The term white hat SEO is used to describe permitted SEO techniques aimed at improving positions in the SERP. It is the opposite of black hat SEO. The goal of white hat SEO techniques is to provide users with the best possible content and website experience.

While black hat SEO techniques may deliver quick results, they go against Google’s guidelines and can lead to penalties for the website.

White hat SEO is the exact opposite – it is based on transparency, valuable content, and positive user experience. This approach leads to organic website growth and long-term sustainability. These techniques comply with the guidelines of search engines such as Google.

Although it is usually a longer process, following Google’s rules should ensure that a website achieves better long-term positions in the SERP. These improvements can impact conversions on your site. In addition to better visibility in search results, white hat SEO helps build brand credibility, increase click-through rates (CTR), and potentially lower bounce rates.

White Hat SEO Techniques

Examples of white hat SEO techniques include:

  • Creating a mobile-friendly website – optimized for mobile devices.
  • Producing high-quality content for visitors – content should be relevant and satisfy the visitor’s needs.
  • Building quality backlinks (link building to websites with high domain authority and valuable, relevant content).
  • Ensuring good UX (user experience) – the quality of the visitor’s interaction with the site. This includes page load speed, accessibility of information, seamless checkout process, etc. In 2021, Google introduced Core Web Vitals, which evaluate factors like loading speed (LCP), interactivity (FID), and visual stability (CLS). This means UX optimization has a direct impact on SEO.

Google is constantly improving its algorithms to provide users with relevant and high-quality results. In doing so, it seeks to reward valuable websites and penalize those trying to manipulate search rankings with black hat SEO techniques.

In addition to black hat SEO, there is also grey hat SEO, which includes activities such as buying backlinks or generating AI content.

Google Updates Impacting Black Hat SEO Techniques

Google Panda (2011) – Content Quality

  • Reason: Combat low-quality content (thin content) and duplicate pages.
  • Goal: Reward unique, valuable content and penalize websites with poor-quality texts.
  • Focused on content quality. Penalized websites with duplicate or automatically generated content (including AI-generated). Also targeted keyword stuffing. Pages with minimal informational value dropped in the SERP.

Google Penguin (2012) – Against Manipulative Link Building

  • Reason: Penalize websites trying to manipulate algorithms with low-quality backlinks.
  • Goal: Remove websites from search results that acquire links unnaturally or via spam.
  • Targeted backlink profiles. Mass link buying and link farms (groups of sites generating links without relevant content) became penalized. Spam comments with irrelevant links were also targeted.

Helpful Content Update (2022) – Content for People, Not Search Engines

  • Reason: Eliminate sites that produce content solely for SEO tactics without real value for readers.
  • Goal: Prioritize well-crafted, helpful, and original content that gives users what they are searching for.
  • Penalized automated article generation and SEO-driven content without added value. Frequently, these were shallow treatments of topics that provided no meaningful answers.