Do these qualify as gray hat SEO?
"Gray hat SEO" is that fuzzy area of search engine optimization between ethical SEO (i.e. "white hat") and the really naughty stuff that you'll get banned for if you get caught (i.e. "black hat"). Some say that white hat SEO is idealistic, whereas gray hat SEO is pragmatic, employed by SEOs with keen business acumen. I say it's simply pushing one's luck.
The difference between white hat SEO and black hat SEO is profound and obvious. But the gray area in between the two is not so easy to define. Cloaking and pagejacking are obviously black hat. But what about stuffing the same keyword dozens of times into dozens of links on a web page? Or tucking a keyword away in the top left corner of the page in order to maximize its keyword prominence?
Consider the following examples, illustrated with screenshotted excerpts of three different homepages...
HOMEPAGE #1:
- Are there too many links?
- Is there too much repetition of the same keyword in the anchor text of these links?
- Is the link text too light? (the rest of the text on the page is markedly darker)
HOMEPAGE #2:
- Are there too many keywords stuffed into title attributes of links? (an example of which was made visible in the above screenshot by mousing over one of the links)
- Are there too many links?
- Is the color of the text too similar to the background?
HOMEPAGE #3:
- Is the keyword phrase in the top left of the page too obscured?
- Was it excessive for them to have applied this tactic to over a thousand pages?
Clearly these companies are into aggressive SEO. But have they crossed the line? What do you think??
What I find most interesting is the fact that all three of the sites rank really well for keywords they've targeted, and it appears due, at least in part, to these aggressive tactics. Top ten rankings in Google for many of the keywords targeted by the anchor text of homepages #1 and #2, and for many of the keywords targeted in the top left corner of a thousand+ pages of site #3. I can see the allure of these tactics -- after all, they seem to work!
8 comments
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Those all look white hat to me. Nothing is hidden. #1 is as white hat as you can get. #1 & #2 could probably implement the same navigation links in a more user friendly way, but that does not make them gray hat.
When so much of the algo is based on link anchor text, many times it's your own internal anchor text that will have the largest bearing on your rankings. You gotta do what you gotta do ;)Comment by Jeremy Luebke [Visitor]
· http://www.xuru.com/ —
11/17/06 @ 09:43
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This is a gray area and I'm not sure myself. I was wondering if this crossed the SEO line of ethics as it kind of reminds me of the days when people would load the bottom of their web page up with black keywords on a black background.
It seems somewhat shady and I thought if you had too many keywords that were repeated numerous times on a page that the search engines would not index your pages. This does not appear to be the case at the company where I work. Long before I started working here a footer was implemented on all company websites similar to the first example. Basically it's different company logos with appropriate keywords for each business listed next to them.
However, we have excellent natural listings. So I guess the SE's aren't as picky as I thought. It'll be interesting to see what everybody else has to say about this.
That's my 2 cents though.Comment by Nate Balcom [Visitor]
· http://www.natebal.com —
11/17/06 @ 10:12
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This is too much fun, so I can't resist responding!
I think Homepage #1 is not blackhat, though the keywording is rather unattractively heavy-handed, cheapening the look of the page. I suppose that a search engine could declare it to be keyword-stuffing, but I think it appears to be fairly honestly done, so it probably wouldn't result in penalization. The font is sufficiently contrasted with the background, IMHO, so it wouldn't cause penalization most likely, either. I think the SEs can assess the contrast of fonts on backgrounds through automatic mathematical calculation of the color hex codes.
The second homepage teeters over the edge for me into being a bad practice. The TITLE text in the hyperlinks is quite overstuffed. I think that if a SE uses TITLE text of hyperlinks as a signal for keyword relevance, they likely have some max amount of characters allowed for that field. The max amount of characters could be based on research of typical link TITLEs. The title text in this case would also likely be really bad for the usability of audio text readers for blind people.
The third homepage doesn't seem bad to me -- it seems like a pretty good design. I think the repeating of the text throughout the site is also useful for the SEs to identify the primary theme of the site. Not deceptive, not bad on usability, and pretty restrained keyword use -- not much to complain about.Comment by Silver [Visitor]
· http://www.silvery.com —
11/18/06 @ 21:21
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Hey Stephan,
yeah, it definitely has a grey hat feel to it. But, in some verticals it could make sense from a usability perspective.Comment by Shimon Sandler [Visitor]
· http://www.shimonsandler.com —
11/22/06 @ 19:25
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Hello Stephen and greetings to all fellow readers. If you are interested in a "gray hat" approach then take a look at http://www.mdtravelitaly.com
I really think it's scraping the bottom of the barrel. Funny enough this rather questionable approach achieves top rankings on Google - I rest my case ...
A great week end to you all,
SanteComment by Sante [Visitor]
· http://blog.achille.name/ —
11/25/06 @ 05:24
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Thanks so much Jeremy, Nate, Chris, Shimon and Sante for sharing your opinions.
It's as I suspected, there isn't a consensus among SEOs on whether these 3 sites are gray hatting (is that a valid expression?).
Now I'd love to hear from Google's Matt Cutts or Adam Lasnik with their verdict, er, I mean, opinion!Comment by Stephan Spencer [Member]
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11/26/06 @ 06:31
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While the above may appear to be white hat, the excessive amount of keyword stuffing in home pages 1 and 2 would probably be considered black hat. Home page 3 is more likley to be a white/grey seo tactic.
Comment by W3 Edge [Visitor]
· http://www.w3-edge.com/ —
06/11/07 @ 12:58
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This just goes to show how hard it is for the SE's' to enforce their "guidelines". It's very difficult to distinguish between keyword stuffing and just a listing of all bra types or companies. Website #2 isn't using the same word over and over... they are using related words and SE guidelines compliant IMHO. The visual attractiveness sucks but there is nothing wrong with it.
Comment by Tom [Visitor]
· http://dottom.net —
07/21/07 @ 03:49
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