White Hat SEO VS Black Hat SEO – Everything You Need to Know

Many people these days are looking towards content marketing as a way to expand their business or simply supplement it. Either way, marketers and professionals want high-quality keywords which will lead them to the best results for their site.

Not too long ago, Black Hat SEO (Search Engine Optimization) was considered to be the most effective way of achieving this. But over time, mainly because Google has become increasingly strict with how it ranks websites, White Hat SEO is now becoming more popular. In this article, we will explore the difference between black hat SEO and white hat SEO and the advantages of both techniques.

What is the Difference Between White Hat and Black Hat SEO?

If you have looked into SEO for any period of time, it is likely that you have heard of both black and white hat SEO techniques. In fact, you might even know a bit about them both, but in case you don’t, let’s find out the difference between these two SEO techniques.

Black Hat SEO

Black hat SEO refers to a strategy that can be used in an effort to manipulate search engine rankings. This type of SEO is considered “black hat” because it often violates the Google Webmaster Guidelines and can cause problems for websites in the future. It may not always work but when it does, the results are usually very good. There are three main types of black hat strategies: spamdexing, link-building and cloaking. These tactics will all result in penalties from search engines if they’re discovered so make sure you know what you’re getting into before employing these techniques on your site!

White Hat SEO

White hat SEO is a term coined for efforts to improve search engine rankings by following guidelines set forth by the major search engines. These guidelines are designed to discourage SEO practitioners from participating in aggressive marketing practices, such as unethical link building or keyword stuffing. In other words, it is a safer way to rank content while complying with guidelines. White hat SEO is considered the more “appropriate” SEO technique as there is no risk of your website being penalized by search engines this way.

White Hat Vs Black Hat: What is Safer?

White hat techniques are the way to go if you want your site to rank higher in Google and avoid penalties. Black hat techniques, such as spamming forums and blogs with links or buying links from other sites, can lead to a Google penalty that will cause your rankings to drop drastically. The risk involved in black hat techniques makes it obviously the riskier choice of the two. However, there are many black hat experts that have been using this method for many years without any penalties. However, this comes with an extreme risk and even experts mess up from time to time resulting in their site being flagged by search engines and later penalized.

White Hat Vs Black Hat: What is More Effective?

While most search engine optimization strategies fall into the category of White Hat SEO, some methods do not follow Google’s guidelines for ethical optimization and, therefore, Black Hat SEO has gained a reputation as being more effective than its white hat counterpart.

If you have made it this far into the article, you might think that white hat SEO is the better option. After all, it’s ethical and well-known for producing high quality content. However, black hat SEO has a number of advantages over white hat SEO.

For one thing, it can produce instant results when you’re in a rush to rank highly in Google’s search engine results page (SERP). White hat SEO usually takes months or even years before it produces any significant results. Black hat SEO will get you there much faster with its ability to manipulate search engine algorithms and bypass security measures set up by Google to prevent such manipulation from occurring.  Therefore, when it comes to the effectivity of black hat SEO vs white hat SEO, black hat SEO is certainly at an advantage.

White Hat Vs Black Hat: Which One Should You Use?

When it comes to choosing between black and white hat SEO, the most commonly asked question is, “What will work better for my site?” Although companies may want to use black hat techniques for their sites because it’s the cheaper option and seems easier, there are many disadvantages that you must consider. And if a company were to use black hat SEO on a website, they would risk having their site penalized or banned from Google completely.

Despite the faster results that come with black hat techniques, in the long run, black hat SEO is simply too risky and can result in all of your SEO efforts going to waste when a search engine detects that you are using SEO techniques that go against their guidelines.

All things considered; it is better to be safe by using white hat SEO techniques than sorry by using black hat SEO techniques. The risk that comes with black hat SEO is simply too high and should be avoided at all costs, despite the few advantages it has over it’s opponent.

Final Thoughts

Overall, there are many things to consider before deciding whether black or white hat SEO techniques are best for you. Depending on what is most important to you (result speed, risk involved, etc), the best technique for you will vary. However, keep it mind that black hat SEO is never encouraged and should be performed at your own risk.