It is always a widely discussed topic and a phrase quoted by many SEO companies “We only use white hat techniques” etc. The problem is I just don’t see how this is possible anymore. Ok saying all SEOs are Grey/Black hat is a bit of an over generalisation as there are many out there that specialise in the on site SEO and usability side of things which I do perceive as white hat. However for your general SEO that covers all aspects of the SEO process I just can not see how they can say they are white hat!
As we all know Search Engines have worked on link based algorithms for quite a while and it will probably continue to be this way for a while yet, so most if not all SEOs obsess about links and they have always tried to game the system whether it be links farms, links exchanges, blog spam, forum spam, paid links or more recently fictitious link bait.
Now the problem with this is that in an attempt to avoid search spam and improve the quality of search results Google has constantly improved it’s algorithms to reduce the effect of artificial link building, and they have also become increasing strict on the rules of link building.
Under Google’s quality guidelines the main areas of concern would be
Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you’d feel comfortable explaining what you’ve done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, “Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn’t exist?”
Don’t participate in link schemes designed to increase your site’s ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or “bad neighbourhoods” on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.
Link schemes according to Google would include
Links intended to manipulate PageRank
Links to web spammers or bad neighbourhoods on the web
Excessive reciprocal links or excessive link exchanging (”Link to me and I’ll link to you.”)
So basically if an individual or an SEO company gains links artificially they are technically breaking the terms of service*. So you then have the problem of defining what is actually building links artificially? Well surely submitting my story to Sphinn is a way to artificially increase links? Submitting to any directories is artificially increasing links, writing link bait is artificially attempting to increase links, pretty much everything can be perceived as artificially gaining links.
So if all link building techniques are Grey Hat then how is a site supposed to get links? Ok there are a few rare exceptions where a website is so unique and fantastic that people love to link to it but at the end of the day the average site is’nt. I mean look at SEO companies, it is a commercial site aiming to make money, and there are millions of them, so why would anyone want to link to them naturally? Even if someone did link to it naturally are they really likely to deep link to a page with keyword rich anchor text? I think not!
I suppose the problem is the fact it’s all a double edged blade, Google can’t realistically allow artificial link building but they must be aware that the majority of companies with websites can not rank well without participating in these technique. Google notoriously seem to let big brand names off their techniques but for the average company when does link building cross over from acceptable bending of the rules to a ban from Google? Are we all just playing Russian roulette with out websites? Does Google try and evaluate relevance of a website for a search term compared how much they have broken the rules? For example if I am an SEO company and I rank top ten for Search Engine Optimisation would Google see artificially gained links and let me off because I am relevant for the search term? And if the site was made for adsense or just of poor quality would I then be penalised?
*I do actually think there is a slight error in the guidelines as the first page says link schemes that will effect ranking or PageRank but the Link Scheme pages only refers to PageRank. Does this mean I am allowed to do links schemes that would effect ranking but not PageRank? Though it is a bit of a moot point as I am sure Google would just say the links were used to effect PR
