Grey Hat SEO

Since ancient times, the color white has been associated with good, and black with evil. Similarly, white hat SEO and black hat SEO tactics symbolize the good and bad ways of using SEO for search engine rankings. However, there exists another area called grey hat SEO.

In this article, you’ll find an in-depth exploration of grey hat SEO, including what it is, examples, and why certain tactics should be avoided.

What is Grey Hat SEO

Grey hat SEO techniques are methods that combine both white hat and black hat SEO tactics. For example, creating high-quality content and then buying backlinks for it is a grey hat SEO technique. Creating content is a white hat SEO technique, while buying links is a clear black hat SEO technique.

Acquiring backlinks from other websites to improve your site’s domain authority is a perfect example of grey hat SEO. It is common for websites to acquire links from authority sites by sending a request using their contact form and waiting for a reply. However, Google’s guidelines suggest that you must send links using the Google search console. Doing so won’t get you penalized because it isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it’s also not encouraged by Google.

To further understand what grey hat SEO means, let’s take a look at what clearly defines white and black hat SEO techniques.

White Hat SEO Techniques

Here are examples of what defines white hat techniques:

• Using targeted keywords on web pages
• Creating high-quality content
• Increasing site speed
• Descriptive alt text for images
• Making the site mobile-friendly
• Internal linking
• Building healthy relationships with other websites

White hat SEO is any strategy or method that complies with Google’s guidelines.

Black Hat SEO Techniques

Here are examples of what constitutes black hat techniques:

• PBN (private blog networks)
• Link exchange (when done excessively)
• Unnatural links
• Cloaking
• Using doorway pages
• Keyword stuffing on web pages
• Social bookmarking submissions, low-quality directories
• Spammy links and comments

If Google’s guidelines specify that a technique will reduce the ranking of a page or site, it falls under black hat techniques. These tactics may bring results, but at a cost: your page or site might get lower rankings, and sometimes be penalized or banned.

Grey Hat SEO Examples

Using Cold Emails

This is the most common grey hat SEO tactic that many digital marketing specialists use. It is considered safe because, unlike buying links, it doesn’t involve someone paying in exchange for links. What is Grey Hat SEO

Cold emails are widely used in link building where the outreach department sends emails and pitches your products/services to people who have no prior experience doing business with you. In some cases, it will end up as spam, and some people may even report your email. However, done right using the right email marketing tool, it can help generate leads for your business. What is Grey Hat SEO

Using Low-Quality Websites

Doing so would improve your site’s domain authority and gain more PageRank in Google, helping you stay ahead of the competition. Grey hat SEO tactics like this can improve search engine rankings. What is Grey Hat SEO

PageRank is a Google algorithm that defines which pages to rank and which ones not to.

What is Grey Hat SEO Tactics You Must Avoid

Here are four grey hat SEO tactics you must avoid:

Buying Links

Building links takes time and resources, but the benefits are huge. However, it is not uncommon to be tempted to take the shortcut and get the benefits. What is Grey Hat SEO, For example, buying links is a violation of Google’s webmaster guidelines and will hurt your rankings in the search engines.

Why Avoid Buying Backlinks?

• It goes against Google’s guidelines.
• They can be penalized by Google.
• Buying links is expensive, averaging $360 per link.

Instead of buying backlinks, focus on guest blogging. With guest blogging, you can showcase your writing skills and expertise while earning high-quality links simultaneously. What is Grey Hat SEO

Keyword Stuffing

A few years back, you could rank higher in the search results by just stuffing keywords inside the webpage. Now, it’s not so simple. Google’s algorithm is much smarter than it was before, and having the right amount of keywords is crucial to ranking better. Also, it’s not just the algorithm but the readers too. Stuffing too many keywords will only make your content look bland and create a negative user experience, which can hurt your site’s ranking. What is Grey Hat SEO

Instead, You Can:

• Create content that has depth and research put into it.
• Cover a wide variety of topics.
• Create pillar and cluster topics.
• Write in-depth content and include long-tail keywords.

Negative SEO

This is when a website creates multiple spammy links to its competitors’ websites. It is a tactic where a user will use black hat SEO tactics to sabotage competitor websites. This won’t work anymore because Google can detect spammy links and remove them altogether. What is Grey Hat SEO

Negative SEO is an illegal practice, and severe punishment will be given to those who are found guilty of it. Instead of sabotaging competitor websites, you can:

• Beat your competition with high-quality content.
• Identify the target keywords for your audience and create content with search intent in mind. You can use the same keyword in two different articles but with different search intent. What is Grey Hat SEO, When a user searches for a term, identify what they are looking for in relation to that term and include it in your content.

The next step is backlinks. The outreach team, or you yourself, can reach out to high-authority sites and request backlinks from them. This actually comes under grey hat SEO, but you won’t get penalized or banned for it, so it is safe to use. What is Grey Hat SEO

With high-quality backlinks in your content, you can improve your page’s authority and rankings in search engines. What is Grey Hat SEO

PBN (Private Blog Network)

A PBN or private blog network is a group of websites that are created only to provide backlinks to the main site. A separate network of websites is created, and then embedded in them is the link to the main site. This is done to manipulate the search algorithm into ranking the main site higher.

Instead of Manipulating the Search Algorithm, You Can:

• Build quality links using strategies like guest posting, social media backlinks, or add-ins to create quality links for your site. and What is Grey Hat SEO