` A study of Search Engine Optimisation methods by Gareth Rogan ...

SEO Methods Gareth Rogan
3.1 Which hat should I wear?
There are numerous different techniques which can be labelled SEO methods. These fall
into two categories, white hat methods and black hat methods. Black hat methods refer to
SEO techniques which attempt to “fool” or “cheat” the search engine into incorrectly
pushing the search ranking of a site higher. Black hat methods are considered dubious
and underhanded. A site employing these Black Hat techniques can be removed
completely from search engine results pages (SERP) by the search engine. Black Hat
techniques will not be considered as part of this thesis.
White Hat techniques are methods that do not involve deception and are not in breach of
a search engines rules. It is the White Hat methods which will be examined in this thesis.
Methods such as sitemaps, reciprocal links, and content management are White Hat
techniques.
Grappone Jennifer & Couzin, Gradiva (2006) defines another category, Grey Hat SEO,
which falls between the two main categories. A change in Search engine can quite easily
change their rules and these techniques become Black hat.
The following are methods identified through research to be standard white hat SEO
methods which can be applied safely to websites to improve search ranking.
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