Black hat SEO tactics, also called spamdexing, attempt to redirect search results to particular target pages in a fashion that is against the search engines’ terms of service, whereas white hat methods are generally approved by the search engines. Some of the blackhat SEO tactics include: keyword stuffing, hidden text and links, doorway and cloaked pages, link farming and blog comment spam. (source: wikipedia)
Black Hat SEO are methods of search engine optimization that don’t comply with Google Webmaster Guidelines. In order to clarify this we need to take a closer look at those guidelines. One of those rules is not getting involved in any link schemes.
Your site’s ranking in Google search results is partly based on analysis of those sites that link to you. [...]. However, some webmasters engage in link exchange schemes and build partner pages exclusively for the sake of cross-linking, disregarding the quality of the links, the sources, and the long-term impact it will have on their sites. This is in violation of Google’s webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact your site’s ranking in search results. Examples of link schemes can include:
- Links intended to manipulate PageRank
- Links to web spammers or bad neighborhoods on the web
- Excessive reciprocal links or excessive link exchanging (“Link to me and I’ll link to you.”)
- Buying or selling links that pass PageRank
Look closer at bullets 1 and 3, do they become familiar to you? Can you honestly say that you don’t violate Google Webmaster Guidelines? I’m 100% sure that every webmaster out there did exchange any links in the past. It’s logic, without those links your website would stay anonymous forever. Without exchanging links there would be no internet, whole concept of it is build on websites linking to each other. A google guy would say that you have to create some relevant content and other websites would link to you for sure. It is true, for maybe 0.0001% of all websites out there. Waiting for natural links is pointless, most of webmasters would not even consider linking to you if you don’t link back to them. Is Google being a hypocrite?