I have had that question for a long time and I really haven't found a good straight answer to this question. I grew up doing blackhat all day every day.. and now I have thought about whitehat a lot, but I have absolutely no idea what whitehat is. How do I know that blackhat is blackhat if I don't know what whitehat is? Well.. as I have understood blackhat's one part is automation and lol I have all the software that's out there right now. Well at least 95% of most popular software.. So I can say I do a lot of blackhat.. So.. but what's whitehat then ? Slow manual work? Where's the line between white and blackhat ?
Whitehat SEO is where you don't build links yourself at an attempt to to rise in ranking on the search engines organic results, black hat SEO is when you do build links yourself. I personally use what works as do most people in this forum, but if you have or are working for a legitimate company then you should not be doing blackhat SEO for the simple reason of jeprodising the company.
I pretty much agree with Mrxinbollywood on this one. Unless you literally create your site and not even optimize it for keywords (cause that is CHEATING and trying to KEYWORD STUFF! OMG!), and then just sitting back and waiting and hoping that you're site will be discovered by the masses... after all, I built it... why aren't they coming??? Yea... that business model doesn't work anymore - it really never did for 99.9% of the sites/businesses out there.
Better would be to talk about line between gray and black hats. White hat, according to Google, is when you absolutely don't build links yourself. In other words, only on-page SEO and no off-page SEO. Only allowed off-page SEO would be link exchange in purpose of gaining traffic and not ranking. Grey hat would be building links manually. Black hat would be building links using automated tools and/or trying to crack search engine algorithms. Note: I composed grey and black hat definitions myself, but I think that there isn't correct classification anyway.
White hat - your site shoots off goes viral etc and you rank naturally because of the buzz like a snowball accidently rolling down a hill and naturally picking up pace and getting bigger Grey hat - you build the links yourself create the start of that buzz like you pushing a snowball down a hill which gets bigger and bigger naturally Black hat - the use of automated software to create and be that buzz so Google thinks your relevant in other words instead of pushing a snowball down a hill YOU are the snowball and you make yourself bigger Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2
Everything is blackhat. Even SEO companies use blackhat in 99% cases. If you build links manually, it's a white hat, but you probably use black hat software to find the most powerful links.
When I got my first hat was white, later it started to turn grey, and now looks even darker. I ain't gonna wash it.
White-hat is building and maintaining a high quality website rich with information. It's about branding and awareness, social interaction, coming up with clever ways to get people talking about your site and linking to you. Black-hat is creating the appearance that the above is happening and making google think everyone is talking about your site.
I am considering whitehat as being "natural". You write quality content, nice on-site SEO and maintain it, everything will follow naturally (google signals, backlinks, social bookmarks, shares), and eventually your ranking will rise. With regards to blackhat, for me it is a type of strategy to boost a site's ranking by manipulating certain signals which may affect serps. It involves the webmaster's manipulation of known signals which are supposed to be built naturally by the internet itself. Take note that this "manipulation" is a very deep aspect to understand. Some manipulation strategy tends to be "deceptive", some "legal", while others are "illegal". So to answer your question about the line separating them, well in my opinion, the separating line lies in manipulation and naturality.
It was funny to read your definitions.. I have to agree with most of them. This SEO is so crazy.. these days. Everybody are doing blackhat so.. maybe black is becoming white soon :O
There is no such thing as white hat. Even if you build 10 links per week, you are doing black hat because Google thinks you want to manipulate their search engine.
One of the best backlinks you can get is from the Better Business Bureau. It costs a $500 "Membership Fee" to get that backlink. Is joining the BBB white, grey or blackhat?
