Being top of google is highly lucrative, with many companies going to extremes to try and achieve that top spot. With a wide range of techniques being used, these can be split into black hat and white hat, the difference between these two area`s is that black hat techniques are against the guide lines set by google and although may achieve results in the short term may result in penalties and bans by google in the future.

Here at Approved Trader we use an ethical approach to search engine optimisation, minimising risk and creating a useful website for your customers and visitors.

See below some techniques used to achieve high search ranking from the black hat world and white hat world and the differences in the two approaches and techniques.

Black hat SEO has been used and is still used by those who want to quickly gain results. There are many risks when using black hat SEO techniques. Some of these risks include penalties from Google, the site being banned by search engines or become excluded from the SERPs. Recent updates from google include the Panda and Penguin algorithm causing many website to suffer sanctions by Google when discovered the use of black hat SEO methods.

Keyword stuffing

Keyword stuffing is the practice of filling a webpage with keywords or numbers so that the search engine will think that the page is relevant to the search. Sometimes these keywords are hidden so they are not visible to the user, but are still analyzed by the search engine. Keyword stuffing can lead to a poor user experience and ultimately negatively affect the ranking of your site.

WHITE HAT ALTERNATIVE – It is important that you consider what people type in to google when searching, provide content that is useful and give the visitor the answer to their queries, well written content can naturally include a diverse selection of keywords that people search for.

Cloaking

Cloaking refers to the technique of showing different content to search engine robots than what you show to your users. Camouflage form uses different keywords, titles and descriptions that are quite different from what your content is really real. There is a strong chance that if a search engine determines that the site is cloaking will be banned.

Link farms

Link farms are a group of websites that use hyperlinks to connect with one another for the pure interest to seek to increase their rankings. These links will not ultimately provide all traffic to your site, but they are used to trick the search engine by seeing that the site links to many other sites. This method could be used because based on the quantity and quality of links, the search engines can determine the popularity of your web page and its position in the ranking on the results page of the search engine.

Link buying and link exchange programs

Buying link is the act of purchasing links from another site to give you a link to your website to get a link to your website. These links are intended to manipulate a site's ranking in Google so that it appears higher. Link exchange programs are programs where you can exchange links with others. Excessive link exchanging is banned by Google.

WHITE HAT ALTERNATIVE – You are able to buy links for the purpose of traffic, ensure that these bought links carry a nofollow tag that tells google that it is a purchased link, if you buy for traffic and give high quality content you may get natural links from other website owners.

Article Spinning

Article spinning is a technique in which website owners post a unique version of relevant content on their website, by rewriting existing articles and replacement parts for a slightly different perspective on the subject. Article spinning reduced the quality of the original article, no matter how it is done. Article spinning also limits the places you can put your articles in the future.

Doorway pages

Doorway pages are where you spam the index of search engines to catch visitors with a page without actual value, which then redirects the user to a completely different page. Doorway pages are created to be accessible only to specific search engines and their robots in order to trick the search engine giving the site a better ranking.

WHITE HAT ALTERNATIVE – Create interesting content your users will find useful, a blog on your website is a great way of attracting visitors and links, create good content and the rankings will follow naturally.

Conclusion

Although black hat methods can help you achieve a higher ranking in a short period of time, once a search engine discovers that these black hat techniques are used, it will not be long until a penalty is in between action. In the long run, it is not worth the risk, because the results can be very destructive to your site and your business for a long period of time. This list does not cover all techniques of black hat SEO, but it should be noted that it would be best to avoid these methods. There are many white hat ways to improve both the position of your site in the search engine results page. Although it may take more time, the results are long lasting and well worth the wait.