In the world of search engine
optimization
(SEO) - i.e. those activities that improve search rank for important keywords - 'white
hat' refers to those strategies that are considered
'legitimate' practice. 'Black hat'
are those practices considered
unacceptable (i.e. cheating) to 'falsely' inflate rank.
While the extremes of 'black hat' practice are rightly penalised by
search engines via an outright ban, 'white hat' activities are
arguably also a form of cheating for those who know how to apply them
effectively and who have a budget to support them.
Search engines, of course, continually change their algorythms. What is
currently on the fringes of white hat, or perhaps better put as 'what
you've been able to get away with' can change.
I use the term 'grey hat' for those practices that are currently white
hat but which search engines know about and are working to deal with. A
good example of the latter is where companies have bought numerous
backlinks to their sites from high ranking websites or bloggers.
Google, in particular, is currently focused on refining its algorythm
to pick up linking activites that would not happen 'organically'.
Buying a few backlinks is undetectable. If you buy several, ensure that
you phase them in gradually to mimmick an 'organic' progression of
links to your site.
An example of a black hat activity that will get you banned is
'cloaking'. This is where one page is presented to search engines for
SEO purposes and another is presented to human visitors. Although this
is difficult for search engines to recognise, if the cloaking achieves
its aim and gets you a high search rank, your competitors will soon
report you and you will be banned from all search engines instantly.
Activities that can lower your rank and those that will greatly improve
your rank are presented in full in our ebook, Successful Affiliates Guide.
|