Paul Brooks | 12 Dec 2007

Members of the web design industry often talk of two types of search engine optimisation: White Hat and Black Hat. White Hat SEO is ‘ethical’ and uses techniques that search engines would approve of in order to promote websites for relevant keywords. Black Hat search engine optimisation involves methods that attempt to deceive search engines into ranking a website higher than they should.

Many of the larger search engines, such as Google and MSN, have tools to identify websites that use unethical techniques to improve search engine optimisation, so it is usually a good idea to steer well clear of underhand tactics.

Unfortunately, many site owners are paying SEO experts to carry out Black Hat search engine optimisation, without understanding what is involved or what damage that can do.

White Hat search engine optimisation usually involves refining text content, page structure, images and other elements to ensure they show an accurate picture of the subject of a page. This helps search engines to identify the main keywords for a page and rank it accordingly when visitors use their search features.

Black Hat SEO could mean adding invisible extra keywords to a page, either by setting text colour to the same as the background or using advanced hiding techniques. Cloaking pages are another example of unethical SEO, where the page that is viewed by visitors is not the same page that search engines see – their version would be crammed full of keywords, instead of clear, legible content.

Other ways of fooling search engines include using very popular keywords that aren’t actually relevant to a page, adding lots of extra content in a small font at the bottom or including hundreds of virtually identical pages to simply increase the perceived size of a website.

Many search engine optimisation agencies use Black Hat techniques to generate ‘quick wins’ for their clients. They can deliver impressive search engine positions for a company’s main keywords and then charge impressive fees for their work.

Unfortunately, these SEO techniques will only deliver success for a short period as search engines are often able to spot – and disregard - the underhand tactics. It is also rumoured that search engines will penalise sites that use these techniques, possibly knocking them down a few pages in the results or removing them from their lists altogether.

By contrast, White Hat methods are welcomed by the search engines as they will generally give a fair representation of what a web page is about. Ethical SEO will usually deliver ongoing success in the search engines and a continuous increase in traffic, so you should ensure your web designers or search engine agency are using these methods and not trying to cheat you into the search results.

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