White hat vs black hat SEO: Which one should I use?

Search engine optimization is increasingly being considered as a great way of helping websites get the search engine rankings that they need. Using tried and tested techniques as well as new ones that are constantly being developed SEO experts can help website owners achieve their goals for their sites.

But just like any other function, there is also a “light side” and a “dark side” to search engine optimization. White hat and black hat techniques have become tools for SEO experts in achieving their goals. There are those who use purely white hat techniques, while there are those who have committed to just using black hat methods. Then there are those who decide to toe the line by using both white hat and black hat techniques as they see fit.

White hat practitioners use “above board” and legitimate techniques to help build your website’s search engine ranking. They are committed to give relevant content and allow search engines to rank the web pages of the site organically and naturally. White hat people frown on paying for backlinks or trying to trick search engines. The flipside of being on the straight and narrow though is that they do not use other techniques that are not necessarily illegal but are certainly unconventional – and there are a lot of these techniques out there.

Black hat practitioners are more commonly the spammers and scammers of cyberspace. They won’t think twice to use different spamming techniques like spam URLs in blog posts and comments, spam email, link farming as well as other dubious techniques that are not even very inconspicuous to begin with. Black hatters know full well that their actions will most likely get the website they work on banned by search engines. They do not have any regard for the hard work of other people especially website owners who ask for their help.

The SEO practitioners who toe the line between the two are usually called gray hat practitioners. These practitioners try to use the best of both world, so to speak. They employ the techniques that will get the best results and have enough sense to bend the rules just so that they won’t get banned for their actions.

If it is possible, the best people to ask for help in beefing up your website’s search engine rankings is by using gray hat practitioners. They have the best outlook on search engine optimization and are highly creative in devising and using different techniques that will help in search engine rankings. Of course, it is important to also remember that gray hat techniques really do take that fine line between what is good and what is bad. Admittedly, the more you try to take risks the more positive the results could be. But there is an invisible line that you may cross that will enter the realm of black hat techniques and this could prove disastrous for your website if you get caught and your website is banned – with all of your hard work going down the drain.