Grey areas often get a bad rap. Usually, things which lie in the grey areas of life are avoided, even though they remain technically legitimate. Grey areas are often treated the same as outright no-go zones simply because they are, well, grey. With SEO, however, dabbling in the grey areas can be a lot more trouble than it’s worth.

There are generally two camps for SEO, the black hats and the white hats. Just like in a spy movie, the white hats are the good guys and the black hats the baddies, trying to sneakily achieve gain using dubious means. Sometimes though, there are grey hats, people who use tactics that lie in the grey areas of search engine optimisation.

A lot of grey hat techniques come from companies who claim to be white hat SEO consultants. Sometimes, grey hat techniques are legitimate techniques used for a less-than-honest purpose. For example, there are times, such as with image content, when a site genuinely needs to show different information to a search engine spider than it shows to visitors, in a technique called cloaking. Cloaking, however, is likely to draw the suspicions of search engines and is risky even when used with honest motives. When this technique is used legitimately, it’s a good idea to take steps to show that your motivation is honest. Honest sites will provide visible text that is at least similar to the cloaked code, or contact the search engines directly to resolve the issue.

Your SEO consultant should provide you with a report of the things included in your strategy. The main thing to look out for when shopping for an SEO is promises of unrealistic outcomes. Any time an SEO company promises instant results, you should be suspicious. Companies that offer their services for small fees can be completely legitimate, but any deal that seems too good should be scrutinised carefully. Getting quotes to compare is always a good idea. If you have performed some search engine optimisation on your site yourself, or are uncertain of former techniques used, talk to our experts at SEO Consult.

Even if slightly dubious tactics slide under the radar of the search engines, there is a likelihood they will be reported by a site’s competitors. Site owners are learning that sometimes the best way to trump your competition is to catch them out when they’re doing something illegal. Either way, your site could end up kicked off the index and in a position far worse than the one you started out in.

There are plenty of legitimate techniques to boost a site’s ranking on search engine results. These methods are best, not only because they ensure you a ranking that won’t be short-lived, but because they increase the value of your website for its viewers. After all, search engine rules are designed to promote sites that offer the best response to a viewer’s search. A smart business will want to live up to the promise that their search engine ranking provides.

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