If you have heard the term Black Hat SEO then you know the term is applied negatively to websites that use methods of optimizing their website that are frowned on by search engines. In fact, these search engines will ban these sites from their rankings when they are discovered (and they almost always are).
There is another term used for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) referred to as White Hat, and just like the movie westerns of yesteryear you get the picture that there is a struggle between good and bad between these optimization approaches.
Newsweek reported in a December 19th, 2005 article, [Search engines] are increasingly tolerant of ethical or white hat [SEOs], who primarily help their clients knock down the virtual walls that prevent search engines from fully indexing their site.
To be clear, search engines view Black Hat SEO as spam while White Hat SEO is not only accepted, it is encouraged. Matt Cutts from Google has said, To Google, SEO only becomes spam when it goes against our quality guidelines and moves into things like hidden text, hidden links, cloaking, or sneaky redirects…Truthfully, much of the best SEO is common-sense: making sure...