When we talk about Search Engine Optimization, there are two different ways of doing it, one is so-called White Hat SEO and the other is Black Hat SEO.
White Hat SEO is known as good practice and it is recommended by search engines (like Google, Yahoo, Bing…). On the other hand, we have Black Hat SEO, this technique is not approved by search engines. All SEO consultants will advise you to go with the white hat if you wish for long-lasting results. If you are thinking about getting your website to rank high as fast as possible, then the black hat is the right solution, but I would not recommend it. Why? The reason is that your website will get banned sooner or later when search engines get you at what are you doing. Well, this should get you thinking… To ensure that results you are getting are going to last it is quite important to know if SEO service provider is using the best practices and following guidelines provided by search engines.
White hat SEO is a technique, which is user-orientated (creating and providing content for users) and is not made for search engines only. This content should not be blocking search engine spiders, but it should be easy to access by them. So, if you wish to stay on the safe side, you should consider creating relevant content for your targeted audience. Relevance is valued by search engines, which will be shown on your rankings. If your website is providing the content that is relevant and it is what searchers are looking for, then your site will be ranked higher in search engines organic listings.
Black hat SEO is usually a technique that involves some techniques which are disapproved by search engines and are attempting to rank sites higher (usually trying to create deception). One of the commonly used black hat strategies is the use of the hidden text. What is this “hidden text”? This is the text that is located off-screen or is colored similar/the same as the background of the website. Another widely spread technique is cloaking. This is when one page is loaded if the page is accessed by a human and the other page is loaded when the site is accessed by search engine spiders.
Websites, which are using black hat techniques will get penalized by search engines. This will be reflected as a drop-down in their rankings or even complete elimination from their database. This mistake is not good for your business because you will lose a lot of free organic traffic for major key phrases, while your competition will enjoy in it and their high rankings. Search engines don’t care how big or how famous is your company and this can be proven by infamous example. In February 2006 Big G (Google) has removed BMW (Germany) from its database. Why? This move was made because they were using black hat search engine optimization techniques to achieve higher rankings. Later, the company was eventually restored in Google’s database, as they have apologized and cleaned up/removed the offending pages.