Black hat, white hat and gray hat SEO explained

In the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) world today, besides techniques that raise keyword rankings naturally, there is another approach: black hat SEO. If you apply it successfully, it can bring your site a huge amount of traffic, wide brand reach and high profits.

But few people know or use this kind of SEO, because the results are only short-lived. Without a good understanding of Google's algorithms your website can easily be dropped from the keyword rankings. So What is black hat SEO? should you use this SEO trick on your website? To answer that, let's look at MONA Media get started.

What is black hat SEO?

Black hat SEO is SEO that doesn't follow Google's rules and guidelines. It is the complete opposite of SEO White Hat (white hat SEO). Its main aim is to rank high in Google search without spending much time. 

Common black hat SEO techniques

There are many black hat SEO techniques, but Google has found most of them and applies heavy penalties to websites that use them.

In detail, let's go through 10 typical black hat SEO techniques you should avoid:

1. Duplicate content spam

Content spam means creating duplicate content, the same as or very close to content that already ranks, so that many website keywords reach the top.

But Google is now very smart, and these actions are easy to detect and penalise. To stop this, Google released the Google Panda algorithm in 2011.

2. Keyword stuffing

Keyword stuffing is repeating a keyword too many times in one passage, or adding too many keyword variations, which makes for a poor user experience. It can also make your page rank for unrelated content. Instead of cramming in keywords to rank higher on Google, create content that is more valuable to readers.

-> See more: What keyword density is good for website SEO

3. Hidden content

This technique sets the text colour to match the background, or reduces the font size to 0, or uses CSS to hide text from users. The purpose is to hide dirty tricks in the article, such as content spam and keyword stuffing, from search engines. 

4. Link redirects 

Link redirects (Redirect 301) send readers from the URL original URL to a completely different one. This is a normal SEO technique and should only be used in the right cases. But black hat SEO abuses it to send users to URLs that don't match what they searched for. Traffic jumps suddenly, but the bounce rate (Bounce Rate) also climbs very high.

5. Paid links

Google prohibits websites from manipulating its algorithm to raise their PageRank or search rankings by buying and selling links. Yet this is a common technique in black hat SEO tips that can manipulate rankings, but the risk of a penalty is also very high.

To avoid a penalized by Google you should avoid these SEO practices:

• Buying, selling or swapping too many links.
• Don't spam comments on blogs and forums.

6. Abusing structured data

Adding structured data to a website helps identify entities and lets Google understand the content better. But if you abuse structured data or mark it up wrongly, it can seriously harm your site. 

7. Links on link farms

Link Farms is a website built mainly to pile up links, with little attention to content. This breaks Google's algorithm and the site is easily penalised. Avoid it, and build links as naturally as you can instead.

8. Doorway pages

Doorway Pages are bridge pages created as intermediaries to redirect users from the page they first visit to a completely different one. Building pages like this breaks Google's guidelines.

9. Negative SEO

Negative SEO means using black hat SEO techniques against a competitor's website to push down its search ranking. With this technique they can spam backlinks and send Backlink spammy links to your website, create fake profiles on social media to damage your reputation, or use other black hat tricks to bring your site down. That is why it is important to check your website regularly and catch and fix any unusual signs early.

10. Buying fake traffic

To save money and rank faster, many SEOers buy fake traffic. This traffic reaches the website on a schedule, produced by tools that are set up with visits for each keyword. This can work for a while, but it carries many hidden risks, such as: 

In particular, fake traffic from sites is not real users, so it never converts. On top of that, if Google notices anything unusual, your website is very likely to be penalised.

-> Instead, look at effective and safe ways to increase website traffic – HERE!

The short-term results of black hat SEO

The immediate benefit of black hat SEO is that a website rises in rankings and popularity quickly, in a short time. That brings more revenue and profit for the person doing the SEO. But in the long run, this kind of SEO doesn't deliver good results. 

Here are the harms of black hat SEO that you should know about:

Warning: how dangerous black hat SEO is

White hat SEO techniques and services raise a website's search ranking naturally, while black hat techniques don't produce that result and can even work against it. Here are the reasons black hat SEO does harm:

• It hurts the user experience and brings no conversions.
• It doesn't help the website grow in the long term.
• It directly hurts keyword rankings and the site's visibility.
• There is a risk that Google detects it and applies more serious penalties.

How does Google penalise black hat SEO?

If you try to manipulate Google's algorithm with black hat techniques to raise keyword rankings fast and cheaply, YOUR website will be penalised by Google. It can receive a manual action, a notice telling the owner the site has been flagged for breaking Google's guidelines. And once a site has a manual action, it disappears from the search rankings.

How to report a black hat SEO website

If you know for certain that a competitor is using black hat or dirty SEO to raise their keyword rankings, you can send Google a spam report like this:

• If many bad links point to your website, you can use link disavow (Disavow) so Google removes them.
• If your website has been hacked or attacked by malware, handle it like this: remove all the malicious code from the site, then submit a request Google review.

Black hat SEO is not the best choice for building and growing a website over the long term. Once Google detects it, all the effort you put in at the start is lost. So before you start an SEO project, research it carefully and gather useful information to decide on the right direction. 

A typical case study where we successfully recovered a client who had been a victim of black hat SEO. Hungphuckhang a photocopier rental and sales business that had operated for 8 years, but picking the wrong provider forced the brand to close for a long time. Failure followed failure when they hired 2 cheap SEO agencies. The result:

• Multiple Google violations from black hat SEO methods
• Lost the brand's domain name phuckhangricoh.com

But things changed when they met MONA Media. Organic traffic grew sharply from almost nothing to more than 23,000+ The committed timeline based on our strategy research was 12 months, but after 6 months the site had already grown revenue by 400%, with keywords staying in the top 10 across every industry, thanks to our white hat SEO service from us.

And that's not all. MONA has turned around many businesses with just one form of SEO: website optimisation.

Next, we'll look at another SEO technique: white hat SEO. This is the technique used by reputable SEO companies to help websites rise steadily without Google penalties.

What is white hat SEO?

white hat SEO is the translation of the English term white hat SEO. It refers to legitimate SEO techniques that don't break Google's rules. With this kind of SEO, Google rates the quality of your site highly and gives it ranking priority. White hat SEO does take longer and needs more continuous work than other "dark" SEO techniques. SEOers have to put in a lot of time to make results stable and lasting.

Advantages of white hat SEO

White hat SEO has many standout advantages. This approach doesn't just optimise the websiteand make it Google-friendly, it also improves the user experience. Specifically:

• White hat SEO gives readers useful information through quality content. White hat articles don't spam keywords but use logical wording, polished language and useful knowledge. These articles are optimised for SEO and also give readers real value.
• Users click to read, browse the site, and feel friendly toward and trust a site that does white hat SEO. That makes online marketing last. You will get more potential customers, higher rankings and more revenue in the future.
• White hat SEO is transparent, so it will avoid every unwanted risk . You won't have to worry about Google penalties, posts that don't get indexed, or Google taking your site down. 

4 white hat SEO strategies you shouldn't skip

Only white hat SEO gives you a healthy website that holds a top position and gives users the best experience. White hat SEO is seen as winning users' goodwill by giving them the information they need. The end result is a site that attracts and encourages more visits. White hat SEO also helps turn more visits into purchases.

To help white hat SEO increase traffic, build trust in your website and keep a top Google position over time, apply the white hat strategies we share below:

Invest in quality content

Write new content with your keywords regularly, without duplicating existing content. The content should give readers the knowledge they need, with accurate information. Keep it long enough, with clear wording and no spelling mistakes. Above all, post to your website on a regular schedule. Google currently rates long, quality, reader-focused articles highly.

-> See also:

• Tips for writing content that increases website conversions
• A guide to writing SEO-friendly articles for beginners

Build a good link system

Internal links between categories and landing pages, and external links, must be good quality. Don't leave duplicate links, remove harmful links. Make sure links are tightly related and expand the information for readers. Links only have value, and rank well, when they are related to each other.

Mobile-friendly

Optimising the user experience isn't only about valuable articles and solid links. You should also optimise search and your site for mobile. More than 50% of customers now use their phones to look for information. Also look into the Mobile-Friendly of your website. Redesign, edit or upgrade it so it works well on mobile devices.

Research and develop the best keywords

Users today search with question keywords, short keywords, long keywords and more. Google rates keyword quality and shows results through users' searches. Above all, analyse and research your competitors' keyword strategies.

After keyword research, roll out keyword groups and posts sensibly. Avoid keywords “cannibalising each other” through too much overlap. In one category or child page, too many posts with the same keyword means you are hurting yourself.

Are you looking for a professional, quality white hat SEO provider that helps your website grow steadily and brings real “benefits” from users? Then SEO services from MONA is the right choice for you.

We have a team of highly qualified SEO experts who apply effective white hat techniques that meet Google's algorithms. MONA has delivered thousands of SEO projects for more than 12,000 clients in Vietnam and abroad, and helped our clients earn 300 times the revenue from SEO alone.

When you choose our SEO service, you are assured of:

• White hat SEO techniques applied to your website.
• Full optimisation of your site's technical factors.
• An SEO-friendly, unique content plan.
• A wider, higher-quality keyword set.

And many more benefits, to give you the best white hat SEO service and lasting SEO results. Please CONTACT US with MONA via Hotline 1900 636 648 to get advice and a full-scope SEO quote quote.

What is grey hat SEO?

As new SEO tricks appeared, SEO techniques split into two basic types: white hat SEO and black hat SEO. In detail:

• white hat SEO is clean SEO that focuses on quality.
• black hat SEO is dirty SEO that looks for any loophole to get a site recognised and rated highly.

These two types are far apart in how long they take. To narrow the gap in techniques, grey hat SEO appeared as a middle ground between clean SEO (white hat) and dirty SEO (black hat).

Grey hat SEO (Gray Hat SEO) is a blend of white hat and black hat techniques, aimed at getting results faster than white hat. If Google catches it, the penalty is lighter than for black hat.

Grey hat SEO can shorten SEO time a lot compared with white hat and keep costs down. Its risks are also lower than black hat, so many people choose it.

What stands out about grey hat SEO

Grey hat SEO is chosen by many SEOers in certain cases because it has standout points such as:

• With grey hat tricks, a website rises in rankings quite fast.
• Grey hat SEO tricks editing techniques help a website get past search engine checks. But remember that the line between white hat and black hat is thin, and careless use may get you caught by Google.
• If Google catches grey hat SEO, the penalty is much lighter than for black hat.
• Grey hat SEO is faster and cheaper than white hat techniques.

Common grey hat SEO tricks

The grey hat SEO method combines white hat and black hat SEO. It has to be done professionally so it isn't mistaken for black hat while still giving faster results than white hat. For that, you need grey hat tricks such as:

Three-way link exchange

A website should exchange links across 3 fields. This brings the site more engagement and keeps the SEO process safe. Keep an eye on grey hat SEO KPIs often in this case. Once rankings reach a certain level, switch back to white hat techniques.

Article tricks in grey hat SEO

Article spinning is the most widely used article trick in grey hat SEO. The writer builds a new article from older ones, or takes old content and edits it into several new pieces without being judged as plagiarism.

Check unique to make sure there are no copyright concerns. Search engines and algorithms are now strong, so copying other people's content word for word won't get past any SEO trick.

>> Read more: 7 tools to check unique content quickly and effectively

Buy back old or expired reputable domains

Some quality domains with a good number of backlinks are about to expire, and expired reputable domains often rank quite well. Buying these domains and redirecting their links to the website you want to SEO gives better results.

Bom Google

Grey hat SEO uses tricks to create a large number of links. These links appear continuously across many different websites, so Google's search algorithms rate the website highly and show it well in results, raising its rankings faster.

Manipulating content with CSS

Search bots and Google's algorithms have reached a new level. They can understand HTML/XHTML content but don't yet analyse CSS. Google's algorithms also can't yet detect hidden text, so SEOers exploit this gap to manipulate the content on a page.

However, Google still has other filters, and you can't hide from other search engines either. So this isn't a long-term approach. You need to keep monitoring, balancing and changing your grey hat tricks.

Optimise keywords with a separate page

Optimise each keywords keyword on its own page to widen your SEO reach and dig into more information. This also builds more links to connect with the main site and brings lasting results.

Microsites (small websites)

Similar to giving each keyword its own site, you build websites by splitting a company into its separate business lines. For example, an SEO company might have a site just for web SEO, a news site, and a site for hosting services… With this split, SEO mapping and spreading your brand become easier.

However, with the grey hat SEO method , any abuse easily leads to being caught by Google. So should you choose grey hat SEO?

Should you choose grey hat SEO?

Grey hat, white hat and black hat SEO give different results. To decide whether to use grey hat SEO, compare them on these criteria:

• Time: Grey hat SEO is a middle ground between white hat techniques and black hat tricks. It is faster than white hat SEO and safer than black hat SEO.
• Results: White hat SEO always gives the safest results. Black hat SEO is the fastest, but when it is caught the site can easily vanish. Grey hat SEO is also fast, but if it is caught the penalty isn't heavy.
• Content quality Both white hat and grey hat SEO focus on content, while black hat spams content and links more. Grey hat still gives unique content, but it won't be as varied as white hat.
• Link quality: With white hat SEO, links are completely natural. With grey hat SEO, links come from many other sources and are still much better quality than black hat.

If you don't want to spend the time on white hat SEO, want to avoid the risks of black hat, and need a fast SEO strategy, choose grey hat SEO. Once you have the results you want, go back to white hat SEO, which is safer and gives better results.

Grey hat SEO shortens SEO time, gives fast results and isn't penalised like black hat SEO. But grey hat SEO sits fairly close to black hat, so pay attention to your SEO tricks to avoid going too far and being caught by Google.

But SEO in 2026 is no longer only about optimising for Google. It also means optimising for AI Overview. This video shows you the most effective way to do SEO today:

Those are the 3 most widely used SEO techniques among SEOers: black hat SEO, white hat SEO and grey hat SEO. Each of them can get your website to the top, but for a lasting top position that Google's systems accept, stick to white hat and grey hat SEO. We hope the information MONA above has given you more knowledge about these 3 forms of SEO.