Put on your white hat
Don’t let Black Hat SEO practices damage your brand
In the world of search engine optimization there are two schools of thought. The first, “White Hat” SEO, uses great content, smart link writing techniques, great information structure, link campaigns, and extensive keyword analysis to create pages that rank well on the search engines. These sites stand the test of time and deliver the results your organization deserves.
The other school of thought, “Black Hat” SEO, is in a constant battle to trick, manipulate, and defraud search engine results. The techniques used include creating link farms (many sites that link to each other), cloaking (trying to fool the search engines by redirecting from one domain to another), and stuffing keyword phrases in places people cannot read.
Today’s Black Hat SEO techniques are in fact just old methods of tricking Google and Yahoo into giving you good search engine results. The results often work very well if done correctly but it is a short-lived victory. The search engines are constantly updating the parameters they use to rank sites. They are dedicated to finding sites that should not rank so high and bringing them down to size. Currently that means you get placed in the “sand box”. The sand box is a very friendly term for what really means blacklisted. If your site is identified as trying to trick the search engines you can be banned from appearance on the index entirely.
The consequences of getting blacklisted can be jaw dropping. Imagine one day that your website that has thousands of dollars and countless hours invested simply ceases to exist on Google, Yahoo and MSN. It would be as detrimental to some businesses as having all brick and mortar locations burnt down in one weekend. Just like it would take a company months or even years to fully rebuild physically, it can take months and even years to dig your way out of the sandbox.
The risk is foolish to any real business or organization. Losing credibility from the search engines is a needless mistake when the guidelines are so clearly listed on every major search engine. Google Senior Webspam team member Matt Cutts explains that by simply following the rules and developing great sites you can achieve search engine recognition. In today’s day and age, spam is a real problem and the search engines are becoming more effective at catching it.
So don’t make the mistake of spamming the search engines; instead, make sure your site’s SEO team is both ethical and looking out for your best interests.
Here is a list of the SEO guidelines for the major 3 search engines.
The Google Webmaster guidelines
The Yahoo Webmaster guidelines
Keep in mind that over 80% of all search traffic is on Google, while MSN and Yahoo represent less than 20% of search traffic online. If you follow the guidelines on the Google page, you should do well everywhere else.
