Search engine optimization: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 14:21, 28 July 2011

Revision as of 06:08, 29 July 2011

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An SEO tactic, technique or method is considered white hat if it conforms to the search engines' guidelines and involves no deception. As the search engine guidelines<ref name="g-wmguide">{{cite web|url=http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html|title=Google's Guidelines on Site Design|accessdate=2007-04-18|publisher=google.com}}</ref><ref name="ms-wmguide">{{cite web|url=http://search.msn.com/docs/siteowner.aspx?t=SEARCH_WEBMASTER_REF_GuidelinesforOptimizingSite.htm|title=Site Owner Help: MSN Search Web Crawler and Site Indexing |publisher = msn.com | accessdate=2007-04-18}}</ref><ref name="y-wmguide">{{cite web|url=http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/search/basics/basics-18.html|title=Yahoo! Search Content Quality Guidelines|accessdate=2007-04-18|publisher=help.yahoo.com}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.google.com/webmasters/seo.html|title=What's an SEO? Does Google recommend working with companies that offer to make my site Google-friendly? |publisher = google.com | accessdate=2007-04-18}}</ref> are not written as a series of rules or commandments, this is an important distinction to note. White hat SEO is not just about following guidelines, but is about ensuring that the content a search engine indexes and subsequently ranks is the same content a user will see.

White hat advice is generally summed up as creating content for users, not for search engines, and then making that content easily accessible to the spiders, rather than attempting to game the algorithm. White hat SEO is in many ways similar to web development that promotes accessibility,<ref>{{cite web|author=Andy Hagans|publisher=[[A List Apart]]|url=http://alistapart.com/articles/accessibilityseo|title=High Accessibility Is Effective Search Engine Optimization|date = [[November 08]] 2005 | accessdate=2007-05-09}}</ref> although the two are not identical. One of the very good example of white-hat SEO is to do link baiting.

White Hat SEO is merely effective marketing, making efforts to deliver quality content to an audience that has requested the quality content. Traditional [[marketing]] means have allowed this through transparency and exposure. A search engine's algorithm takes this into account, such as Google's [[PageRank]].

[[spamdexing|Black hat SEO]] attempts to improve rankings in ways that are disapproved of by the search engines, or involve deception. One black hat technique uses text that is hidden, either as text colored similar to the background, in an invisible [[Span and div|div]], engaging door-way pages or positioned off screen. It is evident that there are many black hat techniques emerging everyday out of which most are undetectable by search engines instantly. Another method gives a different page depending on whether the page is being requested by a human visitor or a search engine, a technique known as [[cloaking]].

Search engines may penalize sites when they discover the site using black hat methods, either by reducing their rankings or eliminating their listings from their databases altogether. SuchMostly, such penalties can beare applied either automatically by the search engines' algorithms, orbut sometimes also by a manual site review. One infamous example was the February 2006 Google removal of both [[BMW]] Germany and [[Ricoh]] Germany for use of deceptive practices.<ref name="intwebspam">{{cite web|url=http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/ramping-up-on-international-webspam/|publisher = mattcutts.com/blog | title=Ramping up on international webspam|author=[[Matt Cutts]]|date=[[February 4]] 2006|accessdate=2007-05-09}}</ref> Both companies, however, quickly apologized, fixed the offending pages, and were restored to Google's list.<ref>{{cite web|accessdate=2007-05-09|url=http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/recent-reinclusions/|publisher = mattcutts.com/blog | title=Recent reinclusions|author=[[Matt Cutts]]|date=[[February 7]] 2006}}</ref>

Additionally, many professionals in the SEO industry refer to "gray hat" tactics that may skirt the lines of black and white hat tactics. Numerous references to gray hat techniques have been published, and these usually constitute practices that are not strictly disapproved by search engines, but may go against the spirit of the regulations that search engines have laid out. It is followed by most of the people in order to achieve the results quicker. One of the black hat method they use along with the white hat is purchasing back links (which is against the webmaster guidelines of many search engines).

== As a marketing strategy ==