Is All SEO Black Hat? - What Do you Think?

[metafever]

Here is the deal . . . ANY SEO in my opinion is black hat.

We spend all day talking about white-hat this . . . black-hat that.

But by the mere concept of SEO you are stating that you are tweaking the system to achieve better rankings.

Now some use more aggressive methods than others.

But what makes those people better (white-hat) when they submit to Web Directory's vs those very bad people (black-hat) who submit their site en mass to Forums.

Truth it, they are both spam methods . . . (this goes for those 100 social book mark submissions as well)

No one has time to throw caution to the wind and let things happen naturally or like they are really saying . . . leave it to chance.

We all have too much time and energy invested in our web sites to do that.

Like they say, if you can't beat them join them!

Your thoughts?

[Andy Fletcher]

I've never really liked the terms White Hat and Black Hat to be honest. Ultimately, does it really matter?

It's important to know if a technique runs the risk of getting your site banned/delisted but other than that it's every website owners responsibility to help themselves. It becomes a bit of an arms race that ultimately costs everyone in the long run but right now so few people know what they are doing that it's pretty easy to come out on top. In the land of the blind and all that ...

The search engines will continue to improve their spam tactic detection techniques and the SEO crew will continue to improve their ability to spam. Ultimately though it doesn't matter that there are billions of junk pages in the SERP longtail because no one reads past page 1. And why not? Because those billions are junk pages help the search engines figure out the right results to return in the first place.

[Red_Virus]

so according to you is building links for getting higher search engine rankings is BLACKHAT ?

[TheHutz]

I'm inclined to agree in some respects.

Onpage optimisation I guess is considered more white hat (if done properly of course) as, it is your site and you can do as you like.

A lot of what Google looks for when it comes to onpage factors, also makes it a better experience for the user, so you find they go more hand in hand.

Link building however, you're right - I think it's still gaming the system, even if you do it properly.

You're spreading your own links for two reasons, to get traffic, and help in your rankings.

I guess the only methods (and there will be more), that could be considered white hat would be submitting to directories with the intention of the users of the directories being able to find you (not solely to help rankings), articles etc - all with the intention of allowing people to find you via other sites.

I always like to conduct my SEO in an ethical manner - I hate spammy methods - although unfortunately some of them still work!

Thanks for posing this question

[Radix]

I think you may not be aware of how deviant/illegal true blackhat methods are. I use that as my general guide. The following questions can guide you.

Is this something I can be prosecuted for?

Am I associating or collaborating with people who are engaged in criminal behavior?

If asked to explain why I'm doing this, could I tell the truth and not be ashamed?

Can my actions result in the loss of business if advertisers knew what I was doing?

I don't consider autoblogging black hat. I consider list harvesting via bogus CL listings blackhat. Anything you do that decieves, misleads or in essence does harm to an individual or entity is blackhat.

[kkchoon]

Nope, I don't think all SEO is black hat...

Many blogger don't do artificial back links but they did optimize their content for easier ranking on search engine, and they do employ link bait strategy... that's pretty much white hat.

Most marketer do search engine optimization unavoidably "spam" for back links, they create profile on web 2.0 site, but they don't continue to provide content...

[Pepper23]

I disagree in that all SEO is black hat. By that rationale , meta tags, titles, and all other things would be black hat and I disagree.

I feel that there needs to be black hat / white hat as the true differences are night and day.

Sure I understand your frustration and webmasters make more work for eachother in this competition. There is a good way and a bad way :P

[metafever]

Originally Posted by Red_Virus

so according to you is building links for getting higher search engine rankings is BLACKHAT ?

I am saying that ALL SEO could be considered black hat, which is why i tend to think that the terms really don't matter.

Lets just call SEO . . SEO . . and be done with it.

[Radix]

Originally Posted by metafever

I am saying that ALL SEO could be considered black hat, which is why i tend to think that the terms really don't matter.

Lets just call SEO . . SEO . . and be done with it.

Because blackhat SEO exists and is nothing like backlinking or page optimization?

[Hyaku_Man]

I don't think it's black hat. There's nothing black hat about doing what it takes to help people find what they're looking for, which is your valuable and relevant content. Optimization is simply a way of giving users what they want. Just like if you were making a tv show -- you'd make something that was in demand according to market research.

If my keyword research tells me that the phrase "Is it safe to feed my cat yoghurt" is totally in demand, and I register is-it-safe-to-feed-my-cat-yoghurt.com, I'm helping those people find the answer just like that. Even though it's keyword snipe, it offers them what they want. As long as there's no misleading **** like hidden rebill offers or whatever.

[Brett Topovski]

Originally Posted by metafever

Here is the deal . . . ANY SEO in my opinion is black hat.

We spend all day talking about white-hat this . . . black-hat that.

But by the mere concept of SEO you are stating that you are tweaking the system to achieve better rankings.

Now some use more aggressive methods than others.

But what makes those people better (white-hat) when they submit to Web Directory's vs those very bad people (black-hat) who submit their site en mass to Forums.

Truth it, they are both spam methods . . . (this goes for those 100 social book mark submissions as well)

No one has time to throw caution to the wind and let things happen naturally or like they are really saying . . . leave it to chance.

We all have too much time and energy invested in our web sites to do that.

Like they say, if you can't beat them join them!

Your thoughts?

Without search engine optimization how would search engines find websites and determine relevancy of keywords and keyword phrases for search engine users?

Every search engine is different, and Google has set itself aside from other major search engines.

• Without Google and other search engines, how would you expect to find what you are looking for on the internet?

Search engines provide a free public service to everyone in the world.

Search engine optimization experts help search engine by making websites more search engine friendly and easy to find while conforming to standards and guidelines that are put in place to determine relevancy of content and information for search engine users.

If you do not want to optimize your website, learn search engine optimization, hire a SEO Expert, then search engines offer the option of paying to advertising on their search engine and/or ad publishing network.

If you think SEO is black hat, then you need to learn more about search engine optimization...

[Mickm]

Some SEO will get you banned from search engines (mainly Google).. this is black hat, the methods that impose a direct risk to your business.

And I think it's called black hat for good a reason, it's a good thing that newbies and pros alike can use SEO techniques without fear of damaging their sites.

[TheAge]

It's all semantics isn't it? Is it not against Google's TOS to manually influence the rankings (even though they recently put out a beginner's SEO guide)? This would technically make all SEO blackhat.

For me, it's all a question of ethics – is my methods stealing money from other people? For example, getting somebody to do an email submit to see, oh, for example 'nude Jessica Alba photos' is something the CPA company had specifically said not to do – well, that's stealing money from them, because you're not exchanging value for value – they're giving you money for the type of referral that is of no use to them, and that you agreed not to get.

On the other hand, mass link building is completely fine with me, as long as it doesn't really hurt a person's business. I don't do this at the moment, but this is really because I'm a beginner, and don't want to risk any penalties from being overly enthusiastic.

- Adrian

[asher_gben]

who said all sEo blackhat? white hat seo for the long term

[TheHutz]

Ok - maybe its grey hat

Yeah, hacking etc and exploiting sites for you benefit is a definite nasty method.

But, if you think about it - most SEO'ers get links to help rankings - not for direct traffic of those links - that in itself is taking advantage of how much weight is put on links by Google.

I think, as long as its done properly without spamming, and always making sure you provide value, then thats cool.

Ideal world would be to always provide great linkbait and many people will always link to you naturally.

[Dan Grossman]

Yes, I consider it all black hat. Google is just fine at finding the good sites and bringing them to the searcher without our help.

Mass article writing/rewriting for links, mass social bookmarking of your own sites, seeking out "dofollow" blogs/forums just to get more links, link exchanges, it's all black hat.

If you actually had what people were looking for, you'd attract the links naturally as people talked about your site/product, and you'd move up the ranks without the manipulation.

Scroll down the top 500 websites at Alexa and tell me if any of those sites have ever written daily articles for EzineArticles for backlinks. That's not how it works outside the IM forums.

[Mark Brian]

Yes, I agree to an extend too that SEM or Search Engine Marketing is actually Search Engine Manipulation. It's all about manipulating what we want users too see.

The only thing I think that is white hat is on-page SEO, and I mean that without excessive use of keywords for manipulation purposes. After all, you gotta have the right headline in order to be found or at least be considered relevant to what the user is looking for.

[Theone24]

I have similar point of view as you. I think that's why Google often changes there algorithms to make it difficult for people to manipulate SEO.
So technically if your trying to manipulate the system in any way it is 'black hat.'
That being said.
I just associate 'black hat' with anything that will get your site 'punished' and everything else as 'white hat.'

[InternetMarketingIQ]

SEO is NOT "Blackhat". What is "Blackhat" varies by the Search Engine Rules. It's only Blackhat when it clearly violates the terms of service of the Search Engine you are targeting.

Google for example tells webmasters what to do to increase their rankings... which is a direct way of "manipulating" results. But it's manipulation that is Google Approved

[Himore]

How can ethically optimising your site to be seen more favourably by search engines be considered Black Hat?

Let's say I owned a hardware store on a busy high street...

If I change the window display around, maybe add larger banners, throw in some stronger lighting - just to attract more customers - is that Black Hat?

Maybe I change the name of my store to make it more obvious to people what I'm selling. "Tom's Store" becomes "Buy Quality Hardware at Tom's".

Then I speak to related businesses to get them to pass my shop details on to their customers, and I'll do the same for them. Link building so to speak.

All this is to optimise and grow my business and is completely ethical (or White Hat if you will).

It's only when you start spamming social networks, blogs and other sites that I believe crosses into a grey area.

I firmly believe that if you build a solid site, providing valuable content and tools, then start building your links the old fashioned way (such as actually contacting webmasters for link exchange) then you will see good results. Sure, not a quick as blasting your site through something like SEOnuke, but if you want to be in it for the long term, why not treat this like a proper business?

So - short answer to your question: No - I don't consider ALL SEO to be Black Hat, but some of it can and does cross the line.

[cashcow]

It's all semantics isn't it? Is it not against Google's TOS to manually influence the rankings (even though they recently put out a beginner's SEO guide)? This would technically make all SEO blackhat.

Yes, it is - google considers anything you do to artificially make your site seem more important (and that includes getting links through any means) as against their rules which I guess is what is commonly known as black hat.

But, I think a lot of people nowadays equate "black hat" with illegal and unethical, thus many of the above answers saying SEO is not black hat.

I think we really need to define what the term "black hat" means. Is it anything that google considers artificially inflating your sites importance? Is it anything that is illegal? Unethical? Some combination of all of the above, or maybe something else entirely?

Until we all agree on a definition, I guess we will keep going round and round about it because we are all coming from different view points.

I think technically all SEO is blackhat, but I think that it's now one of those things that everyone does it so most SEO practices are now acceptable. Even Google seems to be admitting that it's OK to use some SEO.

Lee

[lovesazu]

lolz actuly someone shuld explain, what is Black Hat & White Hat
cuz i got some sites i has a 1st rank on around 10 keywords for search result 1/5million
i did all the SEO maself, its took me around 6month to reach this place, n to be honest the google search traffic i'm getting is very huge

[Dan Grossman]

http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=define:black+hat

[ripsnorta2]

Oh Come On!

• Writing good, keyword rich and relevant copy on your website is not blackhat.
• Optimising your website to ensure that the internal and external linking is efficient is not blackhat.
• Makeing sure your page titles, permalinks, meta-tags, and other HTML features are SEO friendly is not blackhat.
• Making good, relevant comments on other relevant blogs and forums linking back to your site is not blackhat.
• Writing good content that other people are happy to link to is not blackhat.

All those things are exactly what Google is looking for, and they are all a part of good SEO practices.

Then there are the practices that come in varying shades of grey. Writing and submitting articles to the article directories is manipulating search engine results. Most would not consider this blackhat though. That might be a touch gray but it seems Google isn't especially fussed if the directory has good editorial processes in place.

Social bookmarketing gets a little grayer, but where SEO does get black is when webmasters put hidden cloaked links, hack sites to get links (has just happened to me) or use illegal (as against state law, not necessarily breaking Googles rules; that's not illegal) and downright fraudulent methods to get links.

[Jenie0109]

Originally Posted by lovesazu

lolz actuly someone shuld explain, what is Black Hat & White Hat
cuz i got some sites i has a 1st rank on around 10 keywords for search result 1/5million
i did all the SEO maself, its took me around 6month to reach this place, n to be honest the google search traffic i'm getting is very huge

so im expecting you can define both.. Because you're results are good. So which method do you use?

[Smokey_Joe]

Making good, relevant comments on other relevant blogs and forums linking back to your site is not blackhat.

All the same, if you are doing blog commenting and forum posting as a seo technique, you are not commenting because you feel like so, but because you are seoing. I agree that noone cares why a relevant comment appears, but still, this is not one hundred per cent honest.

Writing good content that other people are happy to link to is not blackhat.

As well as it's not SEO. It's just writing.

The fact is that serp manipulation right now is the only way to make oneself visible, but, just as any other form of advertising, it has a touch of *spam to it. Sometimes it's a hint, sometimes it's best to be ignored, sometimes we don't in the least mind, but still the touch is there.

[ripsnorta2]

Originally Posted by Smokey_Joe

All the same, if you are doing blog commenting and forum posting as a seo technique, you are not commenting because you feel like so, but because you are seoing. I agree that noone cares why a relevant comment appears, but still, this is not one hundred per cent honest.

However, there's nothing stopping you from commenting because you have something to say and leaving a link back to your page at the same time. After all why bother leaving a link if you're not interested in the SEO or traffic benefits?

Originally Posted by Smokey_Joe

As well as it's not SEO. It's just writing.

There's writing content, and then there's writing content to encourage others to link. The latter helps with SEO. And there's no reason why you can't write high quality linkbait.

Besides, there are also differences in the style you use to write a post. A wall of text is harder to read and less likely to be linked than a well structured list post. Using heading tags in the text also helps with SEO.

So yes, refining your writing techniques to encourage linking could very well be considered SEO.

Edit: Forgot this...

Originally Posted by Smokey_Joe

The fact is that serp manipulation right now is the only way to make oneself visible, but, just as any other form of advertising, it has a touch of *spam to it. Sometimes it's a hint, sometimes it's best to be ignored, sometimes we don't in the least mind, but still the touch is there.

Absolutely. I think it's a bit of a shame that a website won't necessarily stand on its own merits. A certain amount of self-promotion is necessary, and really the only way to do that is to do at least some manipulation of the search engines. How much and how far is up to the individual, but getting back to the OP, it's simply wrong to say that all SEO is blackhat.

[Dan Grossman]

Originally Posted by Smokey_Joe

The fact is that serp manipulation right now is the only way to make oneself visible,

That's not true at all. Best in breed sites get #1 ranks by being great, without any off-site SEO at all. Good sites don't have to "build links", because their customers/users/whatever create the links for them.

[ripsnorta2]

Originally Posted by Dan Grossman

That's not true at all. Best in breed sites get #1 ranks by being great, without any off-site SEO at all. Good sites don't have to "build links", because their customers/users/whatever create the links for them.

But the question is: how do these sites get customers or users in the first place? They have to be found, and if they have not done any self-promotion how do they get found?

(I'm not talking about a big offline brand establishing a presence on the web. How does the little guy putting up quality content get found if he's not doing any promotion?)

[Dan Grossman]

Originally Posted by ripsnorta2

But the question is: how do these sites get customers or users in the first place? They have to be found, and if they have not done any self-promotion how do they get found?

(I'm not talking about a big offline brand establishing a presence on the web. How does the little guy putting up quality content get found if he's not doing any promotion?)

If you can do so, you do some marketing to get the initial traffic. If your new site is a product or service, this is what you'll probably do. There's little point investing a lot of time creating a great product if you don't leave any budget for marketing to launch it.

If you can't, then there are plenty of free ways to get traffic to a site. Putting it in your signature when you participate thoughtfully in forums is one way. Writing a quality, publication length article for a magazine or industry leading website your target visitors read is another (not 'article directories').

Of course, once you have established the first site, then launching new related sites becomes much easier, since you have a site and possibly e-mail list you can use to get the initial word out.

You don't need to reach a ton of people to start the ball rolling. My personal blog only has around 100 subscribers, most of them never comment so probably fewer of them actually read it, but a post there has always been enough to seed new sites. Each single person that sees the new site and blogs about it could be exposing you to hundreds or thousands of people.

[ripsnorta2]

Originally Posted by Dan Grossman

If you can't, then there are plenty of free ways to get traffic to a site. Putting it in your signature when you participate thoughtfully in forums is one way. Writing a quality, publication length article for a magazine or industry leading website your target visitors read is another (not 'article directories').

Yes, but that is, in essence, doing SEO. You are linking to your site from the forum post, or the website owner would be linking perhaps as part of the introduction to the article. That's off-site SEO.

[seo-authority]

All SEO can be considered grey in my opinion. Although I think people get very hung up on colours. If you conform to Google guidelines then you shouldnt hold back on your marketing efforts in worry for being black marked by search engines such as Google.

[Smokey_Joe]

Originally Posted by seo-authority

All SEO can be considered grey in my opinion. Although I think people get very hung up on colours. If you conform to Google guidelines then you shouldnt hold back on your marketing efforts in worry for being black marked by search engines such as Google.

Yeah, I guess it's time for color reconciliation. SEO may be pitch-black, gray or off-white - yet never completely white. That may make us sad at times, but there's no way we can avoid the ever-continuing hunting for the shade closest to snow white

[Brian.expert]

No, I don't thick so as by using SEO techniques one can truly make a good site thats worth visiting by the search robots that now look for good material on the net. One should use the white hat while optimizing your site as that allows a sort of consistency in your pages and also make they top of the serps!

[Intrepreneur]

It can't be all blackhat otherwise it wouldn't exist.

Google created the algorythms for a reason.. so that people have to work for their positions and to make websites prove they are worthy of those top positions.. afterall who's going to manipulate a website with no worthy content.. if they did, it's pretty darn stupid.