Since there are so many methods available in search engine optimization or SEO, webmasters have categorized these as either white hat SEO or black hat SEO. Certain SEO tactics are not accepted by certain popular search engines, but some individuals still use these to hopefully get the traffic they need. You have to know about the controversies surrounding the approaches and determine whether you should go with either one. I personally am an advocate of white hat SEO.

Describing Both

White hat SEO is the term used to describe methods that follow the guidelines and stipulations of search engines. Black hat SEO is the term used to describe approaches that are disapproved by search engines. SERPs (Search Engine Page Rankings) may be manipulated by black hat practitioners, but they maintain that the techniques are highly acceptable with the sole intent of boosting site rankings.

Black hatters also say that there is no good or bad in trying to achieve the same goal of making their site relevant and ranked higher. The benefits can extend to the users as they seek for the most useful information. Some big search engines do allow a number of web sites to function opposite to the stated rules.

What to Avoid

An automated robot visits every page in the index. The content is acquired to be analysed at a later time. Cloaking involves giving the automated robot a different page, while assigning a completely new one to human users. Search engines greatly detest this practice. You should also stay away from doorway pages. Doorway pages are described as trying to create a page to rank high on search engines, but truly having no real good content. Orphaned pages may also be considered as doorway pages by search engines. The site or page can incur penalties by having these.

Following the Rules

There are a number of methods that you should avoid if you want to rank high and get on search engines’ good side. Invisible text should be avoided. Do not place light yellow or white text against a white background. Engines can detect these and will only put you in more trouble. Avoid keyword stuffing. In the past, overstuffing articles and site content with the same keyword may help improve ranking, but search engines are smarter now and can determine if your content is natural or no longer of good quality.

Some examples of how Spammers use Hidden Text

If you use a division tag you can put text in that tag and by setting the style to display:none; will not only hide the division but also the text in that division. Spammers use this method often to hide certain keywords and keyword phrases in a webpage. You won’t be able to see the text but as search engines index the source code those keywords will still be indexed. The style doesn’t have to be inline either, it can be set in an external style sheet therefore making it harder to find.

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Another property of the division tag is position, this can be used to hide text from the user. The position of the division can be set either of two ways, absolutely, or relatively. By using the absolute positioning method you can easily position the text you wish to hide by making it disappear off of the browser window. This can be done either to the left or the right.

Crammed with Keywords, Clever Monkey, buy monkeys… you get the idea

By using this technique the division is outside the web browsers viewable area so it won’t show up on the screen. Because it is still in the source code then it will be indexed by search engines. Another property of style sheets that can be used to spam the search engines is visibility. The visibility attribute can be set to hidden so all text within the division will not show up on screen.

This is the Visible Layer

Lots of Keywords, Buy Monkeys

This is what the user will see

This is the Visible Layer

Because all the hidden text methods I have described are used in HTML then the search engines will index them.

If you know anyone or if you have used any of the above techniques for SEO purposes then I would strongly advise you to change the source code. If someone who was web savvy, a competitor perhaps looked at your source code and realised what was happening he or she could easily report you for spamming and if taken up by any of the search engines your site could be banned for life.

These are just some of the basic techniques and I would put money on the fact that a lot of your competitors are using these techniques and getting away with it.