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Build Great Backlinks has posted a new item, 'Black Hat or White Hat SEO? It's
Time to Ask Better Questions'


Posted by Dr. Pete

Since the Wild West days of the late 1990s, SEOs have been grouped into two
camps the black hats and the white hats. Over time, these distinctions have
become little more than caricatures, cartoon villains and heroes that only exist
in our individual imaginations, usually embellished to suit our marketing
agendas. Even when grounded in specific tactics, black vs. white is a lot like
conservative vs. liberal the definition changes with the year and every person
you ask, and that definition almost always comes loaded with assumptions and
judgments.

Unfortunately, too many business owners still choose their SEOs based on the
hat they wear, even when that hat only comes out on sales calls. So, Id like to
ask some better questions. There are real strategic and tactical differences
behind what we often think of as white and black hat SEO, and those differences
are what you need to understand to make the right choices for your own business.

This Isnt About Ethics


While we generally think of ourselves as white hat here at SEOmoz, Im going to
put ethics aside temporarily for this post. I will assume that, when we say
black hat, were not talking about outright illegal behavior (like hacking into
someones site). Were talking about willfully violating Googles rules to improve
your ranking. While I do believe there are ethical implications to cheating the
system and harming search quality, this post is intended to be an honest look at
the real choices you face when choosing an SEO path.

(1) High-Value or Low-Value?


The first question is are you going to pursue high-value or low-value tactics?
I dont want to replace one hopelessly vague duality with another one, so let me
define my terms. By value, I mean the value that these tactics provide to site
and search visitors. We sometimes call low-value tactics spam. Its not usually
illegal and its not always even unethical (depending on your point of view), but
its always done specifically for SEO purposes.

Heres an example linking all of your clients sites back to your own site with
keyword-loaded footer links. I wouldnt call this unethical, but it doesnt add
value and, frankly, its just too easy. Google knows this, and they naturally
devalue those links now (in extreme cases, they might even penalize the target
site).

Ironically, low-value tactics are often considered to be a value to people who
are trying to gain ground as cheaply as possible. Practically, people often
underestimate the time these tactics take and overestimate the return on
investment. Low-value tactics tend to fade quickly. As Google gets more
aggressive, low-value tactics are also getting riskier (see Question #2).

Theres a more fundamental problem, though, in my opinion low-value tactics
dont build anything toward the future. Once they fail, and they usually do, you
have to start over and chase some new low-value tactic. Heres an example lets
say you get links back from all of your clients in low-value footer text, and
your one-way link network looks something like this:



Link juice is flowing, and all signs are green. Then, one day, Google pulls the
plug on this particular low-value tactic. What are you left with?



Youre not left with much, because these links never had real value beyond SEO.
Imagine, though, that those links carried not only authority (in green), but
traffic (in blue):



Now, lets say Google changes the rules, and you lose the ranking power of those
links. The links still have value, because theyre still carrying visitors to
your site:



The picture may not look exactly the same, and the traffic quantity and quality
have changed, but youre not dead in the water. I know Im oversimplifying this,
but I just want to make the point perfectly clear. If you play the game purely
for SEO, and you lose, you lose everything. If you build something of value that
actually attracts visitors and then the rules change, youve still built
something.

(2) High-Risk or Low-Risk?

The second question you need to ask yourself is: How much risk are you willing
to accept? Dont just smile and nod and tell me about how youre a risk-taker Ive
heard plenty of people tell their SEO companies to Go for it! only to be reduced
to sobbing in the corner when their strategy crashed and burned months later.
This is a time for brutal honesty. Can you live with the risk of a severe
penalty, including being totally removed from the Google index?

High-risk SEO is like high-risk investing yes, there can be high reward, if
you know what youre doing, but for every 1 winner at this game there are 99
companies that close their eyes, cover their ears, and whistle their way into
disaster. If what youre hearing from your SEO company sounds too good to be
true, ask more questions. As Paddy Moogans recent post pointed out, your risk is
not someone elses to take.

To make matters worse, I think that many so-called black-hat tactics, and even
some gray-hat tactics, are much riskier than they used to be. There was a time
when, if you played the game too hard, you got a slap on the wrist and had to
start over. Youd be set back a few weeks, but youd also have made a lot of money
in the months leading up to that. Im not saying its right, but lets at least be
honest about the past.

Fast-forward to 2013, and look at an update like Penguin almost a year after
the original Penguin, weve still heard very few public recovery stories. The
ones Ive heard in private have almost always involved a massive culling of links
(the good with the bad, in many cases) and took months. Thats months with major
revenue loss, and this is from big agencies who have resources and connections
that many business dont have access to.

Even semi-innocent tactics have been hit hard. Fairly recently, you could spin
out a bunch of city/state pages with a few long-tail keywords and do pretty
well. Was it a high-quality tactic? No, but its hardly the essence of evil.
Worst case, Google would start ignoring those pages, and youd be out a few days
of work. Then, along came Panda, and now your entire site can suffer for quality
issues. The price of mistakes is getting higher, and Google is getting more
punitive.

Im not here to tell you what to do, but this is not just a white-hat sermon.
Ive studied Googles movements a lot in the past year, and I sincerely believe
that the risk of manipulative tactics has increased dramatically. I also believe
that its only the beginning. So, if youre going to play the game, make sure you
can afford to lose.

It's almost important to understand that every tactic carries risk, especially
if you fail to diversify. When I hear a company say "Our clients are never
affected by updates, because we only use Google-approved methods!", then I know
that company has only been in business for six months. Sooner or later,
white-hat or black-hat, the rules will change. You could be sparkling white and
still get hit by things like paid inclusion, SERP layout changes, SERP feature
changes, etc. The time for SEO hubris is over.

(3) Short-Term or Long-Term?


Finally, I think you have to consider whether youre in this for the long haul
or just trying to make a short-term play. For example, lets say youre building
an affiliate site to sell accessories for the Samsung Galaxy S4 (which was just
announced while I was writing this post). The smartphone market moves fast, and
as an affiliate in this space, youre facing a few realities:


You probably dont have a lot of money to invest up-front

You need to get your traffic rolling quickly

Your peak opportunity may only last 6-12 months


Again, Im not making a moral judgment, but this is a very different kind of
business situation, practically speaking. You may not have time to build epic
content or spend six months building up a social following, and the consequences
of getting burned a year from now may be fairly small. So, if you know your
business is short-term, you can take risks that other people cant.

The problem, I think, is that too many long-term businesses think this way: I
cant afford to spend money, I dont have time to get moving, I need results now!
So, you dive into low-value tactics to get moving quickly and cheaply. Even if
you never get smacked down by Google, the reality is that these tactics tend to
be short-lived they fade or burn out, and youve got to start again. So, youre
constantly in a cycle of chasing the next low-value trend.

This may be attractive at first, to get out the gate, but over time I think its
a losing proposition. If you never build anything that lasts, youre always stuck
making repairs. If you invest early, those investments tend to pay out, and you
can build on them. Ive seen this so many times with content over the past few
years I invest in a piece that doesnt quite live up to my immediate
expectations (traffic-wise, social-wise, etc.), and Im about to throw in the
towel, when weeks or months later, it takes off and just keeps running. Once its
running, you get to go along for the ride. Without that investment, youre always
pushing.

So, Whats Right for You?


I can't tell you how to run your business. I just want you to ask yourself (and
your vendors) the hard questions. Are "low-value" tactics actually saving you
money? How much risk are you really willing to take? Is your #1 priority to get
up and running quickly and cheaply, or are you trying to build a real, long-term
business? If the best your provider can do is show you their hat, and they can't
help you answer these questions, then move on it doesn't matter what color that
hat is.
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