Webmasters and experienced website owners know there are many techniques used to increase their site’s rankings in the search engines. However, it’s important for black hat and white hat enthusiasts to look at SEO  and understand the differences.

Remember the old Saturday morning westerns where the good guys always wore a white hat, and the bad guys wore black? That’s where these terms come from. White hat methods follow recognized guidelines set down by the search engines, and black hat methods break the rules. White hat strategies are accepted, regardless of the algorithm the search engines uses. Black hat strategies are often punished.

Creating quality content, using a strong balance of appropriate keywords, building solid links from relevant, informative websites, and not attempting to trick people into visiting your site prove you’re a white hat enthusiast. Search engine spiders can tell the difference, and white hatters achieve better and longer lasting results because of their integrity.

White hat sites may take longer to set up initially, but they pay off in visitors who stay longer and are more likely to spend money on your site because they haven’t been mislead. They’re also more likely to return time and time again if you offer what they need.

Black hat enthusiasts are the barracudas of the Internet. They use every possible technique to lure people to their websites. They overstuff pages with keywords, hidden content, misleading and overstuffed meta tags. They use white on white text, which is invisible to the naked eye, to cram more keywords into their site to mislead searchers into visiting and (hopefully) parting with their money.

These scheming site owners work to get as many backlinks as possible, regardless of relevancy, so the search engines think their site is more popular. They often pay for links simply because they love shortcuts, even though the spiders recognize their tricks.

SEO for black hat and white hat enthusiasts is as different as integrity and dishonesty. Choose the path to fast and easy money, and ultimately fail. Or ethically build a quality website and brand yourself as an honest webmaster who operates legitimately, and win. The choice is yours.