March 18th, 2010 by Nick

If you are familiar with the respective definitions of ‘white hat’ and ‘black hat’ search engine optimization, then that of ‘grey hat’ should seem fairly self-explanatory. It refers to the area between what search engines do and don’t explicitly approve of as SEO practices. In terms of practical application, it is important to learn about ‘grey hat’, meaning techniques in SEO that are ambiguous and can therefore be used for either ethical or unethical purposes, so that you can use them only in ways that stand the least chance of triggering penalties from the search engines.

A potential offender is cloaking, the practice of presenting a different form of content to search engines than you do to the viewer, which suggests its reasons for being seen as potentially unethical in its very name. After all, search engines are not going to appreciate your website hiding its true form behind a ‘cloak’, given that it would beg the question of what it has to hide. That said, many sites desire to use ‘cloaking’ techniques for the often perfectly well-meaning reasons of presenting a more enticing website to the viewer than the code intended for search engine spiders. For this reason, it is best to ask for advice about their use from a professional SEO company.

Another practice often regarded as unethical, to the point of being strictly prohibited by Google, is link buying. However, forms of arguable ‘link buying’ can still occur outside of the boundaries of a formal ‘scheme’. These can include sponsorship. The distinction between ethical and unethical depends on whether you buy links with the intention of bolstering your link popularity, or for advertising, where any corresponding increase in link popularity should be regarded as an incidental bi-product, rather than its primary purpose.

Duplicating content is another practice that is largely avoided by websites, although it can again be done for both more or less ethical purposes. The former include article syndication and the posting of content on resource and news sites, which are a fine way of spreading your company’s name and reputation. You can, however, get into trouble if you post on the wrong kind of websites.
Nonetheless, ‘grey hat’ SEO still presents a risk, including of your site being reported, penalised or removed from the index altogether. Quite simply, given the wide variety of effective ‘white hat’ methods that you can use instead, it is up to you whether you feel that the risk is worth it. Remember that if you are still in doubt, then it is well worth seeking help from a reputable search engine optimisation company; after all, ‘grey hat’ SEO is one area that confuses even experienced professionals, and in which there is a constant need to update one’s experience, knowledge and skills.

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