Black hat Vs White hat SEO

This is the perfect place for this discussion because it comes down to a matter of ethics and morality.

I'll give you and example of what I feel is black or gray hat. What you call it doesn't matter at all. This is a matter of right and wrong.

There are SEO techniques that would have you spin a bunch of worn out PLR articles to the point where they're completely usless for anything other than link bait. Then there's software that will allow you to get past virtually any security method an individual has set up on his or her blog or Website.

From there the software dumps the crappy article on this person's property. Under no circumstances would the owner of that property ever accept that bogus article.

So the black hatter or whatever is violating the rights of the blog owner. Later, the owner of the property has to take time out of his day to delete that article along with dozens of others like it.

Business is about providing value in exchange for money but these methods provide nothing but extra work for people already stretched thin with their time and resources. Some people spend so much time cleaning up this kind of crap they end up giving up on their business completely.

People who Spam like this are in effect literally stealing time and resources from others with these sleazy methods. And this is just one of hundreds of black hat tricks that violate the rights of others.

So what's the point? Black hat tactics are any and all things you wouldn't want done to you. Pretty simple, huh?

Yes, on second thoughts this is the forum to discuss this since it relates to ethics.

However, I'm not sure a lot of methods that many people use are totally ethical, or if we don't want to use the term ethics that's fine. As you said travlinguy, it's about providing value. Yet a lot of the methods advocated here or ones that most of us use don't really provide value to the Internet whether we like to admit it or not. Spinning articles is not outrightly bad if you have the right to the article and are allowed to do anything to it and use your name on it. However, it's not exactly something that adds value to the community or the world. Is that Blackhat? It all depends on our definition, doesn't it?

I have to fully agree with you, some are fully against using automation tools because yes they can be used for spam but they are fine using form fillers and hitting enter.

The line is so fine here, spam comments are terrible and can be considered black hat I suppose if you send out 1000's of spun garbage, however I have seen it recommended all over to submit manual relevant non garbage.

The same goes for forums, it can be a great way to meet people and contribute or someone can go and get a 100000 XRumer blast and never contribute.