Of recent, the SEO industry has adopted the terms white hat and black hat to categorize the various SEO strategies employed by webmasters. These terms basically describe the ethical and non-ethical SEO practices prevalent in cyberspace.
Without doubt, search engine optimization is an absolute necessity in today’s web world. It is the sure way to ensure online visibility and improve online sales. Both the black hat and white hat techniques help in achieving these goals but it is the white hat method that pays off in the longer run. Black hat SEO tactics produce impressive results which are often short lived. Moreover, websites employing black hat tactics run the potential risk of being banned by search engines either temporarily or even permanently. So it is only a matter of time before the cat is out of the bag and the damage done.
Black hat SEO methods optimize web page content for search engines rather than humans. Sometimes websites have content hidden from visitors and visible only to search engines. Such content will be over-stuffed with keywords aimed to improve ranking on the search results page. Matt Cutts from Google gives a classic example of a black hat method of hiding text. As he says, when you have good relevant content why hide it from a visitor. If the content is not worthwhile for a surfer, it’s probably best to leave it out of your site!
