Getting to the top spot of the SERP is every webmasters’ aim. Today, we’ll be discussing 2020 Grey Hat SEO techniques and how it can help hit the goal.
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With millions of websites and pages being indexed by the biggest search engine Google, being on the top spot of the search engine results page is the goal of every webmaster. Why is it so important to be on the top? In a study made by top search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, 42% of the traffic engages the top search results, the second gets 11% and the third gets only 8%, which means being on the top is the target to expand your reach in the digital market.
Of course, there should be only one who will be on the top so that means the competition is extremely high but, how can your website make it there? Various ways are available to be utilized such as paid advertisements, social media engagements, but the key element to hit the mark is Search engine optimization.
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION: WHAT, WHY, HOW?
Search Engine Optimization is a collection of practices that raises the quality and quantity of the website traffic and increasing the relevance of your website to non-paid traffic which is called “organic traffic” making it immediately visible on the search engine results page.
Understanding SEO and its practices are very important to your website’s traffic and website health. There are some practices that can harm your website to the point of getting banned on search engines.
SEO techniques and practices have three categories namely, white hat, grey hat, and black hat. For us to get a better understanding of Grey Hat SEO techniques, we are to differentiate these three.
- White Hat SEO techniques are those that strictly follow the rules and guidelines that Google has considered to be ethical and abides by the community standards. These techniques and practices are considered “good” by the norm.
- Black Hat SEO techniques are those that are considered to be illegal and do not meet the community standards, violating guidelines that Google has considered ethical. Norm calls it “bad”
- Grey Hat SEO techniques are those that fall on the grey are of these rules and community standards. They may seem illegal but can be defended that it’s not. These techniques are not yet classified by the norm to be good or bad.
It is also important to take note that these sets of rules and standards change periodically and these are very likely to happen on Grey Hat SEO techniques where some practices that are considered grey hat this year might become a black hat or white hat the following year so being updated with the publication of new sets of standards from time to time is a must if you are to practice Grey Hat SEO.
GREY HAT SEO TECHNIQUES
Let us dig in on some prominent Grey Hat SEO techniques that are being used to ramp up website rankings on SERP with very minimal to no risk.
- NEWS FABRICATION
Everybody’s interested to know what’s happening around and making somewhat sensational news about something that happens gains traction to gossip seekers and even the common readers. Utilizing this can gain your website loads of traffic especially when partnered with social media interactions such as Twitter shares and you might as well get your self some backlinks from your news. But of course, bear in mind that way too sensationalized and polarized news, and unverified information may get your site tagged as spam so you have to be careful about using this technique. - PET SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNT
These adorable creatures are simply just everyone’s favorite. Who can resist a cute smiling pooch photo or these funny cat videos? Incorporate your website link to posts on this page and maximize the traffic generated by your lovely pet. This technique has no known repercussions with Google although it might have with the social media platform. Totally a grey area in the SEO. - AUTOMATED SOCIAL MEDIA ENGAGEMENT
There are tools available to automate website-to-social media posting like Buffer. There are also tools with cheap price that do auto-follow and unfollow social media accounts and it suggests Google that there is a movement in your website, meaning traffic, while there is no actual engagement at all. This hasn’t been tagged by the search engines as a black hat. - MULTIPLE SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS
You can control organic pseudo-engagements like following, commenting and sharing your posts if you have multiple social media accounts. For now, it is still acceptable as there is no definitive guide to tell if the social media account is actually a dummy but everyone has criteria to consider an account is one. Social indicators are a valuable factor for search engine robots which implies that strong social media presence is a must. - LINK EXCHANGE
This grey hat SEO technique has been around since the late ’90s when Google unveiled its PageRank Algorithm. The technique is done by having link exchanges with other webmasters where all of you are referring your sites to one another thus, building a webring. However, a lot of webmasters have abused this method by doing link exchanges in every single post that was published so somehow it was being tagged illegal. Nonetheless, with smart use, this is a very helpful tactic. - PRIVATE BLOGGING NETWORKS (PBN)
It is true that PBN falls under the black hat category, it only does so when you PBN is full of irrelevant backlinks and duplicate content to which when detected by search engines, would have a serious negative impact on your website. However, if your PBN is built with amazing aesthetic and filled with relevant topics, they can surely be a great help on bringing your website to the top of SERP. A smart grey hat SEO technique. - REGULAR WEBSITE REVAMP
Keeping a regular revamp on your website such as design modifications, changing article lengths, constant blog posts, and other minimal code changes on your website can keep a fresh look to it and search engine robots would take that into consideration. - SPUN CONTENT/ARTICLE SPINNING
Re-writing a certain article even with changing some of its words may still appear to be plagiarism which is to be avoided since it has legal repercussions too. But, drawing ideas and few paraphrased quotes from multiple trusted sources is the loophole for that and combining these ideas makes the new article you wrote as your own.
IS GREY HAT SEO TECHNIQUES RECOMMENDED?
Conservative white hats would certainly not suggest engaging on Grey Hat SEO techniques but there is nothing wrong with being smart while not being on the wrong side. Just always remember that overdoing techniques above might raise your temperature meter and endanger you to be tagged as a black hat which we would like to avoid too.
