Internet Marketing / SEO
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How Do I Know Whether A Technique Is Black Hat?

Description: Black hat search engine optimization techniques should be avoided like the plague. But it's not always easy to tell which techniques are good and which ones aren't. This article will help to clarify matters.

As far as search engine optimization is concerned, there are two ways of doing things properly. You can either make your site search engine friendly by using organic methods to get more targeted traffic, or you can pay someone else to do it for you. Either way, the methods used will take time to pay off and will lead to a gradual improvement of your site's positioning within the search results.

It's usually fairly easy to find out whether or not a particular technique is regarded as being a black hat technique. There are plenty of forums and websites which offer in depth advice on which strategies to use - and which ones to steer well clear of.

But there is another way that you can determined whether you are falling on the side of the black hat or white hat strategies, and that's to examine exactly what you are intending to do.

Every single white hat SEO technique is logical and takes some work to implement. It's the one thing (apart from being a legal strategy that is) that all white hat techniques have in common.

Black hat techniques are very different. Whenever you are considering performing a specific search engine optimization action, ask yourself the following question:

?Am I doing this to attract the attention of the search engine spiders, or are my site visitors my number one priority?

If the technique you are thinking of using completely ignores the fact that your site needs to appeal to your visitors by having worthwhile and valuable content included on every page, then you are straying into black hat territory and you need to rethink your strategy.

The whole idea of using white hat SEO techniques is that you are trying to rank highly in the search engines by making sure your website appeals to exactly the right group of people it's aimed at.

Black hat techniques appeal to the search engines to try and get a higher ranking - period.

So if your customers and visitors don't figure anywhere in the equation, you need to go back to the tried and tested techniques of building an outstanding quality website on a more gradual and long lasting basis.