If you’ve delved into the world of SEO, you’ve likely encountered the term White Hat SEO frequently. It’s a term that SEO professionals often highlight when seeking services or collaborating with websites engaged in SEO practices. In Thailand, there seems to be a prevalent misconception among both White Hat SEOs and Black Hat SEOs. To address this, SixtyGram aims to provide clear and accurate information about these two SEO methods. Join us as we shed light on the distinctions between White Hat and Black Hat SEO. Let the clarification begin!
In this content, we’re here to break it down for you!
SEO Guidelines
Optimize your online visibility with a focus on Google.com—the hub of online searches. Every effective SEO plan must adhere to Google’s guidelines, particularly the Google Search Essentials, serving as a crucial guide for website content developers. Follow these guidelines to meet and surpass the standards set by the leading search engine, ensuring your website stands out online. Elevate your online presence with strategic SEO incorporating these essential guidelines.
Black Hat SEO
Websites play a crucial role in the marketing strategy for business growth on search pages. However, some entities may intentionally violate Search Engine guidelines, aiming for rapid improvement in their website’s rankings, surpassing competitors. This involves unnatural practices such as manipulating numbers extensively. These methods fall into the category known as Black Hat SEO or Black Hat SEO. It’s important to note that these approaches go against ethical SEO practices and may have consequences for your online presence.
Black SEO Techniques
- Keyword Spamming: Incorporating an excessive number of keywords, especially popular search terms, in various elements like topics, title tags, or obscure areas. This not only results in grammatically incorrect content but also creates a negative experience for readers.
- Content Hiding: Some practitioners of Black SEO employ tags to conceal portions or the entirety of content from readers. Although hidden from users, search engines can still detect such tactics.
- Buying Backlinks: While acquiring links from reputable sites can boost website rankings through mutual endorsement, black SEO practitioners resort to purchasing backlinks. This violates search engine policies, as genuine backlink exchanges are expected to occur organically.
- Private Link Pools: Similar to the Private Blog Network (PBN) method, this involves creating a website with content resembling the main site, but with slight modifications. Links and visitors are intentionally directed to a specific page on the main site.
- Government Website Hacking: SEO experts involved in black practices may hack into government agency websites, commonly ending with .go.th, or educational institution websites with .ac.th. Exploiting their high authority score, hackers hide links and redirect traffic to their own websites, bypassing ethical standards.
Results of Black SEO
Undoubtedly, engaging in black hat SEO can yield quick results in the short term. Rankings and the visibility of crucial search terms (Keywords) experience a significant boost within 1 – 2 months after following the black SEO strategy that Search Engines have not yet been able to detect.
However, practicing black SEO poses risks, as it leads websites to violate the guidelines for webmasters, particularly the revered Google Search Essentials. Websites that adopt black SEO strategies find themselves at risk, entering a category that Google scrutinizes rigorously, employing a stringent process to detect them as spam websites. Consequently, websites employing black SEO practices may witness a decrease in rankings or even disappear from Google search results entirely.
In the author’s perspective, Google Search’s anti-spam system may not currently identify all black SEO websites. Nevertheless, algorithms designed to detect spam sites, along with search engine developers, tirelessly work towards eliminating black SEO content. Over time, these algorithms will become more sophisticated, posing serious negative consequences for businesses opting for black SEO as their primary strategy.
White Hat SEO
White hat SEO, or White SEO, is significantly simpler than gray SEO. White SEO techniques and methods revolve around creating an excellent experience for readers and website users, focusing on UX, UI, high-quality content, and organic links. White hat SEO websites prioritize staying updated and avoiding concerns related to search engine penalties, ultimately leading to better long-term results.
The primary distinction between white SEO and black SEO lies in the duration a website maintains its presence on the search engine page. While black SEO may yield quick results in the short term, white hat practices often result in a gradual progression. However, the advantage lies in the ability of white SEO to sustain and grow into a substantial website over the long run.
White Hat SEO Techniques
Implementing effective white hat SEO involves employing various strategies, with a key emphasis on producing high-quality content.
Write High-Quality Content
Search engines favor and rank websites highly when they feature well-organized content that offers accurate, clear, and easily readable information. Having a website filled with quality content relevant to your business, or reflective of the expertise and professionalism of the content contributor, ensures higher rankings on Google and other search engines compared to competitors with lower-quality content.
It is crucial to ensure your content aligns with Google’s Webmaster Guidelines (also known as Google Search Essentials), which include adherence to E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trust) principles. Additionally, for websites with financial or medical content, strict adherence to Google YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) and Google Medic updated guidelines is essential.
Creating high-quality content may seem complex, and many SEO agencies can provide guidance on crafting content through thorough research and developing an SEO plan using relevant keywords. It is important to avoid spam and follow the Webmaster Guidelines (Google Search Essentials) and other guidelines meticulously, ensuring your website grows in an easy and organized manner.
Search for Keywords Precisely
To avoid violating Search Engine guidelines, it’s crucial to use keywords accurately. Many SEO agencies leverage specialized tools to identify keywords that users commonly search for, incorporating popular phrases in various ways based on marketing strategies. For white-hat SEO practices, it’s recommended to include a variety of keywords. Utilize dedicated tools such as Ahrefs or Ubersuggest (free), but ensure that keyword usage remains within acceptable limits to prevent spam. Following a structured approach is essential (Google suggests mentioning keywords no more than 3 times per content piece).
Design Your Website Well
Increase your chances of appearing prominently in search results by focusing on functionality and user-friendliness. Key optimization methods, such as internal linking, easily accessible links, structured data markup, and clean, user-friendly code for Google Bot, are vital for outperforming competitors in rankings. Prioritize accessibility for both users and search engines. Consider implementing white SEO strategies like the Silo Structure for content, meticulous word editing, and the development of an organized menu system on your website. Improve your online presence with a website that not only caters to users but also excels in search engine rankings.
Compare Black Hat SEO vs. White Hat SEO
| VS | Black Hat Seo | White Hat Seo |
|---|---|---|
| Strategy | Aggressive SEO tactics are designed to trick search engines (violating guidelines) while ignoring the human readers of the content. | SEO strategies to optimize your website for a human audience and follow search engine guidelines correctly. |
| Motive | Used by SEO professionals looking for quick returns on their website in the short term. | Used to improve search performance on search engines. along with maintaining the website in the long term |
| Conetent | There is a lot of unrelated spam content and keywords in order to improve rankings. | Keywords, title, introduction, and tags are analyzed according to the relevance of the business on the website. |
| Blacklink | Buy Associate Links Get Irrelevant Blcklinks | Links are earned because they naturally contain quality content. |
| Ethics | Unethical SEO | Conduct SEO practices with ethical considerations. |
| Business results | Used for short-term goals and benefits. | It is used for long-term goals and benefits. |
| Budget | Cheap price | High price |
| Policy | It does not follow Google’s guidelines, is circumvented, and has not been approved by the search engine. | Provide a good user experience and follow Google’s guidelines, which are approved by the search engine. |
| User | Often it does not follow the searcher’s intent. | According to the intent of the searcher |
| Resource | Using software or systems that are not natural | Assessed through human evaluation. |
| UX | Degraded user experience | It is beneficial to users. |
| Article | Do not produce high quality content, focus on quantity, and have duplicate content. | Committed to creating content that is of high quality, relevance, and connectivity. |
| Reliability | Reduce the website’s score (if detected) | Improve your website’s credibility |
| Risk | High risk | The risk is minimal or nonexistent. |
