SEO, or search engine optimizers, use several different kinds of methods and philosophies to help get sites highly ranked on search engines. These different schools of thought are generally called Black Hat, White Hat, and Gray Hat SEO.

Before using SEO, you should familiarize yourself with these different kinds of SEO to understand the risks and benefits involved.

Black Hat SEO is the concept of having low content sites that spam and cram in keywords as much as possible. They degrade search engines by offering high-ranking results that in fact have poor or no content.

These kinds of sites are automated as much as possible and make use of a complex web of links to redirect visiting browsers to destinations that are intended to result in profit for the site's owner. For instance, you may end up staring at a page attempting to sell you any number of products.

The emphasis with this technique is on speed and quantity. They frequently catapult their sites incredibly high in search engine ranking with ludicrous rapidity.

However, the search engines will catch on sooner or later and the site in question will often reap negative consequences for such blatant manipulation.

It's a highly risky form of marketing to use, and morally questionable. Therefore it's not a recommended tactic, no matter how desperate you are for more business.

And then you have White Hat SEO, which is the exact opposite. Creating large amounts of meaty content is the first goal in White Hat SEO marketing, and the Seo part takes second place.

Since they cater to people rather than artificial manipulation of search engines they rely on word of mouth and personalized content, and don't automate as much.

White Hat SEO tries not to rush through things, being after a more long term reliable beneficial relationship between the site and search engines. Sites using this marketing strategy get more links from other sites due to their content, while not neglecting the use of a carefully placed keyword or two.

So this methodology results in a better relationship with search engines and customers alike. There's no risks, although the process is slower.

Finally there's Gray Hat, the iffy middle ground of SEO marketing. Many sites fall into this category. They'll take more risks, use slightly suspicious methods to get hits, and generally push the edge without going completely overboard.

Their philosophy is one of reasonable risk for reasonable reward - they'll do things that are iffy, but only if the chance of failure isn't too significant, and only if the payoff would be worth it in the end. This results in a general frowning tolerance by search engines.

What hat you put on in your SEO marketing depends on you, your business, and your goals. Black Hat techniques are just plain self-destructive, however, and aren't really condoned by most people.

A perfect world would have everyone as a White Hat, but maybe you're a bit more desperate, greedy, or just don't have the time or skills to create that kind of content.

A Gray Hat might be for you if you really need that extra edge to succeed. But you need to ask yourself if it's worth it with every new gray technique utilized.

Above all, don't risk much with the web sites you consider valuable and have poured a lot of yourself into. For sites you wouldn't want to get destroyed, always strive for safe SEO strategies.