Search Engine Optimization Guide

Blackhat VS Whitehat SEO

Summary of this Page

I decided to write a page to make sure no one reading this gets into any blackhat SEO. It is not a good thing, as explained below. So this page will tell you what not to do, and how to recognize blackhat SEO techniques that arn't covered here.

Blackhat & Whitehat SEO

What is Blackhat SEO?

Blackhat SEO is defined most easily as methods used to trick or manipulate search engines improve your rankings. So anything that the search engine forbids you from doing, like using doorway pages, cloaking, and hidden text, are not good practices. Blackhat SEO results usually in a ban from the search engine. Just remember that if you get into this, the search engine will eventually ban you, and you will lose all that potential traffic you could have got from them by using whitehat SEO.

What is Whitehat SEO?

Whitehat SEO is the practicing of SEO techniques that the search engines don't consider "illegal". Whitehat SEO results in not getting banned from search engines, and being respected among the webmaster community. Most people frown down on people who cheat, and use blackhat SEO to get there pages ranked high. But they will pay the price by getting banned later down the road.

Blackhat SEO Techniques

Overview

Don't think I'm taking the time to write these blackhat seo techniques so that you can learn how to blackhat SEO your site. I'm writing this so that someone new to SEO can benefit from knowing what the search engines consider cheating. Often times, webmasters get their sites banned from google and other search engines because they followed a tutorial or instructions they found online that promissed to get them ranked better. So the following will help you recognize what is blackhat SEO and what is whitehat SEO.

Getting Banned

Google, and other search engines, have one thing all in common. They hate when people try to cheat their engines. The search engines want to give their searchers the most relevent results as possible. So if someone gets their site to #1, and #5 on the list is much more accurate, this isn't a very good search engine. Or is the search engine a good one, and their is just a blackhat SEO person behind the site? That is usually true. If no one cheated to get their site to the top, search engines would have much better, quality results in their listings. This is why Google and other search engines have set rules to ban websites who use this technique.

Doorway Pages

Doorway Pages are used by webmasters to improve their search engine rankings. Doorway pages are pages packed with keywords, and designed solely for the search engines. You can recognize a doorway page easily. Doorway pages have alot of nonsence content, that is considered spam from the user. So a doorway page has a link to the real site, which has the content that the user wants. This is a no-no.

Hidden Text

Hidden text is used by webmasters to try to get more keywords into their pages, but this time, without spamming the page with keywords that bothers the end user. Hidden text is made by making the text the same color as the background, so you can't see the text. Alot of search engines actually look for this now-a-days. This may temporarily raise rankings, but once Google catches on to what your doing, your out of their!

Link Farms

A Link Farm is a page that is created for the pure reason to achieve a higher PageRank, and better SERPs. Free-For-All links pages are often considered link farms by Google. These pages usually require a link back. So if you link to them, then Google sees your linking to a page thats not in the good side of the neighboorhood. This isn't good, and might result in a PageRank penalty, or possible a ban. But remember, no incomming links will ever hurt you, since you can't control who links to you. So don't worry if a bad site links to you. It won't matter.

EMail Spamming

EMail Sapmming, while maybe not directly related to SEO, is not a good thing. But I thought I might as well bring it up. Let me just say; don't do it!

Selling your PageRank

Google dosn't like when websites boast that they have a high PR, and then in result, sell links on high PageRank pages purely to get the page they are linking to to get a higher PageRank. But don't get me wrong. It is perfectly ok to sell a link for the purpose of benefiting the page your linking to with traffic, along with the search engine benefits. But don't sell links on pages ONLY because it has a high PR.

Identical Content

Google dosn't like to find content that has been used on more than one page. So if you developed a site, and then copy and pasted the files to a new domain, and kept the old site on the old domains, Google dosn't like it. So basicly dont use or copy & paste content from page to page in order to increase your indexed pages.

Multiple Domains

Having multiple domains redirect to a main site is ok. But if you take those domains and put the same content on all of them, and link from one to the other within your circle of domains, that isn't good. This usually results in more backlinks, and better SERPs. But Google dosn't like it, and its not recommended.

Too Many Links

It is recommended that you don't link to more than 100 URLs on one page. This won't result in a ban from Google, but it will drain your PageRank, which will be discussed later.

Summary

Summary

If you do not practice any of the above techniques, you will most likely be all right. But there are some techniques that Google still dosnt like, like scripts that make it look like you have many more pages then you do, and others. So if anything you hear on the net sounds like it MIGHT have a long term negative effect, or something you think a search engine woulden't like, don't do it. And if your unsure, post on a forum, or a related place, and ask SEO experts. Make sure you get 3 or more people's opinions though. In conlcusion, Don't turn into a blackhat seo!