SEO Techniques: Understanding the Differences Between White Hat SEO and Black Hat SEO and Grey Hat SEO

White hat SEO and black hat SEO is the techniques used in Search Engine Optimization to rank your web pages higher in Search Engine Result Page (SERPs). According to Google Policies we can not use black hat techniques in SEO. Black hat techniques violates google guidelines. If we do not follow Google’s guidelines then Google will rank us lower in search results.

According to Google privacy policies we can use white hat techniques in SEO. If we use white hat techniques in SEO then google will give you higher rank in search results.

White hat SEO and Black hat SEO both are the techniques but Black Hat SEO may give you short term results but in the long term Google will penalize you and give you lower rank in search results. White hat technique is the best technique to optimize your website or web pages for Google.

Google is a search engine who acquire 95% audience in India that is why we choose Google. There are many search engine like Yahoo, Bing but in 2024 google is the most commonly used search engine in India. There was a time when Yahoo acquired 55% of the audience when Google was not so popular.

Black Hat SEO

“Black hat SEO includes unethical tactics which are disapproved by search engines”. Black hat SEO violates search engines policies and if any website does not work under the guidelines then search engine will give lower rank in search results. Search Engines gives you higher rank from white hat SEO and Black Hat SEO give you lower rank in search results.

Black Hat SEO includes :

• Keyword Stuffing
• Duplicate Content
• Cloaking
• Hidden Text and Links
• Link Spamming
• Link Farming

Keyword Stuffing :

When a focus keyword is used multiple times in a paragraph of a post or page, we call it keyword stuffing. According to White Hat SEO we can place our focus keyword once in a paragraph of 100 words. In this situation our keyword density remains 1 percent.

Duplicate Content :

When the content of one website is hosted on another website then it is called duplicate content. You can check for plagiarism on tools like duplichecker. Duplicate content also violate search engine guidelines. White hat SEO and black hat SEO are the opposite techniques.

Cloaking :

When a website owner intention is to manipulate search results rankings to show search engines one thing and visitors to something else is called cloaking. Cloaking violates search engines guidelines.

Hidden Text and Links :

A hidden text or link which can be easily read by search engines but not easily read by users or website visitors is called hidden text and link.

E.g. white text on white color background / black text on black color background, hiding text behind the picture. white hat SEO and black hat SEO, hidden text and link is part of black hat SEO.

Link Spamming :

Links, which are placed on website pages and websites with no consideration to context or a user’s interaction with the page, all in a bid to improve on the search engine results page (SERP) rankings.

Link Farming :

A link farm is one in which many websites interconnect with each other solely for the purpose of boosting the website’s rankings in the search engine results. Search engines penalize if someone uses it for a long time. White hat SEO and Black hat SEO, you can use white hat techniques for best SEO.

White Hat SEO

White hat SEO involves optimizing your website while adhering to the restrictions imposed by search engines. White Hat SEO and Ethical SEO or Organic SEO are same. White hat SEO techniques will not violate any search engine guidelines.

If you write content using proper white hat SEO techniques with high quality content that gives value to our visitors, So there is a strong possibility that the search engine can rank you higher in the search results. White hat SEO and black hat SEO, there are lots of techniques you can use in White Hat SEO.

White Hat SEO Includes :

• Content Optimization
• Quality Content
• Relevant Internal Links
• Relevant and Strong Backlinks
• Sitemaps

Content Optimization :

Content optimization is the most important of web pages or website, Without optimizing your content, your website can not rank on the search engine results page. E.g. write meta title, meta description, use SEO friendly URL and use image with alt text. white hat SEO and black hat SEO, content optimization in necessary for both techniques. You can contact us at Bear Wills for content optimization.

Quality Content :

Quality content means writing content that adds value to the user and it should be 100% unique You can not copy content from any other website, then search engines can give rank in search results.

Relevant Internal Links :

When you optimize content, you need to add at least one internal link to your content. If you want to add more internal links then you can add, there is no limit on them. That does not mean you can place anywhere your internal link.

You need to place your internal link on relevant anchor text. White hat SEO and black hat SEO. If you will not use relevant internal links and insert links without relevance it will be a violation of search engine guidelines and count on black hat SEO.

Relevant and Strong Backlinks :

When you add backlinks, you should add backlinks to websites that are related to your niche. Strong backlinks means placing backlinks on these website those domain authority is high.

Check the domain authority and spam score of the website before adding backlinks. High domain authority and low spam score website are the best to place backlinks. White hat SEO and black hat SEO, if you use will AI to place backlink then this is also violates search engines guidelines.

Sitemaps :

Sitemap is a list of your allowed website URLs. It acts as a road map to tell search engine and user, what and where content is available.

There are two types of sitemap :

• Extensible Markup Language(XML)
• Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)

Sitemap.xml : (for search engine crawler)

An sitemap.xml is a file that lists a websites important pages so that search engines can crawl them all. It makes search engine understand your website structure.

Sitemap.html : ( for user or visitor )

Html sitemap is a list of web pages links on the website. It helps the user or visitor to find the desired section or page on the website.

Sitemap is the part of technical SEO. white hat SEO and black hat SEO, sitemap is road map of your website, it helps search engines and crawler to understand the website structure of your website, and sitemap is a white hat SEO techniques

Difference Between White hat SEO and Black hat SEO

White hat SEO is the ethical way of SEO. White Hat techniques does not violates any search engines guidelines and if you doing SEO according to the search engines guidelines and writing high quality content then search engines can give you high rank in search results, and it is a long term process.

Black Hat SEO is the unethical way of doing SEO. Black hat SEO violates search engines guidelines and trying to manipulate search engines ranking. Black Hat SEO techniques may give you short term results but in the long run they never work. Search engines will rank you lower if they find you using black hat techniques.

What is Grey Hat SEO

Grey hat SEO is the combination of white hat SEO and Black Hat SEO. The combination of 95% white hat SEO and 5% black hat SEO is called Grey Hat SEO. According to search engines you can’t even use 5% black hat SEO. If you use grey hat SEO techniques and search engine will find you using some black hat SEO techniques then search engine give you lower rank in search results. Grey hat SEO is the most commonly used techniques in search engines optimization.

Conclusion :

In this article we discussed about three types of search engine optimization techniques white hat SEO and black Hat SEO and grey hat SEO and also tell about the which techniques you can use in SEO and if you use black hat SEO techniques so how search engine penalize you.