subject: Does Whitehat Seo Guarantee Risk Free Rankings? [print this page] Most link building by many SEO firms is absolutely not natural but is in reality blackhat according to Google. If you have to pay for it, request it, comment for it or insert a link in your article to achieve it, then you are manipulating Google search results and Google terms that as blackhat. You just have to view lots of video's by Matt Cutts to understand that if you are doing any for the above, then you definitely are creating links manually and violating Google's TOS.
It simply baffles me the number of SEO experts will quickly denounce Cloaking as unethical or against Google's TOS and also label it as spam which manipulates search results but then each day create artificial, manual or software generated backlinks for clients.
For everybody who is distributing countless articles with links or posting on blogs/forums to get backlinks or using automated backlinking software, isn't that also spamming to manipulate search results results?
There is also a silly mindset that whitehat SEO is free or risk and blackhat is filled with risks. Really? The number of whitehat sites, that supposedly conformed to all Google's TOS, suddenly lose their ranking and their business when Google decides to do a major algorithm update? Ha! Where is 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 that we now are left with few other options, unless to line the pockets of Google shareholders.
The debate on whitehat versus blackhat has become de-emotionalized and fewer religious overtones over the years. When I started off with SEO services back in the nineties, the debate was all about ethical versus unethical SEO. Numerous hard core reactions then to what was, in fact, merely a technological, and not a theological or moral issue.
Add to that the ever growing domination of Google which marketers are forced to cope with online but it all becomes clear. You might consider arguably say that online commerce as an entirety has matured, as, evidently, has the SEO industry proper.
These days, once we speak with clients they happily consider the options if you happen to ask them whether they express a desire to opt for a whitehat or a blackhat approach. Clients will openly inquire about efficacy, the relative risks involved thus on. So it's a basically unexcited, hands-on discussion, that's a very good thing as far as we are concerned.
We are experiencing much more openness towards cloaking just as a SEM strategy when put next to five years ago. Generally, corporations aren't as impressed or as easily fooled by the major search engines' (especially Google's) fear, uncertainty and doubt tactics regarding anything they don't like.
The drawn-out dispute that blackhat is risky and whitehat is safe is ludicrous to the extreme. There is no security by Google that whitehat SEO will offer you excellent rankings. Similar there is no promise that if you retain good rankings, Google will guarantee that you benefit from ranking consistency after an update.
Ethical or whitehat behavior only makes sense amongst equals. Therefore, as an online venture, are you actually an equal to Google? No, you're not the odds are stacked firmly against you.
