White hat, black hat, and gray hat SEO

Various techniques are used for search engine optimization, or SEO. One way to group these techniques is with hat terminology: white hat SEO, black hat SEO, and gray hat SEO. White hat SEO is considered ethical SEO, while black hat SEO is considered unethical SEO. Gray hat SEO walks the line between the white and black hats of search engine optimization.

Contents 1 White hat SEO 2 Examples of white hat SEO techniques 2.1 Content 2.2 Coding 2.3 Linking 3 Black hat SEO 4 Examples of black hat SEO techniques 4.1 Content 4.2 Deceptive content 4.3 Linking 5 Gray hat SEO 6 Examples of gray hat SEO techniques 6.1 Content 6.2 Links

White hat SEO

White hat SEO is ethical SEO. It's SEO techniques that search engines accept. White hat SEO techniques are beneficial for site visitors as well as for search engines. The goal of white hat SEO is to improve search engine result positions via methods that won't cause search engines to penalize the site.
Successful white hat SEO is slower than black hat SEO and is an ongoing process.

Examples of white hat SEO techniques

Content

• Researching relevant keywords, both short ail and long tail keywords
• Including keywords naturally in page titles, headings, link anchor text, other page content, and alt tags
• Studying analytics reports and fine-tuning the content to further optimize it for targeted keywords and to help direct traffic to relevant pages
• Adding fresh content regularly

Coding

• Using correct HTML markup (for example, heading tags) so that search engines can identify headings and other types of content correctly
• Making sure that all the code is valid (or at least won't stop search engine bots)
• Creating site maps so that every page is linked to and search engine bots can crawl every page
• Using CSS to separate content from markup and thus increase keyword density by having less markup to crawl

Linking

• Creating quality content that other people will want to link to
• Asking to have directories and other relevant websites link to the site
• Optimizing pages for social media in the hopes of attracting social media links
• Arranging for link exchanges with relevant sites (considered by some to be gray hat SEO)

Black hat SEO

Black hat SEO is the use of techniques that are unacceptable to search engines to boost a page's position in search results. These techniques are intended to trick search engines into giving pages higher positions in search results, and they have no benefit to site visitors. The goal is to improve search engine result positions no matter what it takes to do it.
Black hat SEO techniques are used for two reasons:

• They work — until search engines find out about them and they don't work.
• Some people don't understand that black hat SEO techniques can get their sites penalized by or banned from search engines.

Even if search engines can't detect the black hat SEO techniques, competitors of sites that employ black hat SEO techniques can spot them and do report them to search engines.

Examples of black hat SEO techniques

Content

• Keyword stuffing
  • Overusing keywords in comment tags, alt tags, and meta tags
  • Placing keywords in hidden text (hidden from people, that is) by making their font color the same color as the page background
  • Overusing keywords in visible text, to the point where their repetition is apparent to readers

Deceptive content

• Doorway or gateway pages: pages that are stuffed with keywords but that only search engines see because people are redirected to the page with the real content
• Cloaking: displaying different content to search engines than to people by identifying visitors via IP or via other methods

Linking

• Link farms: pages with unrelated links solely for the purpose of creating more links to target pages
• Spamming forums, blogs, and other social media sites with links (search engines might not penalize sites for this, but it's considered unethical)

Gray hat SEO

Gray hat SEO is SEO techniques that take more risks than white hat SEO techniques but aren't likely to get your site banned from search engines (although a search engine penality could result). They're questionable SEO techniques but not in the same category as black hat SEO techniques. However, what's considered gray hat SEO today might be black hat SEO next year.

Examples of gray hat SEO techniques

Content

• Having a keyword density that's high enough to sound unnatural but not at the level of black hat keyword stuffing
• Publishing duplicate content at different sites

Links 

• Link building where relevance is less important
• Planned three-way linking
• Using paid links

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SEO

SEO, or search engine optimization, is the practice of optimizing web pages for search engines so that the pages will place high in search results for target keywords.

Contents 1 Overview of SEO 2 SEO terminology 3 On-page SEO: optimizing your web pages 4 Off-page SEO: inbound links 5 SEO and statistics monitoring 6 Other SEO tips

Overview of SEO

The goal of SEO is increased web traffic. These are the main areas of SEO:

• On-page optimization
• Off-page optimization
• Statistics monitoring and more of the above

SEO terminology

• Black hat SEO: SEO techniques that may work well at first but may get your site banned from search engines. Black hat SEO techniques are done for bots only, provide no benefit to site visitors, and often hinder their experience. Examples:
  • Doorway pages: Also called gateway pages, portal pages, bridge pages, and a few other names. They're pages created just to do well for a particular keyword or keywords, and they have a "Click here" link or automatic redirect that takes visitors to the page with the real content.
  • Keyword stuffing: Using lists of keywords or greatly overusing keywords instead of using them naturally in context.
• Bot: In the context of SEO, bots are search engine robots, also called spiders, that crawl websites to index their content.
• Keywords: Words and phrases that people use to search for information online.
• Keyword density: The ratio of keywords on a page to other words.
• Meta tags: Information that goes in the page header section that's for bots only, for example: <meta name="description" content="Page description here.">
• Organic search results: Search engine search results, in contrast to paid advertising that appears next to search results.
• PageRank: A rank that Google assigns to web pages. Also called PR.
• Reciprocal links: Links between two sites. Site A links to Site B, and Site B links to Site A.
• Satelite: The website that is created only for posting ads and different kinds of links. Such a site is often a part of a link farm.
• SERP: Search engine results page.
• Snippet: The compressed information on the site page presented by search system in delivery page.
• Spider: see Bot.
• White hat SEO: SEO techniques that are acceptable. It's the opposite of black hat SEO. This page discusses white hat SEO.

On-page SEO: optimizing your web pages

For on-page SEO, it helps to know basic HTML. Optimal keyword placement depends on knowing where within the HTML to place keywords.
To optimize each web page for search engines, follow these steps:

• Give each page a specific topic. If you want to optimize a page for "dedicated server web host," give that topic its own page, and give the other services or products you offer their own pages too. Each page can then have a higher keyword density for the topic.
• Research and choose keywords to use for each page.
• Use keywords in page names, for example: example.com/green_widgets.html and example.com/widgets/green_widgets.html.
• Use those keywords in context in the following places:
  • The page title
  • The heading tags, especially <h1> and <h2> tags
  • The page content, especially higher on the page and in bulleted lists
  • Anchor text, for example: "We explain how to assemble widgets on our green widgets page.” (Underlined text would be hyperlinked.)
• Use keywords (but avoid keyword stuffing) in these places:
  • Alt text for images
  • Image file names
  • The meta description tag
  • The meta keyword tag

Good SEO works for site visitors as well as for search engines. If the keywords sound forced into place, you're trying too hard. The text should read naturally, and the keywords should help site visitors find the content they want on the page.

Off-page SEO: inbound links

Bots view links from other sites as "votes" for your web pages. The higher the PR and the more relevant the page is, the more the vote counts.
Reciprocal links still count, but they're less valuable than one-way links.
For this part of SEO, you need to work on getting inbound links from quality sites:

• Relevant directories
• Related web sites
• Social media sites

The number one tip to acquiring inbound links to create content that other people will want to link to. From there, it's a matter of them finding it and you helping them find it. Some ways to get inbound links:

• Request links from webmasters of related sites (after showing them why your content is valuable to their audience)
• Suggest reciprocal links
• Get your site listed in free and paid directories
• Publish press releases with a link to your site at sites that accept press releases
• Write informative articles with a link to your site at article sites
• Take part in forum discussions where your signature appears with your post (and be sure to actually contribute when you post or you'll earn your company a bad reputation)

SEO and statistics monitoring

Your website traffic statistics tell what keywords are bringing site visitors and what other pages they're coming from. You can use this information to continually optimize your site for search engines and provide your audience with the information they're looking for.
Your site stats can also tell you if all the pages at your site are getting traffic. If no one is visiting a particular page, find out why. Are bots indexing that page? If some pages are viewed but aren't getting the traffic you'd like, work on optimizing those pages more, and link to them more from other pages.
SEO isn't a one-time job. Your competitors are working to get ahead of you in search engine results, and you need to keep working on SEO just to hold your position.

Other SEO tips

• Use CSS with external style sheets. Bots will be able to find your content more easily.
• Study what your competition is doing and use some of their ideas.
• Update your content when you can.
• Keep adding new content. Bots like fresh food.

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