Is white Hat SEO worth it ?

[machforce]

Here is a little back bit of my backstory for context:
A year ago, I started a niche website. Nothing crazy, but I put a lot of works and effort into this website. Now it has about a hundred pages of long and good quality content. My traffic was going up constantly for during that year. The google medic update was quite nice to my site.
However, about 2 weeks I got hit. 50- 60% loss in traffic.
I was ranking well for the main keyword of my niche (top 5), and now I see some 1 page spammy website in first page whereas my 5000 words ultimate guide is on page 3.
To be honest this is sickening. Seriously I don't know what to do.
Should I just wait or I should do something about it ?

 

[living2xl]

combine both blackhat and greyhat and you will win
Do whitehat only if you are a big corp with money to burn and risks are there anyway

 

[xoftmade]

White hat seo have worth but in your case google definitely rank again your website same positions many time website come rapidly but after some month he down forever because google down forever who doing blackhat seo so dont worry focus on your website

 

[luhasr]

If you do anything like whitehat or blackhat , Do which is really worked for your sites.Dont do all the things.

 

[antihero11]

Just wait. If your web is good, it will rank again.
If not, you should check on page and make a few links

 

[machforce]

Ok thanks, I will wait a bit.
For my next website I will probably use grey/black hat technique.

 

[John Lew]

I think white/gray/blackhat doesn't matter in most occasions. What truly matters is, how do you think Google rank a website?

Proper Context (on-site optimization) & Quality Backlinks (off-site)

If you're doing white hat SEO, and you are able to get hundreds of quality backlinks, say from forbes, techcrunch, mashable, buzzfeed etc then who to say you can't do white hat?

But if you're doing white hat and you're struggled to get quality backlinks, and get outranked by your competitors, then it's time to rethink your SEO strategy. Maybe gray hat works better for YOU (lower cost and faster result)

 

[Jobdollarr]

You only need content marketing.

To be honest, there are many traffic sources around you

 

[seocrab]

Just because you lost rankings, doesn't mean "whitehat doesn't work". Perhaps the methods you are using on that particular website are not working.

Also, what's your definition of whitehat? If it's writing XX,XXX words and not building links, that's not going to help you.

If you're in the medical niche, links from trusted medical sources are essential. My guess is that the 1-page 'spammy' website you refer to has built better links.

Finally, thousands of words of content does not equal authority. Sometimes, a keyword phrase is better served by shorter content. A lot of people forget this.

 

[machforce]

I think white/gray/blackhat doesn't matter in most occasions. What truly matters is, how do you think Google rank a website?

Proper Context (on-site optimization) & Quality Backlinks (off-site)

If you're doing white hat SEO, and you are able to get hundreds of quality backlinks, say from forbes, techcrunch, mashable, buzzfeed etc then who to say you can't do white hat?

But if you're doing white hat and you're struggled to get quality backlinks, and get outranked by your competitors, then it's time to rethink your SEO strategy. Maybe gray hat works better for YOU (lower cost and faster result)

Thanks, that makes sense.
How do you define grey hat ? Can you give me an example of a grey hat technique ?
Also, I find some ways I could improve my website...
The more I look at it, the more I think there is some strange : some website which used to be ahead of me, or around my level, are now into the abyss (page 3 and beyond). Maybe Google is doing some tweaking...

 

[machforce]

Just because you lost rankings, doesn't mean "whitehat doesn't work". Perhaps the methods you are using on that particular website are not working.

Also, what's your definition of whitehat? If it's writing XX,XXX words and not building links, that's not going to help you.

If you're in the medical niche, links from trusted medical sources are essential. My guess is that the 1-page 'spammy' website you refer to has built better links.

Finally, thousands of words of content does not equal authority. Sometimes, a keyword phrase is better served by shorter content. A lot of people forget this.

Hi, I've built links. With an outreach campaign...
And yes that spammy website is a single page site with no backlinks (checked with ahref...). so zero authority.
I don't know what is going on...

 

[seocrab]

Hi, I've built links. With an outreach campaign...
And yes that spammy website is a single page site with no backlinks (checked with ahref...). so zero authority.
I don't know what is going on...

I am confident that it does have backlinks. They will have blocked ahrefs and other bots from crawling them. Probably a PBN.

Hard to give any more advice without knowing the keyword or competitor. PM me the spammy site if you like.

 

[shehbaz064]

Hi, I've built links. With an outreach campaign...
And yes that spammy website is a single page site with no backlinks (checked with ahref...). so zero authority.
I don't know what is going on...

that's takes your website ranking down, always take backlinks from authority websites so your backlinks counts as a good backlink not a spammy one, i think google find your spammy backlinks and derank your website.

 

[Hydius]

Always do both

 

[SergioRamot]

For long term, whitehat is the option but for Short term blackhat works well.

 

[machforce]

Ok, so I just recover my ranking, not exactly to the same point as before (I was top 5) but at least I am on the first page.
And the one-page site is still ahead of mine...
I guess I just had to wait