious to spot and encompass SEO methods such as forum spamming, email spamming, website comments section spamming, link farms and much more.
There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to identifying black-hat link providers, but it is generally a good idea to do your basic due diligence upon whichever link building provider you are about to partner with.
Though you may not be aware that the consequences for search manipulation can be incredibly costly and even financially ruinous.
If you run a website and depend upon it being found by prospects to run your business then you should be very careful who you let run your SEO campaign.
If your website is found to be manipulating search engine results and it receives either an automatic penalty or receives the dreaded “manual review,” it can lose its rankings–sometimes permanently.
What does all of this mean? Well, for most it’s very simple – it means that there is only one kind of SEO worth pursuing anymore – a best practices based one.
The Long Term
SEO isn’t a battle – it’s a never ending war and it’s fought amongst those trying to rank for increasingly specific (and valuable) keywords.
The best way to judge any search strategy is over the medium to long-term.
This begs the question – how do things end up for people who follow different strategies?
For those following black-hat strategies, their long-term prospects are usually pretty grim.
History repeats itself, often telling the same story of black-hat websites that initiate campaigns and experience short-lived success, only to be identified by Google and severely penalized and de-ranked into obscurity.
For grey-hat strategies that try to tip-toe around the rules, bending them where they can and avoiding scrutiny where possible, the outlook is usually a lot more mundane.
The typical site that’s involved in grey-hat activities, such as paying for ad placements or using questionable writers for their guest posts, usually do as well as you might expect – they muddle along.
Broadly speaking, white-hat SEO strategies – both on-site and off-site, are the only way to go for long-term success.
History has shown us repeatedly in the form of thousands of successful websites that the key to online success is to improve one’s relevance – this is what search engines look for and what they reward.
Good SEO is a self-reinforcing methodology, that is perhaps best explained by comparing various methods to one another.
Comparing Black-Hat, Grey-Hat, and White-Hat Practices
To truly understand the differences between black-hat, grey-hat and white-hat backlinking, one needs to look at their differing core driving philosophies to make sense of the differences.
The difference between these three designations is as much about the ethics of those behind the practices as it is the practices themselves.
The reason this is important to keep in mind is because there is significant bleed-over between these practices.
Though we will highlight here some of the more stake and rigidly defined aspects, keep in mind that these vary and blend in a myriad of ways in the real world.
What’s important for you to take away when referencing these practices is to get an idea of how they differ – and therefore what to avoid.
Black-Hat Practices
Some explicitly black-hat link building tactics include:
Link-Farming: Large websites that host usually many, many backlinks which appear in an unnatural (spam like) manner.
Forum Spam Bots: As the name implies, these are automated bots which are programmed (often but not always) to register themselves on unprotected web forums and/or website comments sections and spam backlinks.
Low-Quality Posts: Sometimes black-hat guest posts themselves are the product of automation gone too-far.
One method employed is to use email spam to generate accepting responses to a guest-posting offer (reciprocal) and then to send the respondents spam-bot-generated postings of very low-quality.
The above is directly related to another bad-practice of Black-Hat SEO.
Spintax: Spintax is essentially the art and science of machine-assisted text-copying of text. Though falling short of the legal definition of plagiarism, this practice is highly frowned upon by search engines and may incur severe penalties.
The primary manifestation of spintax out on the web is it’s use as a content-multiplier (write one original piece and use the spintax-bot to convert it into 50 bad ones) and copier.
Sometimes spintax is paired with bots to try to fool the credulous into various schemes, scams and other abusive behaviors.
With all of these black-hat tactics, and several others, the common thread is their clear disregard of ethical considerations and Google’s best practices.
Grey-Hat Practices
Some more grey–hat link building tactics include:
Sketchy Backlinks (For Sale): Though not explicitly against Google’s best-practices, there are backlinks for sale by many nefarious merchants looking to capitalize upon websites they own or control. These sites are usually but not always choc-ful of backlinks, which is itself highly suspect.
This practice is often considered grey-hat because it stands somewhere in-between being explicitly forbidden and tolerated. Ultimately, what Google doesn’t know they can’t penalize – provided the backlinks appear natural.
Expired Domains: One technique considered sketchy and definitely grey-hat is that of buying expired domains – domains with no owners but long track records and therefore ripe for exploitation.
What some SEO’s do as a part of link building is buy and set up blogs on these domains, knowing they will get a boost way above baseline due to their history – smart, technically not against Google’s TOS, but definitely a grey area.
Bad Content: Okay, crummy content absolutely isn’t a scientific definition, but let’s face it, B-Roll footage exists in film and in SEO B-Roll writing does too.
Poor writing has many manifestations. It could be very verbose and long-winded blather, it could be low-cost and poorly researched or it might just be ill-conceived and amateurish.
In any event, low-quality content is definitely a form of grey-hat SEO – why? Well, it’s not unethical, but it’s also not very useful or relevant.
White-Hat Practices
Link Sharing & Guest Blogging: First and foremost amongst white-hat SEO practices is that of high-quality backlinking – why? It not only works, but is the quintessential form of ethical SEO.
With link sharing, websites that are the focus of SEO simply reach out to websites they want backlinks from and offer to write content for them in exchange for them – it’s that simple.
This method has been used by successful websites for over a generation and shows no signs of slowing down.
Content Planning: One of the pillars of white-hat SEO strategies that relates to backlinking is content planning.
Content planning takes conventional research, trends analysis and content generation and blends it into one, unified effort to maximize the content production for a given website’s rankings.
With content planning the end-goal is to achieve higher-quality, more voluminous and focused content production. The content produced is not just produced on a schedule and designed to tailor fit it’s audience, it’s also drip fed out over-time.
Some take content planning and fuse its tenets with those of website personalization and other forms of marketing to achieve truly stellar results.
Content that is high-quality and results from careful planning and production is much more likely to hit-the-mark, obtain many views and ultimately generate many backlinks.
User-Generated Content: One methodology of white-hat SEO not often commented upon is that of fostering, gathering and utilizing user (and/or customer) generated content.
Today, more and more businesses are leveraging the power of video reviews, written reviews and other avenues which incentivize end-users (customers) to create content and to share it in exchange for discounts and other benefits.
This practice has many manifestations and is, in fact, only tangentially a form of SEO at all, however this practice is entirely ethical, highly impactful and something pursued by more and more businesses.
Blogging & Backlinking: One of the most quintessential white-hat SEO tactics is that of blogging – both on-site and off-site (guest blogging) as a part of backlink generation.
It is a perfectly white-hat SEO strategy to guest blog – and to host guest blogs as well – provided the content quality is high and was generated properly.
Looking Down the Road to Success
It should be clear to most readers that black-hat and grey-hat techniques are risky, and in the case of the former, they may incur dire penalties – we don’t advise either. While you may be able to get away with some of these techniques in the short-term, it is almost a given that in the long-term it will end up doing more harm than good for your website and your brand.
Following and implementing white-hat SEO techniques for your website is the only way to guarantee long-lasting SEO success in today’s online world. Aligning with Google’s best practices and setting your website up to steer clear of the possibility of incurring penalties and being de-ranked by the search engines allows for your website to build its authority the right way.
There are many pieces to the puzzle, and oftentimes it can be confusing on what is right versus wrong as Google’s spectrum is invisible and bends to include certain things and not others. The best way to ensure your website is on the right track is to do your due diligence researching and vetting the right SEO provider that aligns themselves with white-hat techniques, allowing your website to flourish on the internet and you to focus on your business.