White Hat vs Black Hat SEO Techniques

A wide variety of SEO techniques exist for improving the search engine rankings of web sites and their individual pages. Some of these techniques are considered positive and ethical, while others are risky and manipulative. Different SEO marketers use one or both of these strategies to varying degrees of success.

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Internet marketers call safe, non-manipulative techniques White Hat SEO, while less reputable methods are referred to as Black Hat techniques. Some examples of White Hat SEO include optimizing META tags, putting keywords in URLs, submitting sites to directories, making sitemaps, obtaining links