While still in the early years of the internet, it became clear that there would need to be a way to organize and find the information that was becoming available on numerous websites. Throughout the 1990s the technology for reading and indexing websites evolved, both as a result of improved technological capabilities, and as new needs arose. By the late ’90s, all of the major search engine names we know today (Google, Bing – previously know as MSN Search, Yahoo, Ask.com, and more) were in development.

As more websites were published, businesses started to see the value in being ranked higher than their competitors in search results. Being listed as number one or two for popular keyword searches could mean the difference in millions of dollars worth of sales, especially if you were an online retailer who relied on getting as much website traffic as you could. Search engine optimization (SEO) was born from this need. SEO is the process of influencing the placement of a website in a search engine’s list of unpaid, or “organic”, search results (a website’s placement in paid search listings is covered in more depth in our article “The Basics of Pay-Per-Click Advertising”). There were, and still are, two primary approaches to controlling a website’s SEO, the white hat approach and the black hat approach.

Black Hat Approach

As you may have been able to determine from the name alone, the black hat approach to SEO relies on aggressive, often under-handed tactics that either outright violate search engine terms of service, or at the very least, go against the spirit of the guidelines. Black hat SEO is generally disapproved of by professional agencies and search engine optimization experts, as the practice focuses primarily on gaming search engines’ algorithms, instead of improving the value of the website to the viewer.

When search engines were in their infancy, a large part of the onus of determining what keywords were relevant to a website or for classifying the content of a website, was placed on the website itself. This was done primarily through a series of special “meta tags” used in the website’s code that would, for example, give the search engine an easy list of keywords that were applicable to the content of the page, or a summarized description of the content. On a travel agency’s website, for example, a page dedicated to Paris tours might have keywords of “Paris tours” and “international travel”, whereas the contact page would have keywords of “contact a travel agent” and “travel agent phone number”. Problems with this system arose when companies began overloading their websites with terms that were not relevant to the page content, hoping to gain website traffic from having their website listed among search engine results for popular but non-relevant terms. A travel agency website, for example, might start listing keywords like “home mortgage” and “coupons”.

Search engines were quick to recognize that they would live or die based on the quality of the search results they provided. As competition between the search engines intensified, and as individual websites continued to overload their keywords, search engines began to move away from trusting the “word” of each individual website, and toward using more complex algorithms that use a variety of factors to influence search rankings – algorithms that continue to evolve even today. With every round of changes that have come to search engine algorithms, black hat SEO practitioners have tried to find ways to continue to “game” the system, which has resulted in a number of black hat techniques including, but certainly not limited to:

• Hidden text – Adding hidden text (for example, using white text on a white background, or using a very tiny font size) to add content that would be read by a search engine, but not visible to a normal website visitor.
• Gateway pages – Gateway pages, known for having a “Click Here to Enter” link, are pages that are overloaded with hidden keywords or phrases.
• Scraper websites – These websites use automated software to create websites full of content that is taken from other sources, often without permission. They are typically trying to make money by offering advertisers a large number of impressions, or directing traffic to other websites.
• Negative SEO – A process that seeks to improve one website’s SEO by negatively manipulating the SEO of a competitor.
• Link farms – A group of websites, whether they are related by topic or not, that all link to each other.
• Link redirects – Coding a link within a website to look like it points to one place, but really linking to someplace else.
• Buying expired domains – Purchasing domains for websites that have recently expired, and then linking those domains to point to other websites.
• Comment spam – Automated bots that leave link-filled comments on news articles, blog posts, YouTube videos, etc.

Black hat SEO techniques can seem attractive at first glance. When you get a phone call or an email from a company offering to get you in the “top five spots in Google,” they are most likely offering some sort of black hat technique that draws you in with a low cost.

In a best-case scenario, if you engage in (or hire someone to perform for you) black hat SEO, you may see a short-term increase in your website ranking. However, search engines are in the business of giving their searchers relevant and helpful results. It is, therefore, in their best interest to actively identify and combat every black hat technique that is developed. As they make adjustments to their algorithms, you will see your website ranking decrease, and the money you had spent on black hat SEO in the first place will have gone to waste. Do you think you have the time and resources to stay one step ahead of some of the largest companies on Earth? In a worst-case scenario, one or more of the big name search engines identifies your website as one engaging in black hat techniques, and as a consequence, they de-list your website from any and all search results or ban your domain completely. Can you really afford to risk having your website blacklisted?

Examples of black hat SEO are referenced here purely as an educational reference, and are not endorsed nor offered by Grid.

White Hat Approach

Behind the scenes, the need for more accurate search engine results, and the transition of internet-usage from collegiate and professional situations to our everyday lives, drove a slew of technological and computing-based advances. Amit Singhal, a Google Fellow, put it perfectly when he said that over the past decade, the expected results of a search engine query have moved away from “give me what I said” to “give me what I want”. Search engines and their associated technologies are no longer looking at specific queries (“corporate accountant”) and matching those word-for-word with websites that said they were relevant, but are instead extrapolating the meaning behind a search (“how does an S Corp track its finances”) and providing website results that offer the most value to the searcher. When you stop trying to affect how a search engine sees your website, and instead focus on the experience and the benefit you provide to your website’s visitors, you are engaging in white hat SEO.

White hat SEO uses a series of tried-and-true methods for improving your website’s search rankings, while adhering to a search engine’s terms of service. There are a wide variety of techniques that fall in this camp including, but by no means limited to:

• Domain – Having prominent keywords in your domain, the length of your domain, how long until your domain expires, how long your domain has been registered, how many times your domain has changed hands, who your domain is registered to.
• Hosting – Having a website that loads quickly, is hosted by an authoritative domain (Grid prefers Amazon AWS), website uptime, the location of the server that your website is being hosted from, and the presence of an SSL certificate.
• Design – Having a design that adapts for mobile viewing (we are quickly approaching the time when mobile internet browsing will surpass desktop internet browsing), optimization on images so that they load at appropriate sizes, a user-friendly layout that puts content where the user expects it, and a user flow that does not require a lot of digging to find information.
• Code – At the end of the day, a search engine is a computer (a very smart computer, but a computer nonetheless), and that computer does rely on your website code to give it certain indicators. It’s looking for modern, best-practice coding, free from errors, and with proper W3C validation. You might be able to read that your logo says “My Company, Inc” but unless a website is properly built, Google only sees it as “logo.jpg” according to the code.
• Content – Search engines are looking for appropriate length and variety of content (use of paragraphs, ordered and unordered lists, quotations, etc.), free from duplicated content, the recency, magnitude and frequency of content updates, grammar and spelling, proper use of links both internally and externally, the overall reading level, and the appropriate amount of contact information.
• Functionality – Having elements that the user can interact with, such as calculators and forms, multimedia (images, videos, downloads), and active commenting.
• Social – Having positive user reviews on popular websites such as Yelp and Google, a legitimate presence on all major social media outlets, along with activity such as likes, shares, re-tweets and pins.

Special Algorithm Rules

Not every factor that goes in to a search engine’s algorithms is related to your website, or your internet presence. Some factors are, in fact, influenced by the searcher, and are why two people can search for the exact same keyword, but get back very different results. These include:

• User browsing history – Search engines can use your specific browsing history or patterns to better determine which results you may be interested in. For example, if you visit a lot of cooking recipe websites, and then search for “oil”, you’re more likely to get back results relating to olive oil, canola oil or sesame oil. On the other hand, someone who frequently visits car related websites may get results relating to automobile oil. Someone who follows news websites closely, may receive the most recent news articles relating to the rise or fall of oil prices.
• Geo targeting – Search results are very often influenced based on your location (if the search engine can identify with any degree of certainty where you are at). Searching for “Italian restaurant” in Rochester, NY, will give you very different results then searching the words “Italian restaurant” when in Las Vegas.
• Safe search – Most major browsers allow you to enable or disable “safe search”, which specifically lets you manipulate the types of results you receive based on your search.
• Google+ – If you are a Google+ user, you’re more likely to see search results from businesses that you’ve added to your Google+ circles (if you are searching through Google).

Who Needs SEO

After all this information about search engine optimization, you may be thinking that SEO is important for absolutely every website and that you should drop everything and start working on it! But with all marketing, that’s not necessarily the case.

SEO is a long-term, often very intensive process, where results can take months if not a year or more to propagate. At Grid, we consider your overall business and marketing goals to see what sort of role SEO would play in moving you toward those goals, and consider that role against other opportunities that may cost less but do more. It’s important to remember that search engine algorithms are changing constantly (as often as 1.5 changes per day, according to Google CEO Eric Schmidt in 2010), and without a long-term commitment to the SEO process, you may see the work that you’ve put in negated by a simple algorithm change.

However, if your business relies heavily on search engine traffic, sells products online, or is in a relatively competitive industry, SEO may be the next important step you take for your marketing. If you’d like more information on your current SEO rankings, or to discuss what an SEO implementation strategy may look like for your business, we are happy to take a look.