I went to see Kung Fu Panda last night with my 4 year old daughter Georgia. The core message of the movie was that there is no "secret ingredient" to life (and the noodle soup), it's all in you to begin with. Somehow this nice little morale got me thinking about SEO, specifically how there is no "secret" to SEO, just good practices. But there are some tricks which some companies use to game Google so this post is about some of those tricks and why they often backfire.

I know, I'm pathetic, can't even watch a movie with my kid without thinking about SEO!

There are still many companies running around telling you that they can guarantee you a #1 ranking on Google via some SEO magic. There are also very legitimate companies offering SEO tricks via blogs that duplicate the same content across multiple pages on your company's website. So I thought I would spend some time exploring these issues and hopefully clear up the world of SEO for those interested in using search engines to grow their businesses. It can be intimidating but really there are only three things you need to know-

In the world of SEO there are three "hats"- White Hat, Grey Hat and Black Hat.

As you might expect White Hat SEO does everything above board, following best practices by creating a search engine friendly website with lots of fresh content (this is what a CMS does) augmented by quality external links. Naturally there is a lot more detail we could go into but that is basically the core of White Hat SEO- do everything right and don't try to game the system. Small Box is a White Hat company.

Grey Hat is also, as you might expect, a little grey. Mostly Grey Hat SEO companies are doing best practices but they are also open to exploiting some openings in Google's (and other search engine's) search algorithm- this is the crazy, complicated program search engines use to determine page ranking for search terms. A current opening is Google's fondness for fresh blog content. As it stands Google gives overwhelming preference to new blog posts often pushing a new post by a popular blog to the top of the listings for relevant searches within an hour or so of the blog post going live. Businesses have noticed this and want their companies to benefit from the blog bump. Essentially we are living in the era of the "blog bubble". So, naturally, other companies are coming forward with blogging solutions for businesses to exploit this opening. This isn't a bad thing except when some of these blogs are essentially duplicating content over and over under different keyword configurations in an attempt to game Google's search results for their industry keywords. This is a loophole in Google's current algorithm and it is only a matter of time before it gets closed and these blogs are seen as spam by Google and possibly relegated to Google Hell, a place you don't want to be!

As you can probably guess Black Hat SEO is practiced by those that are often at the highest level of wizardry in the world of SEO and know how to navigate all the cracks and openings in Google's algorithm. These practitioners of the black arts often execute shady SEO campaigns that involve paying for links, creating fake websites that link back to the target site and many many other nefarious tricks that can land your website in Google Hell once Google figures out what is going on and tweaks its algorithm to shake the loophole. Unless you are willing to risk your company's online reputation I would recommend staying away from anyone who promises you these amazing results, it will invariably come back to bite you long after the Black Hat companies have cashed your checks.

Hopefully this has helped outline the world of SEO a little. I know this stuff is confusing but just like building a house the best way to go is to do everything right and cut no corners. This isn't always the fastest way to get things done but it is the only way to have real search engine dominance for your industry. And as we've seen, the web isn't going anywhere so it's worth the investment to build your house with the best materials.

Wikipedia entry on SEO
Blog on Grey Hat SEO