SEOrefugee thread opened up a great discussion on what BlackHat SEO literally is. I also got definitions from Google and Wikipedia in an effort to organize all definitions in some way:
Definitions focusing on cheating:
Blackhat SEO “exploits weaknesses in the algo by breaking the webmaster guidelines”. Blackhat SEO is primarily about “cheating” / “manipulating” search engines. It is also about “misrepresenting content to search engines”.
Definition focusing on people:
Blackhat SEO is focused on machine whereas Whitehat SEO is focused on an end user.
Definitions focusing on money:
Blackhat SEO focuses on earning “money without even trying to provide any value to the visitors”
Definitions focusing on search engine guidelines:
Black hat = search engine guidelines violations (White hat = no guidelines violations).
Too general / Definitions that basically mean nothing:
Blackhat SEO is about getting higher search rankings in an unethical manner. Further to this one: it envolves “questionable and sometimes illegal search engine techniques” (what’s ethical? which laws? – these questions remain unclear).
Blackhat SEO is about spamming.
So what’s the ultimate definition of black hat SEO? Do marketers who criticise it really know what they are against? How do you define blackhat SEO (versus whitehat SEO)?
