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Are all SEO methods technically Blackhat?

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XRumerGeek

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We recently posted an article discussing SEO in general, and questioning at what point you step over the line from whitehat to blackhat SEO. Strictly speaking, isn't any attempt to manipulate the search engines with on-page optimization of off-page link building a blackhat technique?

You can read more on our thoughts here; SEO - All Methods Blackhat?

I think it's an interesting topic to discuss considering the constant Google algorithm changes over recent years. At what point do you think an SEO pushes his efforts too far and falls into the black?
 
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I do agree in part. Howeaver care needs to be maintained to differentiate mostly harmless techniques such as alt tags or structure design from dangerous techniques such as link pyramids and link farming.
 
SplitIce said:
I do agree in part. Howeaver care needs to be maintained to differentiate mostly harmless techniques such as alt tags or structure design from dangerous techniques such as link pyramids and link farming.
Click to expand...

Where would you personally draw the line? I think the majority of us agree that some techniques are clearly blackhat - I'm more interested in looking at the "greyhat" techniques if you like where opinions differs on whether or not they fit within the guidelines of Google search.
 
Would you care to read my comments and reasoning above, and back up your thoughts? By Google's definition, I think we can say that.

XRumerGeek
 
Not everything is blackhat, even though you would wish that it sounds like that.
Blackhat is about overdoing things (playing with keyword density, playing with amount of backlinks etc)
What Google is giving you advice is about users experience on your site. How to write an article, that is useful to readers. How to make more clickthroughs. If you have 100UV a day, and 100PV that gives google bad signals. But if 100UV makes 1000PV, this means you are doing it good. Users found your website interesting, and spent time on it, going through other articles. THIS is what whitehat is all about.
Easy navigation, similar posts, great informative content, organized site into one meaningful structure, that is easy to follow, and get used to.

Good content produce natural backlinks. It also produce natural social buzz, which google knows how to recognize. They maybe are still not perfect, and this is where blackhatters go, to manipulate, and abuse SEO. BUT, all it takes is time, to recognize natural drop in visitors, and you are done.

If you don't put google analytics code, you might suffer how your visitors are tracked, and you might miss better SERPS, and on the other hand, if doing BH SEO, google will recognize, that users don't make clickthgoughs, and visits are not natural, and drop you in SERPS.

Each backlink you make, and doesn't drive any traffic to your site, google will ignore, and not credit it. Even worse, if there's backlinks from low valued sites, or already penalized sites, they will pull you down in SERPS. This is why it's better to have 2 good backlinks over tens of thousands.
 
SERP's are supposed to be manipulated, but not by the webmaster.

Google ranks primarily on your backlinks and their quality. The idea is that if you have a great website, your users will unwittingly manipulate the SERP's for you by sharing that awesome website with others and thereby generating a backlink -- ka-ching!, that's one vote for you.

Almost all of your backlinks should be from your users. The webmaster obviously has to do some promotion but it shouldn't be the case that a significant chunk of a site's backlinks are generated by the webmaster. That's when it becomes blackhat and unethical IMO.

Webmasters were never meant to spend so much time building links for the sake of building links. Whilst you may get a decent ranking, the fact that you yourself had to do almost all of the link building means your website sucks, and it's only a matter of time before a better site comes along and knocks you out.
 
cvrle77 said:
Not everything is blackhat, even though you would wish that it sounds like that.
Blackhat is about overdoing things (playing with keyword density, playing with amount of backlinks etc)
What Google is giving you advice is about users experience on your site. How to write an article, that is useful to readers. How to make more clickthroughs. If you have 100UV a day, and 100PV that gives google bad signals. But if 100UV makes 1000PV, this means you are doing it good. Users found your website interesting, and spent time on it, going through other articles. THIS is what whitehat is all about.
Easy navigation, similar posts, great informative content, organized site into one meaningful structure, that is easy to follow, and get used to.

Good content produce natural backlinks. It also produce natural social buzz, which google knows how to recognize. They maybe are still not perfect, and this is where blackhatters go, to manipulate, and abuse SEO. BUT, all it takes is time, to recognize natural drop in visitors, and you are done.

If you don't put google analytics code, you might suffer how your visitors are tracked, and you might miss better SERPS, and on the other hand, if doing BH SEO, google will recognize, that users don't make clickthgoughs, and visits are not natural, and drop you in SERPS.

Each backlink you make, and doesn't drive any traffic to your site, google will ignore, and not credit it. Even worse, if there's backlinks from low valued sites, or already penalized sites, they will pull you down in SERPS. This is why it's better to have 2 good backlinks over tens of thousands.
Click to expand...

You've made some good points, but you've also made some wild untrue claims which ourselves personally have 7 years experience, proving otherwise. I'll reply to this in greater detail tomorrow when I have chance to backup my explanations with evidence.

Loget said:
Webmasters were never meant to spend so much time building links for the sake of building links. Whilst you may get a decent ranking, the fact that you yourself had to do almost all of the link building means your website sucks, and it's only a matter of time before a better site comes along and knocks you out.
Click to expand...

Most certainly true in some cases, but not in all. Ourselves along with many other respected sites within the industry have been manipulating search (to some extent) for the last 7-10 years - others, even longer. SEO will always be a changing game and Google will continue to move the goalposts from time to time, it's all about evolving, adapting, and staying smart to save yourself from any penaltys.

Those that completely dismiss techniques which go against Google's TOS and claim they never work, are only kidding themselves. Tiered linking in years has really driven that point home.

XRumerGeek
 
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