It makes sense to anyone working in the SEO industry or other interested parties that Search Engine Optimisation isn’t always black-hat or white-hat. There are probably several different shades of grey in between. A brief explanation for those who may be confused:

Black Hat SEO is the use of techniques which are considered unethical because they mislead search engines, Joe Public who uses those search engines and sometimes (if the black-hatters are a professional SEO company) the owners of the website themselves. Using Black-hat methods may get you decent search engine results quickly, but they certainly won’t last and the long-term effect on your online reputation may taint your business for years. Essentially Black-hat is what has given Search Engine Optimisation a bad name.

White Hat SEO is the use of ethical Search Engine Optimisation methods. The general rule of thumb is to give the search engines what they want – an honest and clear representation of a website through the use of techniques such as writing good content, cleaning up the code, making sure the website meets accessibility guidelines and provides a good user and navigational experience through good design and structure. Of course this is a simplified explanation but I’m sure you get the idea?

So that brings us to Grey hat SEO. Whether you are a professional SEO consultant, a DIY SEO beginner or simply interested in the subject, it doesn’t take much research online to see that there are some perfectly good and ethical SEO techniques which are open to a level of abuse.

Content writing – Rather than writing ten pages of good quality, unique, interesting and informative content like a white-hatter would, instead you use the same few hundred words on every page, changing just the keywords in order to save time/money on copywriters et c. A common grey hat technique is to have multiple websites using duplicate content in an effort to

ALT Tags – Rather than using these to label images for accessibility reasons, grey-hatters may put in extra keywords which have nothing to do with the image itself in order to attract more traffic.

Cloaking – whilst having a members-only area on websites is permitted by search engines, white hatters will generally contact the search engines to state why cloaking is used on the site to prevent misunderstandings. Grey-hatters are more likely to sit tight and hope that no one notices their websites look different to users than to search engines.

Are you really sure that your SEO company or your website should go grey? You definitely risk being reported to search engines by your competitors. You risk the major search engines deciding that you have crossed a line and penalising your website. When considering Search Engine Optimisation, the best possible outcome for all is that the website rises up through the results pages because it is a great website offering quality products or services – not because you use dubious and risky techniques and will most likely suffer the consequences somewhere down the line. With search engines using their resources to stay ahead of the unscrupulous SEO crowd, can you risk finding yourself even slightly on the wrong side of the fence? Even if you consider that your SEO techniques are more “off-white” than “grey” – it is worth remembering that sitting on the fence can result in nasty splinters in a rather painful area.

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