What is White Hat SEO?

[Topper]

So let me give a quick background on my experience with SERPS. I had good and bad results regarding Search engine results just like any other webmaster out there. But I still don't know what is white hat and what is grey hat. I want to do everything by the book(Google). So my question is what is the most legit way to create backlinks to a money site?

I listed what I think is black hat and what is white hat SEO methods below. Let me know if I got it all wrong or if I got it right. I'm learning something new everyday so Id love to know your take on this subject.

Black Hat:

Forum Profile backlinks
Mass Comments on blogs/websites
Article distribution with spun articles (Google is smart enough to know what is spun and not spun)
Mass amount of non-organic Social Bookmarkings

White Hat:

Writing articles(non-spun) on various sites with value such as: Hubpages, Squidoo, Ezine Articles(Not as valued as before)
Guest blogging on sites related to your money site.
Natural/organic social boomarking
Web 2.0 Article posting: wordpress, blogger, tumblr (not spun articles)

Grey Hat

Link wheels either with Web 2.0 sites or Articles sites or combination of both.


Are these the only white hat methods out there?

[mandark]

More white hat methods include non-spammy blog comments and signatures in forums in which you genuinely contribute.

[jonnyhardbaked]

White hat in general point of view is the legal way of promoting or optimizing your site. There are several white hat methods that you can use in SEO.

[paulgl]

There is no white or black.

There's stuff that works, and stuff that doesn't.

There's techniques that are high level, some low.
Some have no effect.

Google is not smart enough to know what is spun and
what is not spun. Not sure why people think google is
this big know-it-all-omnipotent power.

Why would profile links be black? They are low level,
to be sure.

Comments on blogs can be effective, but many are
low level. But where's the black in that?

Your lists are really about low level, and what may not work.

Not a good definition if you wish to define "black" hat.

Every person here does not give all their cards away. Some
of those cards would be considered black suits. But in reality,
there's stuff we just STFU about. I have never been one to
even worry about black, white, gray. There is stuff that works,
and stuff that doesn't. BUT...I do worry about google guidelines.

Anything that can be labeled as black hat SEO must have some
SEO behind it. Else it's not really SEO, is it?

If you choose to do stuff that google does not like, it's not black hat,
it's no hat.

Plenty of stuff that some refer to as black hat works and is no problem
if done the right way.

As example, some would call hidden text as black hat. It's not black hat.
It goes against google webmaster guidelines. The smart SEO person, takes
what was hidden text and weaves it into the page using unconventional
methods. That's not black hat. That's being smart.

Paul

[Topper]

Originally Posted by paulgl

There is no white or black.

There's stuff that works, and stuff that doesn't.

There's techniques that are high level, some low.
Some have no effect.

Google is not smart enough to know what is spun and
what is not spun. Not sure why people think google is
this big know-it-all-omnipotent power.

Why would profile links be black? They are low level,
to be sure.

Comments on blogs can be effective, but many are
low level. But where's the black in that?

Your lists are really about low level, and what may not work.

Not a good definition if you wish to define "black" hat.

Every person here does not give all their cards away. Some
of those cards would be considered black suits. But in reality,
there's stuff we just STFU about. I have never been one to
even worry about black, white, gray. There is stuff that works,
and stuff that doesn't. BUT...I do worry about google guidelines.

Anything that can be labeled as black hat SEO must have some
SEO behind it. Else it's not really SEO, is it?

If you choose to do stuff that google does not like, it's not black hat,
it's no hat.

Plenty of stuff that some refer to as black hat works and is no problem
if done the right way.

As example, some would call hidden text as black hat. It's not black hat.
It goes against google webmaster guidelines. The smart SEO person, takes
what was hidden text and weaves it into the page using unconventional
methods. That's not black hat. That's being smart.

Paul

Very good points. But we can call it anything we want, if not black or white then "what works and what doesnt work".

And when I talk about "White Hat" I mean the methods that big sites like: mashable, engadget, gizmodo, ehow and many others use. What are there methods of backlinking and raising in the serps? Its probably not Forum profile backlinks, mass blog commenting and spun article distribution.

And dont get me wrong, blog commenting is fine in moderation but not so good as mass implementation. Along side with forum profile links, they are also fine as long as they are active on the forum and not using there profile page solely for a backlink.

I'm a newbie to SEO but I love to learn more, does anyone else have other thoughts on this?

[masterjani]

Actually simple thing is creating backlinks steadily will not create any problems you dont even think about white hat or black hat.

[Topper]

Originally Posted by masterjani

Actually simple thing is creating backlinks steadily will not create any problems you dont even think about white hat or black hat.

As that been your experience?

[thebitbotdotcom]

Originally Posted by Topper

So let me give a quick background on my experience with SERPS. I had good and bad results regarding Search engine results just like any other webmaster out there. But I still don't know what is white hat and what is grey hat. I want to do everything by the book(Google). So my question is what is the most legit way to create backlinks to a money site?

I listed what I think is black hat and what is white hat SEO methods below. Let me know if I got it all wrong or if I got it right. I'm learning something new everyday so Id love to know your take on this subject.

Black Hat:

Forum Profile backlinks
Mass Comments on blogs/websites
Article distribution with spun articles (Google is smart enough to know what is spun and not spun)
Mass amount of non-organic Social Bookmarkings

White Hat:

Writing articles(non-spun) on various sites with value such as: Hubpages, Squidoo, Ezine Articles(Not as valued as before)
Guest blogging on sites related to your money site.
Natural/organic social boomarking
Web 2.0 Article posting: wordpress, blogger, tumblr (not spun articles)

Grey Hat

Link wheels either with Web 2.0 sites or Articles sites or combination of both.


Are these the only white hat methods out there?

Correction: Google can tell what a crappy 1st order synonymization-only spin is. It cannot tell what a 2nd or 3rd order spin that spins HTML, Tags, Media and knocks out sentences and paragraphs is. The latter it spiders, indexes and serves in search results happily.

That is what they want you to believe...same with EZA.

[Topper]

Originally Posted by thebitbotdotcom

Correction: Google can tell what a crappy 1st order synonymization-only spin is. It cannot tell what a 2nd or 3rd order spin that spins HTML, Tags, Media and knocks out sentences and paragraphs is. The latter it spiders, indexes and serves in search results happily.

That is what they want you to believe...same with EZA.

Hmm interesting.

Originally Posted by BigDogSeoForum

Dont try white, black hat, nothing ever works.. Just spend time do it your self.

What does that even mean? Spend time doing neither?

[Topper]

Maybe I shouldn't have labeled this post as "What is White Hat SEO?"

I should of labeled the post as: "What is ethical SEO in the eyes of Google?" or "How would Google Backlink?"

[jhonsean]

How they can classify white, black and grey hat seo? If other said that there is no such thing but to make quality links that will improve your site rankings.

[Topper]

Originally Posted by jhonsean

How they can classify white, black and grey hat seo? If other said that there is no such thing but to make quality links that will improve your site rankings.

Ok, so what is quality links?

[Joewriter]

For me the best way to qualify for white hat SEO is through regular writing of quality content that is unique and fresh daily or weekly.
Get in touch with me I show you how to easily and cheaply get quality content that is unique and will conform to all white hat seo best practices.
Regards
Joe WRITER

[paulgl]

Originally Posted by Topper

Very good points. But we can call it anything we want, if not black or white then "what works and what doesnt work".

And when I talk about "White Hat" I mean the methods that big sites like: mashable, engadget, gizmodo, ehow and many others use. What are there methods of backlinking and raising in the serps? Its probably not Forum profile backlinks, mass blog commenting and spun article distribution.

And dont get me wrong, blog commenting is fine in moderation but not so good as mass implementation. Along side with forum profile links, they are also fine as long as they are active on the forum and not using there profile page solely for a backlink.

I'm a newbie to SEO but I love to learn more, does anyone else have other thoughts on this?

Then you are talking apples and oranges. Sites like those are not like the average
Joe doing SEO. Those are highly ranked sites due to authority, linkbait, going viral,
getting on google's list by being the 800 pound gorilla. Google can't ignore them.

They can ignore you and me if we don't stand up for ourselves. We can take
a cue from the big boys, like:

don't worry about keywords in a domain.
build lot's of content.
go viral.
attract linkbait takers.

But we also are looking for the crumbs. That's why we do tons of low level
stuff like forum profiles and sigs, squidoo, hub, EZA, blogs, blog comments, etc.

We can expand our footprint and become a "micro" big site in our own way and
niche.

But unless you have millions of dollars to start up, like kayak.com and jump
to the front immediately, you have to work your tail off.

You cannot compare kayak.com to me doing SEO on my new travel
deal site.

Paul

[Topper]

Originally Posted by paulgl

Then you are talking apples and oranges. Sites like those are not like the average
Joe doing SEO. Those are highly ranked sites due to authority, linkbait, going viral,
getting on google's list by being the 800 pound gorilla. Google can't ignore them.

They can ignore you and me if we don't stand up for ourselves. We can take
a cue from the big boys, like:

don't worry about keywords in a domain.
build lot's of content.
go viral.
attract linkbait takers.

But we also are looking for the crumbs. That's why we do tons of low level
stuff like forum profiles and sigs, squidoo, hub, EZA, blogs, blog comments, etc.

We can expand our footprint and become a "micro" big site in our own way and
niche.

But unless you have millions of dollars to start up, like kayak.com and jump
to the front immediately, you have to work your tail off.

You cannot compare kayak.com to me doing SEO on my new travel
deal site.

Paul

Thanks for the info, I really appreciate it. Ill try to one day be a "micro big site" by doing my usual. I guess it takes time and ALOT of effort but then again what doesn't in this life.

[studio9xb]

White Hat is a Legal SEO Strategy, refers to the usage of SEO strategies, techniques and tactics that focus on Increase human audience or Traffic on your website.

[ngseosept]

White hat SEO do the ethical way of SEO strategies. That's why you don't have to worry that your site might get penalized because you do SEO in the right way.

[Justinpage]

I agree with paul. He has already hit the bottom point of this conversation. There are stuffs that work and there are some stuffs that doesn't work. I don't even bother with white and black hat.

[yukon]

Originally Posted by paulgl

The smart SEO person, takes
what was hidden text and weaves it into the page using unconventional
methods. That's not black hat. That's being smart.

Paul

Example, look on Ebay how they use a drop down menu to stuff keywords as plain-text.

[markowe]

Again, this distinction between black and white hat - for me it has more to do with my personal ethics. I don't want to fill the Internet with crap, so blog spamming, forum profiles and most spinning of content are out for me. Others do not have a problem with these practices, especially since they get results a lot of the time.

But then again, for people trying to maintain the integrity of their search engine algorithms (OK, Google), ALL active attempts to manipulate rankings, especially by off-site methods, are essentially blackhat. But then we all know there is FAR too much money in this for people to sit around waiting for search engines to rank their brilliant content the best by "natural means"...

[Billy Rey]

my definition of Whitehat is tricking yourself into thinking that what you are doing is "the ethical" way, the "correct" way.

Legally speaking, all of us here on this forum practicing seo aren't Whitehat at all.

[markowe]

Originally Posted by Billy Rey

my definition of Whitehat is tricking yourself into thinking that what you are doing is "the ethical" way, the "correct" way.

Legally speaking, all of us here on this forum practicing seo aren't Whitehat at all.

Right, like I say, it's more to do with your personal ethics. At least people doing mass-blog commenting, forum profiles and the like should ADMIT that what they are doing is spam, and a damn' nuisance to webmasters and the Internet in general, but genuine "white hat" is pretty hard to come by.

Actually, I am trying to get a site ranked (fairly low-comp) JUST based on good content with only minimal keyword optimisation and just a few sigs in relevant forums I am active in and related blogs I am actually interested in. It's proving veeeery slow. SOOO tempting to just give it a little 'push'...

[highave1]

I would like to say only one thing: follow google webmaster tool guide line, it all about white hat. Is not it??

[MikeFriedman]

White Hat SEO is a mythical story overly self-righteous people like to tell other newbies about.

The only white hat that exists is to put up a website and hope and pray that people link to it themselves, naturally.

If you have built even one backlink to your own site, welcome to the Darkside.

[sndrsndv]

Originally Posted by MikeFriedman

White Hat SEO is a mythical story overly self-righteous people like to tell other newbies about.

The only white hat that exists is to put up a website and hope and pray that people link to it themselves, naturally.

If you have built even one backlink to your own site, welcome to the Darkside.

exactly there is no such thing as white hat. you are manipulating the search engines building links to your own sites no matter how you do it automated or manually, spun or not spun. People say this forum is white hat and it realy isnt. Only difference is that you guys dont share peoples products that is it.

[katieholms]

Hello,
White Hat SEO is completely related to the ethical marketing which involve all the guidelines,rules and norms are made for SEO.You can some relevant SOME friendly keywords as well as the updated quality content.He/she takes the necessary action when required, turns him into an active user.