Black Hat or White Hat SEO?

[isuit21]

I always have preferred the White Hat methods, as they last for a longer time, than Black Hat methods. The only exception I have made was creating backlinks. I may have used a few programs or purchased a few Black Hat services, since they simply finish the task faster.
What do you prefer, Black Hat or White Hat SEO?

 

[EdwardKingston]

Obviously White Hats, but as a a honest person i used Black hats some times... when my site is gonna down!

 

[Florentino89]

If you choose a White Hat SEO you choose for a Solid Keyword PhraseChoose, Quality Content, Solid Keyword Phrase and Black Hat SEO you choose for Hidden Content, Link Farming, Stuffing or Spamming Meta Tags

 

[Geoffrey]

I think it's always best to go white hat, black hat always has the risk of hurting your website instead of helping it.

 

[Jimmy]

I always have preferred the White Hat methods, as they last for a longer time, than Black Hat methods. The only exception I have made was creating backlinks. I may have used a few programs or purchased a few Black Hat services, since they simply finish the task faster.
What do you prefer, Black Hat or White Hat SEO?

White Hat is always better than Black Hat, in my experience. As geoffrey said above, black hat carries the risk of harming your site

 

[NeoGills]

Well i choose neither black hat seo nor white hat seo, i just choose grey hat seo
sometime i use white hat and some time black hat seo

 

[BigBigFan]

100% whitehat, I'm in it for the long run and I have enough to worry about without wondering if I'll get caught. I'd prefer to build things once the right way instead of repeatedly the cheap and easy way. I have nothing against blackhats, it's just not for me.

 

[Jessi]

BigBigFan summed up my philosophy perfectly.

Maybe if I were trying to flip a site and didn't have any long term interest in the site or accounts, then I would try out some blackhat techniques.

I don't want to risk losing my sites, though, and so I play by the rules. I figure I get more *real* users that way anyway.

 

[Samurai]

If you're in it for the long run, go white hat. Google will always catch people who use black hat techniques (see Penguin, Panda, etc.). I used some black hat techniques in the past and they only hurt my site. It's close to impossible to regain good rankings if your site disappeared for all main keywords. It takes more time to get to top10 if you're using white hat techniques, but once you reach top10, you'll stay there for a longer period of time than black hat sites.

 

[difrancprod]

White Hat gives more good results than Black Hat so I prefer it too. It's also risky to use Black Hat so might as well use the one thing that would do good to your site. Go for long-term great results than a fast and unsure one.

 

[tommymaczoidberg]

these days, Google is very good at catching people who are implying black hat tactics. That's not to say that blackhat tactics don't have their short term benefits. They do. However the longer you use those tactics the easier it is and more likely it is that Google is going to catch you in the long run. That's why if you're serious webmaster you absolutely have to go with white hat.

 

[Jessi]

That's very true, Tommy. It's also why you're most likely to see black hat techniques on sites that are being flipped. The person gets the site, uses a bunch of blackhat methods to push a ton of traffic to the site and be able to show a lot of backlinks, etc. Then they show off those stats to potential buyers and hope that one of them bites. Then they're rid of the site and the new owner has to deal with any penalties that come later.

 

[bauss]

I stay far away from black hat SEO methods. I don't want to do anything that could get my site penalized. Black hat SEO is only good for a short term boost in search engine rankings.

 

[BigBigFan]

I dunno Bauss, it's not even good for that really

There are hundreds of sob stories online from new webmasters who got lured to the dark side and now feel that they can't return to the white side because anything they touch turns to mud, even without any shady tactics. I think that means you are being evaluated on more than just the website level, you're being watched as a webmaster to some degree, which I think is great if you're a whitehat!

 

[invisibled]

I have just started to learn search engine optimization recently. So far i have been utilizing the white hat techniques to gain some backlinks for my website. From what i have found over the net, it seems that black hat techniques will cause you harm at some in time in future. Just look at the recent algorithm updates by google, they have mostly affected webmasters utilizing black hat techniques.
I would stay away from black hat stuff for now. I may try is later on some other test project.

 

[Tara]

I mostly do white hat SEO. It better in the long run. I have never done any blackhat SEO, but I have strayed into the gray areas.

 

[neoflip]

Why people do black hat SEO even they know the result behind it... :/

 

[BigBigFan]

Because it's easy and fast and they are lazy. You really get what you pay for and since the price of paid links is a google ban... it's not worth the money!

There is a thread on another forum which details a guy getting a lot of backlinks from "all the best sites" and being completely removed from search despite being a major brand of car, as in the actual dealership. I think it was BMW... Google doesn't play favorites.

 

[Tara]

I remember that JC Penney was caught using blackhat techniques. It happened a little over a year ago. Google punished them too. Blackhat techniques do work, but they are only for short term results because eventually Google will find out.

 

[bsge11]

I prefer to be ethical and do white hat. Sure it doesn't get you fast results like black hat, but it is honest and less risky. I doubt that doing black hat will be a long time thing.