Whitehat SEO

Last updated on December 15, 2009. Tags: backlink, image alt text, search engine algorithm, title tag, white hat SEO

Whitehat search engine optimization (or White hat SEO) refers to different SEO techniques that are approved and sometimes encouraged by search engines. White hat techniques, when implemented, work for the best interest of webmasters, search engines and internet-using public. The website climb to the top of SERP (search engine result page), the search engines find the website very easy to crawl, and the public are served with the most appropriate search engine results.

SEO techniques that are typically classified as white hat are considered ethical and has no intention of deceiving the user, in contrast to black hat SEO which are considered unethical and deceptive. However, you cannot claim that you are using white hat techniques just because you do not have any intention to deceive.

Relying on white hat techniques makes the climb to the top of SERP slow (but certain). The idea here is that a website must establish its reputation first before earning its rights to be on top of SERP.

What are the white hat SEO techniques?

In its strictest sense, white hat SEO are limited to a handful of on-page SEO techniques that involve writing quality and original content and encoding your codes and scripts in a way that makes it easier for search engine crawlers (or spiders) to explore your website. Meaning, you don't look for any pattern on how search engine works and use them to your advantage.

quality, original and regularly updated content
avoid making your site "pure" flash
avoid texts that are part of the image (and therefore not visible from source code)
whenever possible, put your CSS codes and Javascripts to an external file

The following techniques are somewhat riskier because they can be abused (which will make them a black hat instead of white hat).

keyword-rich BUT coherent title tag
keyword-rich BUT coherent headers <h1>, <h2>, etc.
content written in a normal manner, with keywords coming naturally
non-aggressive backlink building through forums and blog comments

Notice that I emphasized coherent, natural and non-aggressive? These are what divides white hat from black hat in using these techniques with potential for abuse.

Coherence means using simple and short titles that make sense to human readers. Natural means you write web content just like how you write any article without any effort to force certain keywords. Non-aggressive means you should participate or have conversation with other forum members and comment posters instead of focusing on building as many backlinks as you can.

Why you should use white hat SEO techniques?

The results of white hat optimization tend to last much longer than that of black hat. You will be surprised how your website can reach the page 1 for most of your targetted keywords in half a year or up to two years as long as you maintain and continuously update it.

On the other hand, black hat techniques are eventually seen by search engines and penalize or ban the websites that are using them. Black hat SEO experts usually anticipate this and they merely capitalized on the sudden surge of traffic before the banning happens. Then, they will build a new website and repeat the same process all over again.

For websites that are meant to last for a really long time, white hat techniques are they way to go. While the results of search engine optimization efforts take a long time to materialize, once achieved, the result will definitely last longer. White hat SEO is based on trust, the longer the website stays without doing anything unethical is enough to earn the trust of search engines.

Conclusion

Whitehat search engine optimization is opposite of the blackhat in every way. Aside from ethical vs unethical or recommended vs forbidden by search engines, these two are also opposite because using white hat techniques enable websites to rise gradually in search engine ranking while black hat tend to be much faster in getting results.

Aside from that, white hat techniques are done in a graceful manner with several other positve effects such as building social network, while black hat techniques are either stressful or requires the use of program in building backlinks.

Using pure white hat techniques is the safest move that you can do to prevent your website from getting banned. However, a health dosage of tweaks in content, attributes and title tags can be helpful as long as these are not done in an overly aggressive manner. Building backlinks should also be done with moderation, in a way that is comfortable to you and allow you to join discussions through blog posts and forums, and not hurrying in building n number of links per day.

Posted by Greten on May 15, 2009 under Definitions, Search Engine Optimization

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