Do you want to rank for competitive terms without worrying about potential Google penalties? Then it’s time to go white-hat.
Do this, and you’re unlikely to ever wake up to a sight like this in your analytics:
google analytics drop off
SIDENOTE. “Unlikely” ≠ impossible. Still, if you employ solely white-hat tactics, the chance of a receiving penalty is practically zero.
But before you go full white-hat, you may be wondering: can you compete with the black-hats without breaking the rules?
Yes, you can, at least in most industries. (But in some specific industries, you can’t.)
DISCLAIMER: “White-hat vs. black-hat” is an age-old debate and the best approach for you will almost always depend on your industry. If you’re an experienced black-hat SEO, don’t get mad at me for favoring white-hat over black-hat. Consider the context of Ahrefs Blog—we’re advising people who run businesses in legit industries. They can’t risk their livelihoods by using black-hat strategies.
In this article, I’ll introduce some effective alternatives to well-known black hat tactics. And explain why it’s beneficial to opt for these white-hat tactics over their black-hat counterparts.
But first, let’s define both black-hat and white-hat SEO (and take a look at the differences between the two).
White-Hat vs. Black-Hat SEO
At its core, all SEO has the same aim: to improve a website’s standing in the search engines.
But SEOs, for the most part, are divided into two distinct camps: white-hats and black-hats.
Here’s an overview of the differences between the two:
What is White-Hat SEO?
White-hat SEO refers to the usage of Google-approved website optimization strategies, techniques, and tactics. The focus here is on providing users with the best search engine results. I.e., you prioritize the user over anything else.
As a white-hat, you will generally:
Play by Google’s rules (they’re pretty clear about these in their guidelines);
Optimise for humans not search engines;
Create quality content that people actively want to read and share;
Create a website that stands out from others in your niche (for the right reasons!)
On the flipside, there is black-hat SEO. This is considered to be the ‘opposite’ of white-hat SEO.
What is Black-Hat SEO?
Black-hat SEO refers to the use of strategies, techniques, and tactics that do not necessarily follow Google’s guidelines—in fact, they’re sometimes even plain unethical. But they still give you the desired result (i.e., rankings).
Black-hat mentality focuses on finding and exploiting algorithmic loopholes.
SIDENOTE. Black-hat mentality doesn’t always show complete disregard for the user. Nor is the concept of black-hat SEO “bad” or “evil” (despite what some people may think).
Many of these loopholes don’t hurt anyone, except your competitors. But some of them are incredibly unethical, such as hacking into websites to inject backlinks. (More on this later.)
As a black-hat, you may:
Break (or at least ‘bend’) Google’s guidelines;
Focus on search engines over users;
Attempt to deceive users with things like cloaking and doorway pages;
Hack into peoples’ websites.
Here at Ahrefs, we don’t want to take the moral high ground and talk about the ethical implications of doing black-hat SEO. That would likely spark an unnecessary debate, which isn’t our intention.
But, we do consider black-hat SEO to be very risky.
That’s why we’ve never endorsed (and never will endorse) the use of any black-hat tactics on the Ahrefs blog. We advocate going the white-hat route, although a pinch of “grey-hat” probably won’t hurt.
So, the goal of this article is to show you why white-hat SEO tactics are often an objectively better choice than their black-hat counterparts. (Unless the industry you’re in dictates otherwise, of course.)
But first, you may be wondering, is the white-hat route right for you?
Is white-hat SEO ALWAYS the best choice?
It depends on your goals (and your telemarketing list niche).
If your goal is to build a long-term brand, then white-hat is the way to go.
But if you’re in a spammy niche like “payday loans,” white-hat probably isn’t going to cut it.
Black/grey-hat SEO dominates some niches (e.g., “payday loans”). And while we’re advocates of a white-hat approach, the truth is that there’s little/no chance of winning when playing “by the rules” in such industries.
Sure; you can start out with the best of intentions (i.e., white-hat) in these kinds of niches. But as soon as you start seeing success, competitors will likely drag you back into black-hat SEO territory.
But if you’re running a legit project in a legit industry (which we believe most of our readers are), you have an excellent chance of winning without using risky black-hat tactics.
For example, take Ahrefs:
There are tons of juicy keywords (e.g. “backlink checker”) that we could rank for and grow our MRR by millions of dollars.
serp overview backlink checker
And we could likely do that with just a few simple black-hat tactics.
But we can’t