SEO, or search engine optimization, in its broadest sense, is the process of increasing a website’s visibility and deploying techniques that increase traffic to the site, therefore making it rank higher in search engine results. Within the realm of SEO, however, there are two additional camps. These consist of black hat and white hat SEO.
When dealing with technology, there always comes the risk of unethical use or abuse of advances in the cyberworld. The term used to describe this in relation to search engine optimization is black hat SEO. Black hat SEO refers to optimization techniques that violate the search engine’s terms of service. This can look like a variety of things: Content automation, doorway pages, hidden text or links, keyword stuffing or spamming, or negative SEO techniques such as reporting a competing site. Black hat SEO tactics are aggressive and focus only on appealing to the search engine rather than the human audience. The main goal of black hat SEO is financial return on website traffic. To achieve this, the site will contain spammed keywords and irrelevant links that degrade the user experience. Black hat SEO does not follow Google’s guidelines of their E-E-A-T policy (experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness). Overall, black hat SEO does not fulfill the viewer’s search intent, which should be the main goal of a website.
On the other hand, white hat SEO refers to the use of SEO optimization tactics that places more of a priority on their human audience rather than the search engine. Every technique and strategy deployed within white hat SEO is ethically executed and strives to meet the goal of satisfying the user’s search intent. It increases the authority and credibility of the website and is overall beneficial to the user experience. Rather than utilizing abusive SEO techniques, white hat SEO tactics consist of research, analysis, meta tags, web design, fast page loading times, and more. In this day and age, where deception and corruption are so common, it is crucial that white hat SEO takes center stage in the realm of search engine optimization.
One Response
This is really interesting Violet! I remember talking about this in class, and SEO has evolved so much. It is not about keyword stuffing, but rather being focused on the user.