What if White Hat SEO does not get results?
-
If company A is paying 5k a month and some of that budget is buying links or content that might be in the gray area but is ranking higher than company B that's following the "rules" and paying the same but not showing up at all, what's company B suppose to do?
-
It's not too late for you to start your next career, Robert.
You know how new ventures can be fun.
Or, you can simply do stand-up at the local pub for tips.
-
Damn,
I shoulda been a comedian (is that the right spellin')
-
lol
Loved the "hanky". I'll laugh about it all the way to the office.
Thank you, Robert. nominated for humor of the month award
-
If you are thinking about what type of links you can buy with 5k a month, then you are dying and don't know it yet
If you are thinking of being competitive in terms of white/black hat, I am afraid you are really looking at it the wrong way. You need to figure out what is going to make you a better brand than your competitor and win in areas that spammers wont fight in, like brand, customer service and UX
S
-
I wish I had seen this earlier, quite the interesting question... So company A is "buying links or content that might be in the gray area and outranks CoB for some keywords. Company B is the good guy.
First, and I think foremost, if I am associated with company "B" (someone hand me a hankie at the nobility of being a true martyr), I am going to take two steps back and ask this question: "How do we know that company A is doing anything gray and how do we know what they are doing is the reason for their ranking better than we are?"Why, because believing you are the more noble, smarter, best dressed, etc. is a common refrain of those who are not looking close enough at themselves. So, no, I am not advocating black hat SEO with the hanky comment (because IMO, it is not the brightest SEO - yes those doing it are free to throw the darts now cause frankly I don't care). I made the hanky comment to get your attention as I would my staff when we start to say how good we are. Forget it as it is irrelevant when it comes to the battle.
Our clients are not paying us to be Pollyanna. Yes, there are those who do anything for a ranking and that does not matter. What do I want? I want to out think them. I want to out create them. I want to out motivate my team. I want to argue for quality content, good UI/UX, metrics that make sense over metrics that appear to make sense. I want to stomp my client's competition into an unmitigated hole and own them. Yes, I will do it fair and square as I don't have time to deal with dumb penalties. But, I am not going to throw out a rotator cuff patting myself on the back over the color of a friggin hat. I am going to win because I am smarter, my team is the best, and if all else fails, I will simply outwork them and write the content myself because I know I am that good.
Sorry, if that turned into a rant, but the trap of whose hat was the whitest today is a big one for a pro seo.
Best to all, God I love this forum,
Robert
-
I watched a competitor get absolutely annihilated by Penguin. I've found that black hat SEO will always have a bad ending. It may take them a few months, but aggressive Black Hat always gets found. And I have never heard of White Hat SEO not working. I can only say perhaps you need some help understanding what some White Hat tactics are, especially regarding technical SEO. (Are you talking Technical SEO, External SEO or Front End SEO?) Each has different tactics for success.
-
but not showing up at all
If this is true, and the current SEO has been on the job for a few months, then it is time to evaluate their performance. I am not saying that they are screwing up, just saying that at least a trickle of traffic could be starting to flow.
White hat is slow to produce - especially from a standing start.
-
I have seen this scenario. In fact, on some level, it's playing out for me very personally. That being said, I haven't ever had white hat SEO produce zero results. It has always produced some positive results. Sometimes the results are awesome. Sometimes they are "ok." I have been (and currently am) in a situation where, at least for right now, it appears that a competitor using black hat SEO (I know because I used to work for them), is out-ranking us (we are using strictly white hat) for several key terms.
Frustrating? Yes, of course...and hard to explain to a CEO.
What I will say is this, focus on how the business is doing instead of obsessing over keyword rankings. Why? Because of this: Just because your competitor is outranking you using black hat techniques does not mean their business as a whole is succeeding.
You see, what I also know about this competitor is that they are maybe one bad sales month away from going belly up. All those black hat techniques aren't going to do diddly if they go under....and us? We'll still be here. We'll still be here because we focus on sound, solid business strategies.
The other thing you need to consider is how you are defining "results." For us, results are a combination of higher traffic, better conversation rates, higher AOV, and ultimately higher profit. Do you know that your compay "A" that's using black hat is actually beating you out on the bottom line of revenue? Unless you know for sure, don't assume that they are.
If I were company B, I'd put my blinders on, continue with white hat and make darn sure my business model and marketing plans were rock solid. These are the things that make it possible for businesses to survive long-term. Company A is going to have a lot of cleaning up and 'splaynin to do when they get de-indexed out of Google. If they've hung their hat on that, they won't be around long and Company B will still be standing.
That's my two cents!
Dana
-
I would focus on producing high quality content and getting it syndicated on high authority relevant websites. This strategy is safer in the long run and it is also very difficult to duplicate without putting in all the time and effort.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Do home page carry more seo benefit than other pages?
hi, i would like to include my kws in the URL and they are under 50 characters. is there anything in the algo that tells engines to give more importance to homepage?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | alan-shultis0 -
Disappearing Links Black Hat ?
I have seen reports of Black hat spamming with dodgy links but we have another issue with a clients site. The site had a small number of solid following links about 60 which had been in place for years and in the past few weeks all but those directly under their control have ceased to link. At the same time a very aggressive competitor has entered their market which is owned by the officers of an SEO company. Could it be that they have somehow disavowed the links to the site to damage it how do we find out? there are now just 10 following links?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Eff-Commerce0 -
Duplicate categories how to make sure I don't get penalized for this
Hi there How would I go about fixing duplicate categories? My products sell in multiple category areas and some overlap the other - how can I go about making sure that I don't get penalised for this? Each category and content is unique but my advisors offer different tools and insights.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | edward-may0 -
Adult Toy Store SEO
Hi fellows, I'm not so strange to SEO. I have been promoting our spiritual network through SEO and we have received great returns from it. I'm planning to promote an adult toy store via SEO. I have never done any adult store promoting before but I think there are a lot of down sides to it, such as: #1 When I search related keywords many porn websites show up; I assume it seems spammy to google's eye. Also most of the links that I will get are probably from porn websites due to relevancy. #2 Many of our returning customers are coming from retargeting but I assume there is no adult promotion via google display. Is that right? (It's not SEO related) I'm wondering to know if google is against adult content in any way? Any feedbacks are appreciated.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Arian-Ya0 -
If I am getting links on competitor websites, is it safe to assume those competitors are doing this to hurt our SEO?
We have received a few notification from Google Webmaster Tools and Moz that our competitors have "mentioned" our page on their website. This is incredibly odd as you wouldn't think they'd want to do this. Further, when I go to the page that we are supposedly mentioned on, the link to our site is not on the page. What is going on? Thank you in advance for your insights!!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | brits0 -
Negative SEO and when to use to Dissavow tool?
Hi guys I was hoping someone could help me on a problem that has arisen on the site I look after. This is my first SEO job and I’ve had it about 6 months now. I think I’ve been doing the right things so far building quality links from reputable sites with good DA and working with bloggers to push our products as well as only signing up to directories in our niche. So our backlink profile is very specific with few spammy links. Over the last week however we have received a huge increase in backlinks which has almost doubled our linking domains total. I’ve checked the links out from webmaster tools and they are mainly directories or webstat websites like the ones below | siteinfo.org.uk deperu.com alestat.com domaintools.com detroitwebdirectory.com ukdata.com stuffgate.com | We’ve also just launched a new initiative where we will be producing totally new and good quality content 4-5 times a week and many of these new links are pointing to that page which looks very suspicious to me. Does this look like negative Seo to anyone? I’ve read a lot about the disavow tool and it seems people’s opinions are split on when to use it so I was wondering if anyone had any advice on whether to use it or not? It’s easy for me to identify what these new links are, yet some of them have decent DA so will they do any harm anyway? I’ve also checked the referring anchors on Ahrefs and now over 50% of my anchor term cloud are totally unrelated terms to my site and this has happened over the last week which also worries me. I haven’t seen any negative impact on rankings yet but if this carries on it will destroy my link profile. So would it be wise to disavow all these links as they come through or wait to see if they actually have an impact? It should be obvious to Google that there has been a huge spike in links so then the question is would they be ignored or will I be penalised. Any ideas? Thanks in advance Richard
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Rich_9950 -
Any e-commerce users recommend an SEO company for link building?
I manage an e-commerce site. I wanted to know if anyone has worked with an SEO company for link-building that they would recommend. I DO NOT want articled directories, bookmarks, etc.. I want real link-building from credible/related sites. If you would give me an idea of the results or the general process they use I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you in advance.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | inhouseseo0 -
Is this proposal white hat or likely to harm me in the long run?
Hi, I'm considering outsourcing some SEO to a company I got a first month trial sweetener deal with. I've not done this before and am a little unsure about what they propose doing, not sure if I'm being a bit paranoid or too controlly. Details of what they propose: Send them 10 keywords we're interested in ranking for. Work they will perform:
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | shabbychicoriginals
-Submit site to all major search engines
-Submit 20 social book marks for site
We'll produce 1 article + 19 spun variations of the article submitted to:
-30 directory sites
-10 press release sites and distribution networks Business Submitted to 5 business directories
5 social networks created Work and ranking report highlighting what has been done at the end of the month. Most of the stuff I've done already or can do myself. The elements that make me a bit suspicious are the: - 1 article plus 19 spun variations? 5 social networks created? What does that even mean? I did get this for about £20 for the 1st month with no commitment afterwards so I am tempted to let them try. But should I be a bit wary it might do more harm than good in the long run? Any advice\opinions would be much appreciated.0