There is a lot of debate by a lot of people in the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) industry about what defines Ethical SEO. Different groups consider different things to be ethical or unethical.
Generally, the common term for Ethical SEO is "White Hat". With the corresponding term for Unethical SEO being "Black Hat". To further the debate, "Gray Hat" has been introduced and we all know there are a lot of shades of gray.
While there is a lot of debate, there are some general rules accepted by most."White Hat" follows the guidelines set down by the search engines as to what they want to see in a website. This can vary for each Search Engine, but the basics are generally the same.
SPAM is "Black Hat"! That is SPAM as you know it in your e-mail inbox, as well as "Spamming the Search Engines". Spamming the search engines can be over submitting your website to them, as well as stuffing the code of your site in ways that are intended to trick the search engines. While these tricks sometimes work in the short term, they always catch up to you in the long run.
"Gray Hat" is VERY debatable. Since the Search Engines would be foolish to say EXACTLY what gets a site ranked at #1 in the SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages), there is a lot of debate within the industry as to what is Black or White. Our guess is that this debate will last as long as there are search engines as we know them today.
TiMoGo SEO & Website Design is not in a position to tell others how to do their job. We do however consider ourselves to be "White Hat" SEO Professionals. The short term effects of "Black Hat" tactics do not outweigh the long term effects to a website in most cases. As such, we try to adhere to the Search Engine's (Google, Yahoo, and MSN to name a few) guidelines.
However, these guidelines are often vague. They don't just want to tell people exactly what they are looking for because otherwise we would end up with an internet of cookie cutter websites. That would take away from the special nature of the internet as a whole.
As such, many people will continually debate what is White Hat, Black Hat, and Gray Hat. What it really comes down to is the intent of the person doing the SEO. Since we here are not psychics at TiMoGo SEO, we can only guess at the motives of others and choose to sit back and watch it all unfold and learn from the debate.
One thing that we are sure of though:
Good SEO can not be achieved overnight! It takes patience, persistence, and a lot of hard work! But in the end, it WILL pay off!
Contact us today so that we can help you get your website to the top of the SERP's. We work with each of our clients individually to see what improvements can be made to the current plan they have in place, or help you get started with the right plan. Then we proceed to use the best White Hat SEO to get your profits rolling in!