What’s The Difference Between Black, Grey and White Hat SEO

In the world of SEO for a newbie things can get quite complicated very fast. This confusion is especially prominent when analysing the difference between black, grey and white hat SEO. In this brief article we are going to cover the main description and differences between each hat of SEO. With that said, let’s get started!

Table of Contents

Black Hat SEO

Starting off with the riskiest form of SEO we come across black hat SEO. More often than not black hat SEO CAN WORK, until it doesn’t. Black Hat SEO at its fundamental principle is about going against Google’s guidelines to achieve high search engine rankings as quickly as possible. Although these tactics may work, if a website is caught using black hat SEO tactics they can expect to be hit with a big manual action or Google penalty that will lead to significant losses in rankings that were “unethically acquired” in the eyes of Google. Examples of black hat SEO practices include:

Using invisible text on webpages
Creating doorway pages
Keyword stuffing pages
Building low quality backlinks pointing to competitor sites to get their rankings to decrease (negative SEO attack)
Link Schemes
Automating link building using softwares like GSA Ser

All in all, black hat SEO may work temporarily however, the risks associated with it are definitely not worth pursuing because the penalties if caught are far more severe than the short-term benefit you will get from doing said practices.

White Hat SEO

Comparatively to Black Hat SEO, White Hat SEO is the complete opposite and at its core prioritizes following the rules (AKA – Google’s Guidelines). White Hat SEO may take longer to do, but it is far better as it ensures that your website is safe from Google penalties, and helps you build real relationships with Google allowing you to increase your websites trust score. Examples of white hat SEO practices include:

Offering quality content and services
Securing backlinks through genuine blogger outreach service with people in your industry
Creating a positive website user experience
Increasing website page speed
Making site navigation easy
Utilising optimised meta descriptions, seo page titles, and URL structures
Optimising content and avoiding keyword stuffing

All in all, if you care about the long-term success of your website, make sure to prioritise white hat SEO as it is your safest bet in growing your rankings in an acceptable way.

Grey Hat SEO

Lastly if you haven’t guessed already, grey hat SEO is in the middle or “grey area” of SEO that lies between white hat and black hat SEO. Grey hat SEO is really about using a mix of black hat and white hat SEO to achieve your first page rankings. It’s one of those situations where you wouldn’t really tell Google you are doing these practises, but at the same time the practises aren’t that bad to the point that you should be severely punished for it.

Conclusion

All in all, based on our experience it’s always better to do White Hat SEO in order to ensure that you uphold a great relationship with Google, while ensuring that you are still able to rank on the search engine in an ethical way. We always say that “Good SEO is slow SEO” and you can never go wrong with going White Hat. If you are looking for a White Hat SEO agency we highly recommend an agency like Click Typhoon. Click Typhoon specialised in doing white hat SEO for, Barrie SEO, and Richmond Hill SEO based businesses. All in all for 2022 let’s rank together!