The Colour of SEO
Image source Hex Colours (hat tip SebastianX)
Sometimes it’s important to ask questions that may have answers that you already know. One such question popped in my mind yesterday, which obviously found its way onto twitter:
Ok Question tweeps: As an SEO do you NEED to know “black hat” tactics? Thoughts?
To my surprise I had a phenomenal number of responses. I either caught twitter at a good time, or the question is one that attracted peoples attention.
Of course not all answers were what I expected… Steve Plunkett asked:
define black hat tactics… lol
Fantomaster owns the Gray Hat
…which to be honest is a perfectly good question. How DO you define Black Hat SEO? How do you recognise the difference between those who are Black Hat and those that are merely hackers for hire? I think Greg Boser nailed it (and I think others thought so too, his response was retweeted a lot):
It’s pretty easy for me to define. I consider BHSEO the act of breaking rules, not laws.
That’s the difference. Search Engines have a whole bunch of rules they don’t like us violating, and which typically lead to sites being kicked out of the SERPs if caught. Breaking those rules makes you a BHSEO ( I won’t debate the whole buying links and Gray Hat SEO thing here because it’s much debated and covered territory). Hackers work outside the law. Case and point? The whole Ugg Boots scene that played out in the UK recently. I consider the whole Link Injections scene to be beyond Black Hat and illegal.
Of course some people like my friend Dave Snyder just refuse to belong to a classification…
Dave Snyder "I only wear hats Cause I am Bald"
(Dave is Co-Founder of Search and Social and regular blogger at Search Engine Journal)
But getting back to the point, do I as a White Hat SEO need to know Black Hat tactics? Do I need to understand the intricacies of the Dark Side? Why? Shouldn’t I just run at the mention of black hat? My twitter peeps don’t seem to think so:
@wiep (who by the way is a link building genius) how else would you know what white is? Which he then followed by the biggest problems are caused by cowboys who think they’re wh, but don’t have an f*ing clue what they’re doing…
@andyheaps(Head of Search at Latitude) need to know what they are and be able to recognise them, not necessarily implement them…
…unless you’re selling viagra!
@drewhoward as an SEO I think you do need to make yourself aware of black hat tactics so you know what to avoid and how to stay ethical
@mosquitohawk I think it helps if you’re going to really say you understand the search engines, but isn’t required to improve rankings generally
@MichelleRobbins Was quite succinct: absolutely.
@swerveball yeah. you need to be aware / have some understanding. you can’t master something by only studying half.
@APSG 9/10 times they’re the ones who find the exploits first – you could look at how to waterdown the tactic turn it grey / white
@SEO_Doctor often debated that. If you can do quality white hat, then no. Big G is getting too good at filtering. But it’s great playing…
@robwatts definitely – you need to understand dirty tricks to combat them
@davidjmain only to know what to Avoid!
@DavorGoldie I think you should have an understanding of blackhat tricks, tactics etc. You need to know what you’re up against…
@Fearless_Shultz I say yes, if nothing else to know whether you might be inadvertently using them! But also they can inspire white hat variants…
@GregBoser not only know, but be proficient at it. Anything less is a disservice to a client.
@Dixon_Jones (Dixon is the director of Receptional who do run the Majestic SEO Campaign) Sooner or later, you’ll do something “black” by mistake if you don’t know what you’re doing.
@yrewol (although unknown in the general SEO industry, I vouch this guy is a genius, and I consider him a good friend) you absolutely do need to know them. Whether you use them or report them, you need to understand them and their impact.
@Matt_Siltala I think if you do not test, and have never tested on the dark side, you really can’t call yourself an SEO
@seoidiot just give them a white hat name ………. “commercial link programme anyone?”
@Skitzzo i think you need to be able to spot the most frequently used BH tactics so you can understand why sites outrank you etc.
@fantomaster (if you don’t know this man, you need to read up. He KNOWS Black Hat SEO) Expectably, my take is: Most certainly! If only to stay in the loop on the state-of-the-art side of things. (BTW Ralph is launching Customized Content Creation soon)
But for me one of the best analogies was by Kenny Hyder (who by the way just launched Awesome Tools):
Do cops NEED to know how to think like criminals? Gotta know both sides to compete on either.
As you can see form the responses above, there is a certain pattern to peoples thoughts regarding BH SEO. What does that tell me? That I NEED to know Black Hat SEO:
- because I should be able to spot any of it by my competition
- because I have to make sure I am not inadvertently using it
- because there may be tricks that could be used in WH SEO
- because that is the way I stay on top of the game
And this old job posting on Search Engine Watch encourages me to add one more:
5. because my cients may request that I do
Some Resources:
(disclaimer: visit these sites at your own risk 
And be careful with any techniques, however harmless, that they talk about.)
- Although not always Black Hat, Eli’s Blue Hat SEO blog should be on your reading list.
- Syndk8 is a self styled and out and open Black Hat Company.
- Earl Grey is famous in the Black hat field.
- A pretty Good Article in questioning if Black Hat theory is Advanced SEO
- The Quadzilla Forums are famous for insane tricks.
- The Irish Wonder Blog has got it’s routes in Black Hat.
- Another SEO Black Hat blog…
- The Black Hat forum is usually ripe with ideas.
- Sebastian isnt a black hat (that i know of) but is one of the most advanced bloggers I know.
- SEO Wolf has a few decent links to some Black Hat Tools (hat tip)
- Slightly Shady is a long time fav, and I just remembered he wrote Why Whitehats need to know Blackhat SEO way back in 2008.
With that, I leave you to draw your own conclusions as to why YOU need to know Black Hat SEO – and feel free to add your thoughts in the comments! (Oh and a Fantomaster Special below )
Blackhat vs White Hat - Conversation
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{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
Really interesting approach to a really interesting subject. Thanks for the list of links – I’ll be working through them and adding to my Google Reader later this morning. Nice work Rishi!
Now on Sphinn: here.
Rishi, I think this is one of the more informative and unbiased posts I’ve seen on why understanding black hat should be in every SEO’s repertoire.
Great question on Twitter + great response = Great Post!
Rishi, was great to see the response fly in to your question and the resulting post is definately a worthy read.
Very nice use of crowd sourcing, illustrating the power of Twitter.
Hey Rishil,
Good points above, and nice to see so many people join in with their thoughts – I was in meetings otherwise I would have added the additional point:
Yes you need to know Black Hat SEO, just as Lawyer’s need to know the law, if white hat maybe you dont need to know it in exquisite detail. However equally Ethical vs non-ethical SEO needs to be known, as snakeoil SEO’s can do crap white hat and claim they’re not blackhat, yet they’re likely worse for the SEO industry than the whole black/grey/white hat thing.
Some of the biggest success I’ve had has been using Black Hat SEO to drive White Hat sites.
If you dismiss black hat or the need to learn it, you’re not really an SEO specialist. You’re just limiting the tools at your disposal. It means there’s somebody out there with more knowledge, more experience and willing to take more risk. No prizes for guessing who wins.
Agreed -hence the final cartoon
Yes we need to know Black Hat SEO, because when we try any new tactics, Black Hat SEO is the yellow line.
The other questios is, Can we ware a Grey Hat SEO?
EDIT NOTE: I have edited this comment cause of anchor link on the word “SEO”. Comment spammer obviously… Rishil
I want a $700 bill, too!
Seriously, one of the best posts I’ve read in a while – anywhere. I practice white hat but do yearn to explore black hat because, well, ya know… enquiring minds want to know.
Thanks for the useful resources Rishil.
As many others stated, I think it’s important to stay on top of it. I Frequent BlackHatWorld because it’s very interesting, if nothing else. A lot of the ideas there are very unique, and you can pick and choose certain elements of them to put together something that may not be blackhat itself.
That’s a really cool post. I loved reading it and those quotes are too good. Keep up the good work.
I also found some nice information regarding black hat on this website: seositecheckup.com/articles/43 and found it interesting too. More you learn better it is.
The black hat/white hat argument is indicative of the youth of the SEO industry. There are no white hat SEOs. If you do anything other than write “great content that people naturally want to link to” to achieve ranking, then you are black hat. Anyone who thinks that writing great content alone is enough to get ranking is naïve. If no one ever sees your great content because it isn’t ranking, how will they know it exists, if they do not know it exits, how will they link to it. It’s called a Catch 22 children.
The definition of a white hat SEO is someone who is too much of a self righteous hypocrite to admit they are bending the rules in one way or another. It doesn’t matter if you take one dollar or one thousand dollars for your affections, a prostitute is a prostitute.
You can find all the White Hat SEOs in one place, the unemployment line. Get over yourself already.
Over 30 Years ago when I was an under grad one of my ethics professors defined business ethics in the best manner I have ever heard “Ethics are what the rich use to keep the poor, poor”. He further explained that the powerful in a give industry are the ones that set the ethical standards, who do you think they will set those standards to favor.
As someone who has been successful in business longer than most of my fellow SEOs have been alive, I find the black hat/white hat arguments childishly amusing. It will be interesting to watch this industry and those in it grow up and go through the cycles that all industries go through as they mature. Capitalism is evil my nature, it works because humans are evil by nature.
“ Like virgins to the alter the veil will be drawn and the children will be forced to see their own reflection”. If you know the origin of this quote you most likely already agree with me.
Yes, I am an arrogant jerk, but I am not a naïve hypocrite.
Via Twitter: supernaut76 @rishil it’s all manipulation – so call it white/black/grey…whatever, there are 2 types of SEO, effective and ineffective
cre8tedtweets
Via Twitter @rishil he talks some sense…imo white hat SEO’s are off-white to various degrees? nobody links to content they don’t know about
For what it’s worth I agree with @rishil for the most part but totally see your point John Ray.
There are obviously exceptions to the rule: sometimes good content does somewhat “naturally” take off. Some content is just made to be shared and it truly doesn’t take much to get the ball rolling. Outreach through a newsletter formed the old fashioned way, or uptake on Reddit or another community is most likely not a manipulation of the link graph.
I’m not saying this type of content is common… but there are occassions where literally “if you build it, they will come.”
Clearly this is the exception to the rule and I doubt anyone who refers to themselves as an SEO relies solely on this theory/type of behaviour. I just wanted to point out that there is such a thing as “whitehat SEO” (aka onpage optimisation coupled with luck) but it usually requires a seriously talented marketing team to create something that needs very little help in attracting links.