What is Gray Hat SEO and Some of Its Popular Techniques?
If done right, search engine optimisation (SEO) techniques provide useful results for your website. One of the best methods to increase traffic for your website is through gray hat SEO. Below is an overview of gray hat SEO and some of its popular techniques.
Gray Hat SEO Overview
Similar to many effective SEO techniques, gray hat SEO involves risky tactics that would offer efficient results when done right. For some, these tactics may be questionable and are borderline black hat. For further information regarding gray hat SEO, here are some of its popular techniques.
Gray Hat SEO Popular Techniques
Domain Grabbing
Generally speaking, domain grabbing is a gray hat SEO technique wherein you purchase domains to improve your website’s backlink profile. You can either choose to buy expired domains or new ones. The former is widely used because of its benefits. If you purchase expired domain names with good backlink profile and reputation and link them to your blog posts or homepage, your search engine rankings will boost.
If you want to utilise this kind of technique, you must do it with caution. You should learn to check the backlinks for any toxic and broken ones. They should be clean and not spammy. Also, it would be best to purchase those that are registered for more than three years. They are most likely to have a positive impression on search engines.
Web 2.0
In Web 2.0, users can generate, tweak and edit the content using Web 2.0 directories, submission sites, forums etc. Since all of the web 2.0 allows user-generated content, it is proven to be a useful gray hat SEO technique. Most people use Web 2.0 to build links. However, these links are considered nofollow ones and they are used to grow backlink profiles. Web 2.0 also drives traffic to your website since you are improving your user engagement.
Private Blog Network
Private Blog Network or PBN is a link building strategy that could either fall on a black hat or gray hat SEO depending on what you use it for. If you solely focus on good content which is relevant to the topics you want to rank for, then you’re doing it right and it falls under gray hat SEO. But if its primary purpose if for duplicate content and irrelevant backlinks, it is black hat SEO.
Careful Keyword Stuffing with Perfect Keyword Density
Normally, keyword stuffing falls under the black hat SEO. However, if it is incorporated with the perfect keyword density then it can be considered as gray hat. Keyword density refers to the percentage of how often a keyword appears on a web page. The optimum percentage is 0.5% which means it appears only 5 times in a 1000 word article. This is best to ensure the inclusion of primary keyword without influencing the content quality and audience reach.