People talk about many assorted terms when it comes to SEO or Search Engine Optimization. If you search the web for terms pertaining to SEO you will see search terms containing the words black hat SEO or white hat SEO and as well gray hat SEO.

You need to know what these terms mean and what the difference is. Well first off these are colorful terms describing your optimization methods. For example, you could compare the white, black, and gray as if you were talking about gray, white or black magic. A white hat search engine optimization technique would be an SEO style that is purely honest and not misleading while also being totally accepted by Google as a method accepted within Google terms of service.

On the other hand, you hear someone discussing black hat SEO and these people are referring to search engine optimization techniques that are not within the terms and conditions of Google’s search engine listing methods. For example one popular method of black hat SEO is called cloaking. While cloaking does have valid uses often Google will sandbox your site or penalize your site for improper usage. Website cloaking is basically showing Google’s indexing robots a page optimized specifically for a search term with specific content. However, the page your visitor sees is totally different.

When people talk about white hat SEO they often discuss widely accepted linking and site building methods that are within Google bots rules and regulations. You may come across gray hat methods people are discussing. often these methods will be a little more likely to skate the line of bending the search engines rules of site submission techniques etc … All in all black hat SEO, white hat SEO and gray are very similar in comparison to magic in that most people consider white magic as ok black magic as being evil and wrong and gray is always in between.

Well now you are probably wondering which methods you should use.  Well first I have to warn you, if you do not understand basic SEO practices then you should leave black hat and most of the gray methods to those that are professionals. This I will say again if you are not a SEO pro leave the black hat alone. I say this because when the search engines catch you using black hat SEO methods more often than not you will get severely penalized which can result in a permanent sandboxing of your domain. And in case you do not know what sandboxing is, it means your domain will be punished or worse by the search engine whose terms you did not follow and once your site is sandboxed in many cases it means banned.

A lot of times I see forum discussions with arrogant misinformed people stating there is no way that Google will catch me and if this is so then that person is not very good at black hat SEO. I state this because black hat methods often exploit weaknesses in the search engine algorithms and search engine indexing and listing methods which makes it easier to get top index placement. And since with black hat search listing methods you take advantage and break rules, often the search engine then see’s your footprint and can and will penalize and punish you. Though now you are probably wondering what I mean when I mention footprint and how can you covers these tracks? This I can explain as well but you are going to have to wait for my next post, sorry I cannot write the whole book in one day