Black Hat, White Hat, Grey Hat SEO
SEO is not only about directing traffic to a particular website. It is about gaining authority in a particular field. The goal can be achieved in many ways and there are no shortcuts here. SEO has various aspects and some techniques help in achieving success quickly. They also have some long-term effects and negative SEO is not good for any site.
SEO is mainly of three types –
White Hat, Black Hat and lastly Grey Hat. The approach is different in all these three cases and reputed brands never go for Black Hat practices. The SEO plan should be sustainable as well as stable. It should focus on long-term goals rather than getting quick results.
Black Hat SEO –
Google is very strict about foul practices and spam links are identified easily. Fake links can boost rankings up to a certain extent, but the website can be harmed massively. The search algorithm has some weaknesses and these techniques exploit all those weaknesses. The widely accepted guidelines are not followed and a conflict occurs most of the time. It is not wholesome as spam links, don’t survive for a long time. The popular black hat methods include – link spamming, cloaking, inserting hidden links, keyword stuffing, etc. Some websites are totally banned and it is never indexed again.
White Hat SEO –
White hat SEO techniques are widely accepted and the major search engines never have any problems with it. The wholesomeness level is quite high in this case and the brand image is always maintained. This variety focuses on the basic components of the website and improves the faulty areas. By the development of good content, the rankings can automatically increase. HTML optimization is one big part and genuine backlinks can be acquired. The outreach programs are developed and the campaigns yield genuine results. The growth doesn’t happen too fast, but it happens in a steady fashion.
Grey Hat SEO –
This technique is a mixture of the former two. It definitely contains some amount of risk, but it is not as devastating as the black hat practices. Some amount of doubt is always involved and this is the sole reason, grey hat SEO is not preferred by reputed brands. The tactics are ill-defined and Google never gives clear information on these techniques. It deviated from the published guidelines and gives mixed results. On one hand, there is a chance of improving the ranks. While on other, valuable traffic can be lost.