I’m tired of hearing the distinction between black hat SEO and white hat SEO. Those terms are simply perjoratives and not helpful in any valuable discourse. Instead we should evaluate SEO’s and SEO methods along a continuum of high to low risk.
What do I mean by “risk”?
When I say “risk” in this context most people will think I mean risk of getting banned or penalized by the search engines in some way. This is a risk for many SEO methods, for sure, but it isn’t the only thing risky about SEO.
The other risk to consider as far as SEO is risk of ineffectiveness. This is the risk of SEOs who do things through bulk methods- you know, those stupid spammy emails, “We noticed your site isn’t ranking well on Google. We can guarantee results.” or people who use article spinners or programs to generate blog comments. The risk for them is that they will accomplish nothing or that, once discovered, their efforts will be rendered ineffective.
What SEOs need to decide is not what color of hat to wear, but how much risk they are willing to take. If you have clients with big brand names and large reputations you can’t take much risk. If you are doing SEO for your own personal affiliate website, you can take a lot of risk. This is a much better way to describe different SEOs and their methods.
