Black hat SEO is defined as “SEO techniques or practices that are used to get higher search rankings in an unethical manner.” There are various different ways other websites define this, but the gist of it is it is unacceptable practice from both a search engine’s and human’s point of view. I’m using BHSEO for short and interchangeably with black hat SEO in this blog. One can read about BHSEO through various other more authoritative sources on the Net.
I say “point of view” because I think it’s mainly subjective, and it strongly depends on the state of search engine technology. The word “acceptable” itself is subjective. In fact in the early days of search engines it was even considered best practices. Here’s how I look at this issue.
Currently (late 2000′s time frame) black hat SEO techniques are considered bad, while another set of belief, namely white hat SEO techniques, are the way to go. BHSEO techniques do this: they “unethically” present content in a different visual or non-visual way to search engine spiders and search engine users. The results are:
- They break search engine rules and regulations, which aim to provide accurate search results for users,
- They create a poor user experience, because the site the users end up at are not relevant to the their search goals.
In the earlier days of search engine technology, the search engines (SEs) themselves actually created conditions for these techniques now called BHSEO. The SEs through their “archaic” algorithms allowed these practices to flourish. It was only over time that people were able to define what is considered “good user experience” and improve and modernize their codes to try and stop these less desirable practices. In this sense BHSEO practices are just leftover techniques from bygone days.
I believe as SE technologies progress and new search ideas implemented, we will continue to refine the definition of user experience and will force some if not all of current white hat SEO techniques to become black hat SEO techniques. It’s just a natural progression of the search world. Like most everything else, new ideas and standards will render older ones obsolete and irrelevant. Black hat SEO techniques aren’t bad, they just outlive their time and some people just wouldn’t let them go.
Good effective marketers should not discount BHSEO totally. Instead good marketers should know them, understand them, then continue to learn about new, more relevant marketing tools and best practices, including new SEO techniques and requirements, and apply them for the benefits of the clients.
What’s your view on BHSEO? Will white hat SEO eventually become BHSEO themselves? If so which one?
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Tags: black hat seo, search engine optimization, SEO Marketing, white hat SEO
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