Seen these hats flying around the forum but never really grasped what they mean. So, whats a white/black hat?
White hat is when you do everything morally/ethically/industry standard correct to the best of your knowledge. In terms of SEO get fair links, write good content that is pretty much the same for spiders as for end viewers. Black hat is when you knowingly and purposefully cheat your way through the system. In SEO being hidden text, cloaking, spamming, link farming, hijacking etc. Grey hat is anywhere between the two.
They are BS terms made up by professional SEO's to try to explain why they can't get their clients sites ranked. Basically to take the pressure of them by making up some moral dilema that doesn't even exist.
The terms may be BS, but they have stuck, I know webmasters that do spam Google for a living and operate under the radar and are quite good at exploiting the system. At least they don't have to work construction
Its all about calculated risk, not Good vs. Evil. White Hat/Black Hat is what you get when you have a bunch of SEO's that have seen Star Wars too many times.
Don't get me started on the over and misuse of the word SPAM. Thats another term thats typically used wrong.
The reality is that long term safety is best. Always. But I have definitely heard the 'We do things right, that is why your rankings won't kick in for a little while longer" excuse from people who don't have a moral agenda.
A better approach is to lay things out for your client listing the risks and rewards associated with breaking the Google TOS and let them decide what they are comfortable. Just about every technique has been called grey at one time. What the **** is grey? That makes no sense and it just serves to confuse newbies who further use it incorrectly. I think SEO's that actually use the terms Black/White/Grey are just lazy and don't feel like actually analyzing the technique and presenting it in a logical way to their customer.
Yeah, you know... White, Black - It doesn't matter... So long as you make money, who cares... I bet I get red repped for my views on this again, but frankly, if spamming google is what will make me most money, then I'll do whatever it takes... I find most "White" SEO's to be very much Black=Bad White=Good and I frankly don't like the attitude they take towards people who can clearly perform better than them.
As far as SPAM, maybe it deserves a new thread but I personally don't think delivering a relative result, no matter what the method, can be correctly called SPAM. Even if you use keyword stuffing, cloaking etc, if the result is completely relevant it technically isn't Spam.
If you get bad rep. stating an honest opinion on a "open forum", there is something real wrong with the focus of forum members who do this, but please let's never talk about rep. again, it makes me sick.
Google isn't the law and if you're clever enough to exploit their weaknesses or leverage your knowledge of the algo's then dark grey is fine with me too. I am of the opinion though that sooner or later it will come and catch up with you and if you rely on Google as a main traffic source it could backfire real hard and real fast. Yfs1's idea of 'caluclated risk' is the best way to look at it IMO.
We talked about this in a thread I started long ago, I think it was called "Undercover Webmaster" or something. But if one does these things he does not use the toolbar, he does not register sites in his name, he does not post on forums using his real name and he does not brag to folks he can't trust.
I think the biggest issue here, is that so long as you aren't doing anuything immoral to the search results (Like putting up porn on a search for teletubbies or something) then you aren't really doing anything ethically wrong. I think that's the bridge... With regard to calculated risk - It's a very good point and should always be considered before you implement any changes that could screw your site up.
perrow, did you ever watch those old cowboy and indian movies? where there was always the "bad" guy (who always seemed to wear a black hat...and maybe smoked a fat cigar) and then there was the "good" guy (who always seemed to wear a white hat and maybe had a horse called Silver)? Well, that is originally where the terms "white hat"/"black hat" came from....good vs bad....it was quite useful on black and white TV! as an aside - for the star wars lovers amongst you...what is the opposite of the "dark side"? is it the "jedi side"? that doesn't quite role off the tongue