The White Hat | The Gray Hat | The Black Hat SEO - What is it & My Understanding | SEO Tutorial

White Hat:

What is White-Hat SEO?

White hat SEO describes online techniques, sometimes known as "SEO methods," that are consistent with those used by Google and other major search engines.

These ethical SEO methods are designed to raise your position on search engine result pages while maintaining the integrity of your websites and adhering to search engine's terms of service.

White hat SEO strategies have been outlined by Google. The strategies that Google defines include, mobile-first, claiming your business listings, using descriptive meta tags, quick loading times, etc.

White-Hat SEO Link Building?

Any effective SEO strategy must include link building. If you want to raise your domain authority and appear higher in the SERPs, it's critical to develop and implement a successful link-building strategy. Websites with greater authority are experts in their industry, and those who promote them are taken more seriously than those with less authority.

There are several techniques to create white-hat SEO links:

• Guest publishing on other websites - Other websites in your field may let you write for their blog if you're an authority in that field. With a fellow sector specialist, you may now exchange valuable information! This is a fantastic strategy to boost the authority of your own website since, if the information you post on their website is successful, you not only aid in the success of their own website, enhancing your website's capacity to rank in search results.
• Posting comments on blogs that enable links - If you are just getting started, this is an excellent place to start. You might be able to post comments on some blogs that connect to your own website. But, it's crucial that the remarks you make are sincere and pertinent to the post in question. In order to convey Google signals particular to your sector, we also advise you to exclusively publish on blogs that are related to your industry. Please keep in mind that these links are of poorer quality than those that go to the blog's actual content.
• Rating your own content to gain backlinks - Your website material should demonstrate your level of expertise in your profession if you are one. After your material achieves a high Google ranking, other blogs may link to it as a resource in an effort to elevate their own content on their website. 

White Hat SEO Techniques

A) Provide useful content - 

In order to achieve success with search engine optimization (SEO), it's crucial to offer your readers useful content. Creating great content is essential for white-hat SEO methods.

It draws in and keeps your target audience, as well as helps to establish your website as a reliable and trustworthy source.

Here are some pointers for producing worthwhile content that will boost the SEO of your website.

• Understand your market - 

You must understand your audience and the needs of your audience in order to provide valuable content. Start by learning about the needs, desires, and pain points of your target audience. This will assist you in producing material for them that is valuable and pertinent.

• Put quality before quantity -

When it comes to content generation, quality is more crucial than quantity. Concentrate on writing in-depth, educational, and interesting content that will benefit your audience. This will raise the credibility of your website and increase the likelihood that other websites will connect to it.

• Keep your content up to date - 

Make sure to consistently provide fresh, pertinent information to your website. This will encourage your readers to stay interested and return for more. To keep your material entertaining and current, you might also think about employing blog entries, infographics, videos, and other forms of multimedia.

• Use relevant keywords - 

Relevant keywords should be included in your content because they are crucial to SEO. The balance between keyword optimization and producing valuable content must be struck, though. Overusing keywords can result in keyword stuffing, which can negatively impact the SEO of your website.

• Your content should be shareable - 

By integrating social network sharing icons on your website, you can make it simple for your audience to share your material. This will boost the exposure of your content and drive more people to your website.

Creating useful content is a crucial component of white-hat SEO tactics.

You can increase visitors to your website and raise its search engine position by producing relevant, interesting and shareable content.

B) Meet the user's intention

The main objective of search engine optimization for websites is to deliver a satisfying user experience.

The user's intent must be satisfied as one of the main components of this. To put it another way, what does the user intend to discover when they enter their search term?

User intent describes the overarching objective a person has while conducting a Google search.

User intent can be divided into four different categories: informative, navigational, transactional and commercial.

C) Adapt the website to mobile devices

A mobile-friendly website is now essential for organisations and people trying to have a strong online presence in today's digital environment.

It's crucial to give users of smartphones and other mobile devices a flawless browsing experience on your website because more and more people are utilising these devices to access the internet.

Making your website mobile-friendly becomes important in this situation.

What characterizes a mobile-friendly website?

• A responsive design: It offers the best viewing experience by adjusting to the size of the device's screen.
• Simple navigation: Users should be able to swiftly and easily access the information they're looking for thanks to the navigation's simplicity of use.
• Rapid page loading: A website that is optimised for mobile should load rapidly.
• Text that can be read: The text must be readable on a mobile device.
• Images that have been optimised for the web: The images should not cause a delay in the loading time of the page.

D) Put keywords in strategic places

A significant portion of internet users in today's world uses mobile devices to access the internet. The importance of having a mobile-friendly website has increased because of this.

Websites that are not optimised for mobile devices may not perform as well in search engine result pages, according to Google, which has even acknowledged that mobile-friendliness is a ranking factor (SERPs).

Keyword Positioning

There are a few crucial areas you should concentrate on when it comes to carefully inserting keywords:

• Title tags: The title tag is your website's primary heading and what search engine results in pages display (SERPs). Make sure the title tag contains your major keyword and appropriately summarises the page's content. It should also be brief and descriptive.
• Headings: Headings (H1, H2, H3, etc.) assist in organising your website's information and make it simpler for users and search engines to grasp. The most crucial parts of your material should be highlighted with headings, and if possible, your keywords should be used in headings.
• Meta description: It displays in the SERPs, and provides a succinct explanation of your website. The meta description should contain your main keyword and appropriately reflect the information on the page in order to encourage readers to visit your website.
• Body content: The body content is the primary text on your website and is where you can best demonstrate your knowledge and give visitors helpful information. The body material should contain your keywords, but you should be careful not to overuse them, as this is known as "keyword stuffing" and can lower your ranks.
• URL structure: Your website's URLs should be clear, succinct, and include your main keyword. Users and search engines can better comprehend the purpose of your website as a result.

E) Ensure a positive user experience

Every website must deliver a positive user experience to be successful. It not only improves the website's trustworthiness but also aids in bringing in more visitors and keeping them interested.

Making sure the website is mobile-friendly is one of the essential elements of offering a positive customer experience.

More and more people in the modern world are using their mobile devices to access the internet. Due to this, it is crucial for website owners to make sure their sites are mobile-friendly.

Poor user experience on a website that is not mobile-friendly can have an adverse effect on how well the website performs in search engine results and overall.

Some important factors to take into account when designing a website mobile-friendly

• Responsive Design: A website must have a responsive design in order to be mobile-friendly. It enables the website to modify its design and information to fit the size of the screen being used to see it. This makes sure that the website is simple to use and can be viewed on all platforms, including mobile phones and tablets.
• Load Time: A slow-loading website might irritate visitors and increase their likelihood of leaving quickly. For a quick and seamless user experience, it is crucial to improve the website's load speed.
• Navigation: In a website that is optimised for mobile devices, the navigation should be simple and clear. This makes it easier for customers to find what they're looking for fast and lowers the likelihood that they'll leave the website out of frustration.
• Content: A website that is optimised for mobile devices should have material that is suitable for small screen sizes. This means that in order to achieve quick load speeds, the information should be brief and to the point, and the graphics should be mobile-friendly.

Website owners may ensure that their website offers a good user experience and is accessible to a wider audience by making it mobile-friendly. This will help the website rank better in search results and draw more visitors as a result.

Gray Hat:

What is Gray Hat SEO? 

Gray hat Search engine optimization (SEO) methods that don't fall within the purview of "white hat" or "black hat" SEO.

Black hat SEO refers to strategies that are intended to trick the system and produce results that are not obtained through legitimate means, whereas white hat SEO refers to tactics that are compliant with the terms and conditions of the main search engines.

Gray hat SEO sits in between, employing methods that could be viewed as dubious or dangerous yet could still produce fruitful outcomes.

While gray hat SEO isn't always against the law, it is thought to be a riskier strategy than white hat SEO.

This is due to the possibility that the employed strategies may be less likely to be approved by the search engines and may lead to penalties or bans.

As a result, people who are in need of results and are prepared to take a chance generally use gray hat SEO as a last resort.

Keyword stuffing, article spinning, and link purchasing are a few examples of typical black hat SEO tactics.

Gray Hat SEO vs White Hat SEO

The primary distinction between Gray hat and White hat SEO is that the former has the potential to be riskier than the latter while still protecting your website from being penalised. To put it simply, depending on the methods used, gray hat SEO may or may not receive a google penalty.

Gray Hat SEO vs Black Hat SEO 

Gray hat SEO typically employs strategies that do not directly contravene Google guidelines, which is one of the main differences between it and black hat SEO. Yet, black hat SEO employs methods that blatantly contravene Google's guidelines.

Why is Gray Hat SEO Important? 

Many firms want results right away because they don't want to wait for organic traffic and ranking improvements. At this point, SEO experts attempt to use tactics that are not entirely consistent with the structure of Google's algorithms but yet adhere to the aforementioned rules. Due to its ability to deliver results quickly and without having to worry about any negative effects, gray hat SEO is crucial to grasp. It is essential to keep up with any new classifications, in part because gray hat SEO might change suddenly. However, keep in mind that a gray hat SEO technique can quickly become a white hat or a black hat technique.

Gray Hat SEO Techniques to Boost Your Website Ranking

a) Bought expired or outdated domains

This is one of the most important gray hat SEO strategies that sits in the middle of black hat and white hat SEO. Buying an old or expired domain entails purchasing a domain that was allowed to expire but had a strong authority because of the number and calibre of links pointing back to the website. With expired domains, you can easily employ a gray hat SEO strategy in one of two ways:

• To increase authority, you can utilise a 301 redirection to help reroute the link to the current domain you have. Gray hat SEO tactics are frequently supplemented using this technique.
• You can also look through previous content archives and republish them on the website in an effort to revive it from the state it was in before the domain expired. With this technique, you may quickly increase targeted visitors to your website.

b) Moderation in keyword stuffing

It is bad practice to recklessly stuff your keywords into your content and expect improved results. SEO suffers when keywords are stuffed. Instead, practise carefully inserting keywords into your content. Proper keyword stuffing involves using the appropriate keywords and their precise densities to obtain unmatched page rankings.

Carefully selecting keywords can increase the website's organic traffic and provide them with the recognition it previously lacked. The frequency with which a certain term should occur in your text is directly related to keyword density.

c) Several accounts on social media

There is no doubt that every one of your clients may be active on social media. Maintaining a single social media account for your company on each platform to post links, particularly to increase exposure and visibility, is a white-hat SEO technique. On the other hand, creating numerous social media profiles in an effort to unnaturally increase sharing and links to your website is considered gray hat SEO. Although it is ludicrous to think that content alone may increase your results, search engines actually give social signals the same weight as other signals. To improve both your online and social presence, it is always a good idea to open several social media profiles. Gray hat SEO is the practice of creating numerous fake accounts on social media. Yet, if you want to develop into a specialist professional, you should stay away from this strategy.

d) Using a private blog network

A private blog network, or PBN, was originally a deliberate link-building technique. According to its definition, a PBN is a discrete collection of websites that you can visit to create backlinks to a specific website in order to raise its Google rating. Attacking a link to a single central domain in an effort to move as much link equity as possible, especially for factors as crucial as increasing its authority, is the main goal of PBN for worried gray hat SEO methods. There are two main ways to use PBN for SEO and backlinks:

• You can enlist the aid of another PBN, but you will be required to pay for the connections that lead to your website. While only a small number of them provide pertinent and worthwhile connections that improve your SEO, the majority of them are not as you may assume.
• You can create your own network of public blogs. It is typically very safe, but it could also take some time. You can use this strategy if you are working to create an authoritative website and have access to a top-notch PBN.

e) Site submission to online directories

One of the most popular gray hat SEO techniques is submission to web directories. You can concurrently earn a free backlink to your website by adding website directories. Yet, when the same is done, even in very modest numbers, it is strictly a white hat SEO technique. When this tactic is primarily overused, such as when it's done to gather more than a few connections to your website, it turns into a gray hat SEO technique.

f) Buying links

Link purchasing and link selling are two of the most often employed gray hat SEO strategies by webmasters. These strategies are known as "black hat SEO" since they blatantly contravene Google's Webmaster guidelines. Gray hat SEO can take four different forms, but not just these.

• Purchasing a link that Google has already crawled.
• Being given the chance to write a post that includes connections to one's own website.
• Link exchanges between website owners.
• Trading goods or services in return for a hyperlink on another website.

g) Earning money from good reviews

Positive reviews are believed to elevate a website's ranking in search engines. This is especially true for local SEO. Typically, people find ways to manipulate search engines' algorithms by bribing people to provide favourable reviews of listings. Numerous businesses and organisations offer positive ratings in exchange for a little discount, incentive, or cash payment. This is unequivocally black hat SEO.

h) Spinning Content

Another significant tactic used is gray hat SEO which might boost your Google results is spinning content. Yet, if practised for an extended period of time, it is typically unethical. The primary working principle is to create an almost exact replica of the original information. In order to make a piece of text unrecognisable by any plagiarism detection software, spinning content generally involves rephrasing it word for word. After the text has been spun, you may post it on your website to improve its rating for a few specific keywords.

i) Repetitive Content

When you copy and paste multiple content blocks on the same website or elsewhere, duplicate content results. Gray hat SEO frequently employs duplicate material in techniques like,

• To avoid having to create a fresh search query from scratch and to target comparable search queries. One of the most frequent examples of such an occurrence is when firms create multiple sites with the same information for various city locations. The majority of the text is replicated, with the exception of the city name.
• Copying content from another website and simultaneously uploading it to a more secure domain can frequently outrank the content's original website, eventually directing traffic to the more secure domain.
• It can be used to produce several copied versions of the same information for the search engine.

j) Automation of content

Content automation is the technique of using a particular piece of software to automate the procedure typically needed for producing content. In a word, the main goal of the same is to produce a steady stream of material in order to increase your chances of improving your rank on Google and generating crucial traffic at the same time. Artificial intelligence or content scraping can both be used to accomplish this.

k) Cloaking 

Another significant gray hat SEO strategy is cloaking, which shows one type of content to consumers while showing a different type to search engines. Cloaking is a very dubious gray hat SEO technique that frequently aids in deceiving search engines, much like Google, in order to acquire crucial ranking by employing relevant keywords, while nevertheless giving different results when users search.

Benefits of Using Gray Hat SEO

Without a doubt, SEO may be a difficult and time-consuming task.

There are also always those looking for shortcuts.

As a result, "gray hat" SEO techniques have become more popular, which may provide quicker results but also carry some risks.

So, are there any advantages to employing black hat SEO techniques?

Naturally, the answer is that it depends.

Gray hat techniques might occasionally speed up the process of achieving your goals.

But, they can also result in Google penalising you or possibly banning your account entirely.

Hence, it's crucial to consider the advantages and disadvantages of using them before making a choice.

For instance, if you need to establish yourself quickly in a highly competitive market, you might conclude that the possible benefits outweigh the risks.

Just remember to give all of your options careful thought before making a choice.

Black Hat:

What is Black Hat SEO?

Using strategies to promote a website that disobeys search engine guidelines is known as black hat SEO. Black hat SEO tactics try to manipulate search engine algorithms to increase a site's ranking on the SERPs.

Search engines like Google and Bing are quite explicit about the types of conduct that are not permitted. Also, they are quite clear about the potential repercussions of disobeying their regulations. Employing black hat SEO tactics could lead to your website being penalised (either manually or algorithmically), which would entail lower organic visitor numbers and worsening ranking positions.
Giving users the best results for their searches is the sole objective of search engine algorithms. Marketers who employ unethical black hat SEO techniques successfully rob legitimate white hat practitioners of higher SERP ranks. 

Following are some common black hat SEO Techniques:

• Cloaking Content (Invisible Text): In black hat SEO, cloaking refers to a technique where consumers are given content or information that differs from that presented to search engine crawlers. It aids in improving a website's search engine positioning for particular keywords.
• Keyword stuffing: Using the same terms repeatedly in a website's content is known as keyword stuffing.
• PNB: Private blog networks, often known as webrings, are collections of webpages that are connected to one another. They were made in order to increase domain authority.
• Link Farms: A link farm is a website created with the goal of boosting the number of inbound links to another site. While the majority of the information on a link farm is hyperlinked and unconnected to other websites, it nevertheless has the appearance of a typical web page.
• Content Farms: Websites or businesses that produce a lot of replicated, poor-quality content in order to ideally satisfy algorithms and rank highly in search engine result pages (SERP), they are known as content farms.
• Auto-generated Content: Auto-Generated content is pre-designed templates that are used to programmatically create content.
• Content Spinning: It is also known as article spinning, and is a technique used to create new-looking content out of previously published material by substituting equivalents for words or phrases.
• Link purchasing (Paid Links): Purchasing links from another website in order to link to one's own website is known as link buying. A common Black Hat SEO technique that tries to boost link popularity is link buying.
• URL Hijacking: Competitors that engage in URL Hijacking replace a website's search position with their own, dramatically replace a page's placement in the SERPs with their own, and syphon off the traffic from the page.
• Sneaky Redirects: Marketers employ sneaky redirects to send consumers to various web pages with the goal of showing them content that was not intended for search engine crawlers.
• Abuse of Structured Data (Rich Snippets): Rich snippets, also known as structured data, give users the ability to modify how content appears on search engine result pages (SERPs).
• Blog Comment Spam: Including a link to a website in blog comments is known as a Black Hat SEO technique.
• Doorway Pages: In SEO, a gateway page is a web page that has been written specifically to rank for a given search term. Typically, a doorway page is only a "Doorway" to the main content and serves no purpose for users.
• False job postings: Scammers use a variety of nasty Black Hat SEO tactics, including false job postings. An ordinary page persuading people to apply to a job opening that offers a large pay, which is typically too good to be true, could be a classic scam page.
• False Scholarships: One of the Black Hat SEO tactics, false scholarships entail creating a page on a website that advertises a false scholarship. An imitation scholarship tries to link to that page from educational institutions' scholarship portals.
• False Google Business Profile Account: When properly configured, Google Business Profile Accounts improve search rankings. It has the potential to be used by scammers and Black Hat SEO practitioners to generate phoney Google Business Profile Accounts. Scammers can use a person's profile, change their name, and other details to commit crimes.
• Fake GBP Reviews: Scammers employ false GBP reviews to damage a company's online reputation, just as they do with fake Google Business accounts.

Risks of using black hat methods:

There are substantial hazards involved in using black hat SEO strategies to rank your website.

For the following reasons, the majority of SEO specialists steer clear of such tactics:

a) Decline in user experience

Your target will have a negative experience thanks to black hat SEO.

Most visitors leave your website when they have a terrible experience since the content on your web pages appears to be spam.

In order to ensure that people are having a nice experience online, search engines take note of these unfavourable results and remove your website from the SERPs.

For this reason, you should always engage with a search engine optimization expert who adheres to the white hat SEO principles and use ethical and long-lasting SEO strategies to assist you in gaining users' trust.

b) Fines imposed by search engines

SEOs are fully aware that using black hat SEO exposes them to penalties from search engines like Google.

Although using black hat techniques can help you rank well in the SERPS rapidly, the results themselves are still temporary.

When you want to conduct a serious SEO operation, it is not a good idea to run the risk of having your website penalised for plagiarism.

Use white hat SEO strategies in place of black hat ones to prevent devaluing your site and to assert a more consistent SEO result.

c) Substantial losses for your company

Black hat SEO will have a negative effect on conversions and income for your company if it causes a drop in traffic and visibility to your website.

Together with a likely decrease in income, job losses or possibly the collapse of your organisation could happen next.

A severe decline in your organic traffic may, at best, push you to increase your PPC or other paid media spending.

d) Legal penalties in extreme circumstances

You may subject yourself to legal repercussions with some black hat SEO techniques, although these are often extreme situations.

You theoretically expose yourself to legal action if, for instance, you hack a website to exploit its referencing and visibility.

Be aware that businesses can take legal action if Google penalises them because their SEO firm employed unethical practices.

Despite the fact that SEO is not specifically covered by the law, there are still a number of legal considerations that might be used to get remedy or even damages.

Conclusion...

SEO can be difficult and with Google changing its algorithm continuously, it can become more confusing with each passing day. White hat SEO, as we read earlier, is the best way to use it if you want to rank your website without damaging your site's reputation. Try to stay away from Black hat SEO, no matter how tempting it might sound. Search engines discourage black hat tactics and sites that try to manipulate them. 

Just remember, in SEO, slow and steady always wins the game.