Guest Blogger: Emily Croskey

If you have taken the time to learn about Search Engine optimization, you may have come across two odd phrases, White Hat SEO and Black Hat SEO, and you may have wondered – just what are these exactly?

White Hat SEO

White Hat SEO is used to describe any Search Engine optimization techniques that are ethically correct, and follow all of the Search Engine best practice guidelines, no short cuts are taken and no ‘cheating’ is involved. If you want to build a site that will stand the test of time, then White Hat SEO is the only way to go. White Hat techniques are designed to build traffic and rankings over time, by using a combination of on-page and off-page optimization techniques.

Black Hat SEO

Black Hat SEO uses significantly less ethical techniques, many of which are fully capable of seeing a website banned from the major Search Engines such as Google, Yahoo! and MSN. Black Hat SEO will push as much traffic to the site as possible in the shortest amount of time. If you have a reputable brand name that you wish to keep clean, using Black Hat SEO techniques could potentially tarnish your good name and image.

Your website would greatly benefit from White Hat SEO techniques. Even though you may have quicker results using Black Hat SEO techniques, in the long run it is not worth it. The best thing to do is to have an ethically sound website by using only White Hat SEO – it will pay off greatly!