Search Engine Optimization or SEO is an eminent part of the online marketing strategy for any business. Its importance can be noted from the fact that it can be the reason for success or failure of a company. Due to this reason, a lot of organizations are seeking to improve their SEO strategies and keep themselves updated on the latest trend from the world of SEO.

 

Differences between Black Hat SEO & White Hat SEO

 

The basic difference between Black Hat SEO and White Hat SEO is in the use of backlinks. Black Hat SEO users look for quick and unfair methods to get results. Their basic objective is to make some quick bucks without providing any value to the audience. This approach is spammy and the users are likely to get penalized. White Hat SEO, on the other hand, takes a long time approach that doesn’t involve penalty.

Website owners and SEO experts who use White Hat SEO build their SEO strategies in a way that is compliant with the search engine regulations. The strategies involve researching quality content, web design and relevant meta tags.

Black Hat SEO uses methods which are contrary to the search engine’s guidelines. Search engines frown upon such methods and eventually they catch the culprits and penalize them by banning their service or site. Black Hat SEO comprises of blog comment spam, keyword stuffing, link farming, cloaked pages and the like.

 

 

Consequences of using Black Hat SEO

 

 

Engaging in black hat SEO can lead to serious consequences. The penalties include:

• Getting lower search engine rankings
• Getting de-indexed
• Getting banned.

 

It might be surprising to know that even if Black Hat SEO techniques involve severe penalties from Search Engines, people still prefer to use it.

 

The most probable reason for this may be because White Hat methods take a long time to deliver results and Black Hat SEO can deliver quicker results.

 

 

 

With the rise in the number of Black Hat SEO users, Google has taken steps to tackle the issue with the Google Panda update and the Google Hummingbird update. These updates are targeted towards filtering spammy sites with thin content and improving search relevancy. Google algorithm now easily seeks out Black Hat SEO techniques. It has already penalized thousands of websites for having used link farms to accumulate a host of bad links.

 

Taking all these factors into consideration, you might still want to use White Hat SEO even if it might take you a while to get to your desired spot on the SERPs.