Black Hat or White Hat?
Black Hat or White Hat does not refer to black or white witchcraft or Christianity versus Wicca. It has no spiritual association what so ever. It refers to the way website owners get people to visit their site.
Black Hatters work on the principle that they want to get their website at the top of the search results no-matter what is typed into the search engine. Basic mathematics. If one million people a day end up at a site and one percent buy an eBook for seventy dollars the site owner is going to make a lot of money.
When you visit a black hatter’s site it will usually be in the form of one long page that scrolls down forever. The same words come up over and over again. This has a double use. Firstly it is to entice the search engines to rank the site highly because of the number of 'key words.' Secondly the person viewing the site is brain washed into believing the hype.
'Key worlds' are the ranking of the most popular words used by people searching the web and are continually changing. If this month the top keyword is 'Bismarck' then it will be spammed to death in a black hatter's site.
If next month the top keyword is 'Titanic' the site will undergo a quick makeover to replace the Bismarck with the Titanic. So if you research the Titanic and end up at a site offering unlimited wealth for a very low fee you will know why. This is only one of many techniques used.
The White hatter’s principle is to reach to as many people as possible with articles or some form of information advertising and ‘invite’ people to the site who already have an idea of what to expect. White hatter site are hard work to get going. They have to reach the people they want to reach and want to be reached, and invite them to visit the site.
Nobody is going to get there through ‘Site spamming’ or any other black hat technique. They go through choice.
How to Distinguish between Black and White.
The first thing is, 'have you found your way to the site by conscious decision or have you arrived there when searching' for something else. You did a search for what you wanted and clicked on the first or second site on the list and found you were on a site unrelated to what you were searching for. This is the positioning game in action.
If you are searching for a defined company or researching a specific subject the major search engines seem to work well. Search engines results are particularly good for academic enquiry. It is unlikely that a University would site spam an article on relativity.
It is when the search becomes more general that the black hatters strike. The spiritual and self help areas are particularly vulnerable to black hatters because searches are often vague.
The original search engine designs used keywords. This would have been perfect if all sites had been honest. But in came the black hatters and spoilt it for everyone by using keywords to lie about what is on the site.
The ethical search engine providers are aware of the problem, and are continually trying to find ways to avoid the black hatters. At the same time the black hatters are continually looking for new ways to get past the search engines. The successful of a search engine is measured in terms of how well it ignores the black hat sites.
The next thing is look at the content. When searching the web for spiritual content I continually find myself hijacked into long, keyword stuffed sites selling eBooks based on crude versions of Shakti Gawain’s book Creative Visualization. Creative Visualization is a classic book that can be bought at half the cost of the rip-off eBooks.
Most of the eBooks I have seen in the spiritual area crude rip-offs of classic spiritual books available through conventional publishing houses. EBooks can be very useful and informative, but is a form of publishing that is open to abuse.
White hat sites may sometimes rank highly in a search if the searcher knows what they are looking for, but it is a struggle to maintain position against the black hatters. White hatters do the best they can to attract search engines provided that search matches content. It is a delicate balance to do the best that can be done to attract search engines whilst maintaining the integrity of the site.
Usually people arrive at a white hat site though seeing something that interested them and following a link. The site will probably have many pages arranged for humans. It will probably also be devoid of repetitive dogma trying to sell you something worth five hundred dollars for only eighty nine ninety nine. It will probably also be differentiated from other site by some unique factor.
The content of a white hat site will be offering something other than a formulae eBook. It might sell eBooks but they will offer something unique rather than mass produced pulp. If you want Shakti Gawain go to Shakti’s site. If you want my books come to me. I don’t rip of Shakti Gawain and Shakti doesn’t rip off my work. That’s how white hatters work.
A spiritual path is an exciting journey. Unfortunately the web is a minefield of Gurus, Masters and discovers of all sorts of systems based on supposed ancient knowledge. They promise nirvana, but deliver a deceased bank balance by any means at their disposal.
The web is a place full of meaningful spiritual content, but you might have to wade through tons of garbage to find it. Finding out the difference between garbage and a pearl is part of the journey.David Young.