subject: Blackhat V Whitehat Search Engine Optimization. Is There Really A Differentiation Anymore? [print this page] Most link building by many SEO firms seriously isn't natural but is in actual fact blackhat according to Google. If you are required to purchase it, request it, comment for it or insert a hyperlink inside your article to realize it, in which case you are manipulating Google search results and Google terms that as blackhat. You simply want to view the many video's by Matt Cutts to realize that if you do any among the above, you then are creating links manually and violating Google's TOS.
It simply baffles me how many SEO experts will quickly denounce Cloaking as unethical or against Google's TOS or merely label it as spam which manipulates search results but then every day create artificial, manual or software generated backlinks for clients.
Should you be distributing countless articles with links or posting on blogs/forums to get backlinks or using automated backlinking software, isn't that also spamming to govern google search results?
There is also a silly mindset that whitehat SEO is without risk and blackhat is totally full of risks. Really? How many whitehat sites, that supposedly conformed to all Google's TOS, suddenly lose their ranking and their business when Google decides to do a serious algorithm update? Ha! Where will be the reward for loyalty from Google?
So does blackhat or being unethical really exist anymore? Isn't this really about traffic, conversions and surviving within an ever tightening monopoly created by Google for which we now are left with few other options, unless to line the pockets of Google shareholders.
The debate on whitehat versus blackhat is becoming de-emotionalized and fewer religious overtones over the years. When I started off with SEO services back during the nineties, the controversy was all about ethical versus unethical SEO. Many hard core reactions then to what was, after all, merely a technological, not just a theological or moral issue.
Add to that the ever growing domination of Google which marketers are forced to cope with online and it all becomes clear. You could arguably say that online commerce as a whole has matured, as, obviously, has the SEO industry proper.
As of late, once we speak with clients they happily consider the choices in case you ask them whether or not they choose to choose a whitehat or perhaps a blackhat approach. Clients will openly inquire about efficacy, the relative risks involved so on. So it's a almost unexcited, hands-on discussion, which is a very good thing as far as we are concerned.
We are experiencing a lot more openness towards cloaking just as a SEM strategy when compared to 5 years ago. Generally, corporations aren't as impressed or as easily fooled by the search engines (especially Google's) fear, uncertainty and doubt tactics regarding anything they don't like.
The difficult dispute that blackhat is risky and whitehat is safe is ludicrous to the extreme. There is no pledge by Google that whitehat SEO will provide you superior rankings. Similar there is no agreement that if you have good rankings, Google will guarantee that you have the benefit of ranking consistency following an update.
Ethical or whitehat behavior only makes sense amongst equals. Consequently, as an online enterprise, are you in reality an equal to Google? No, you're not the odds are stacked firmly against you.
