White hat SEO – Why “wear” the white hat?

The SEO techniques can be classified into two broad categories: techniques that search engines recommend as part of good design, and those techniques of which search engines do not approve. Those techniques are known as “White Hat” in first case and “Black Hat” in the latter.

The White Hat techniques focus on the human audience and follow the rules that search engines set by the book. It involves mostly the use of keywords, backlinking, link building to improve link popularity, and writing content for human readers. White hat SEO is more frequently used by those who intent to make a long-term investment on their Web site, building slowly but steadily their web traffic. Also called Ethical SEO.

On the other hand lies the Black Hat SEO, which focuses on the ways search engines work, and aims at the quick ranking of the web site, leaving the human visitors aside. Some examples of Black Hat SEO techniques include the use of invisible or hidden content, keyword stuffing, doorway pages and giving a different page depending on whether the page is being requested by a human visitor or a search engine (cloaking). The use of such techniques can have the opposite outcome of the one wanted, since the search engines can punish their usage in a web site, either by ranking down the web site, or eliminating their listings from their databases altogether, temporarily or permanently. Black Hat SEO may also be referred to as Unethical SEO or just spamdexing, as spamdexing is a typical frequently used Black Hat SEO practice.

The standing of itrust.gr as far as SEO is concerned is white as a dove. Our web sites are addressed to a human audience, are well structured and full of informative written content that follow the rules of search engines. Every web site is an investment with deep roots that endures the test of time. Our clients’ web sites, but even our own, started slow, but more and more are climbing the list of search results. Playing by the book and abiding by the moral code and with a respect towards the visitor, we are being rewarded on a daily basis!