Yep. Black hat generally refers to techniques which are against search engine rules and may ultimately lead to your site being removed from search engine results when found out. Examples of these are things like buying keyword rich links back to your site, an example of being penalized for this - just look at the JC Penny case from the start of the year. White hat refers to techniques which are within the searh engines guidelines for optimization and essentially could not be seen as you trying to manipulate the results unfairly.
Black hat SEO tactics against the search engines' terms of service and is often considered unethical SEO. White hat methods are generally approved by search engines and follow their guidelines.
I wouldn't even think about touching black hat SEO as from what Webby94 stated, your website could be banned in the future when Google finds you.
It may bring quicker results using black hat SEO techniques but in the long run, your website would probably be worse off. Take more time SEOing your websites and do your research and avoid black hat all together.
Black Hat : techniques or tactics which have been defined by Google as in violation of the Google “Quality Guidelines” (see “Quality Guidelines, which outline some of the illicit practices that may lead to a site being removed entirely from the Google index”) . The Black Hat label applies to those methods specifically mentioned n the “Guidelines”, other methods and/or tactics or circumstances mentioned by Matt Cutts in his blog, in Matt’s comments on others’ blogs, or just about anywhere anyone from Google says anything that strongly suggests Google took action against a site for some specific reason. Black Hat SEOs know what they are doing is defined as BAD, and do it anyway for specific reasons (not usually including “get banned”). I like to think of Black Hat SEOs as opportunists. They see an opportunity to gain, and take it, managing the associated risk. Please don’t confuse ignorant SEOs with Black Hat SEOs… the ignorant ones are those who execute on Black Hat (evil) tactics without managing the risks (either out of ignorance or folly doesn’t matter to me here).
White Hat: techniques or tactics which can be defended as NOT being contrary to the spirit of Google’s expressed quality desires, by citing Google’s own published guidelines, Matt Cutts’ blog posts, or comments posted in other places, or just about any other Google communication. I like to refer to White Hat SEOs as “conservatives” of the SEO world… where things are viewed as BLACK or WHITE (GOOD or BAD), and the letter of the Google god is taken verbatim as TRUTH. Yes, there is a bit of a timeline problem with that approach (if Matt said it was bad in 2002, is it still bad?) but that’s just the tip of the White Hat iceburg.
Yes, white hat SEO is the one that complies with the google guidelines. It is harder to move up in google using the white hat SEO than it is with the black hat SEO but it is better on the long run. If you are doing black hat SEO your site might not appear in the search results on the next google update, or whenever google finds time to make an update which makes a difference between the white hat and black hat seo.
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