Hey blog. It’s me, again. I wanted to talk a little about something I was reading a few minutes ago. Recently a marketing guy who specializes in linkbait, wrote a crazy hoax story about these teenagers going on a crazy bender with their pops credit card. The story was picked up by mainstream media and made it to major TV networks and all over the internet. The bait was set and everyone took it. Huge success, right? Well, not quite. The author of the story felt the need to celebrate the success of his work and announced he did it and it was a fake story. Now money.co.uk has to make a public apology to hopefully gain their readers trust back.

Now my point of this post really has nothing to do with this story, it has to do with some things I read where people were discussing it. The terms “White Hat” and “Black Hat” were used and it really made me want to vent about these terms, along with “Grey Hat”. I briefly told the story above because I want to use it as an example in my thoughts. Others who were criticizing the hoax were referring to the author as a “Black Hat”, then in the same breath, referring to themselves as “White Hat”. Pffft!

Just to make sure we’re on the same page with these terms, let me give you the definitions most people put behind the terms:

• White Hat – online marketers who make it known they will not go outside the rules of search engines to help their clients. It is more of protecting their own name rather than helping clients.
• Grey Hat – online marketers who are open to explore different tactics to help their clients, but usually stay within the ‘good practices’.
• Black Hat – online marketers that will do whatever tactic they can to reach the top spot and get the most traffic with no regard of what the consequences may be.

Now that we have the basic definitions explained, I can go into each a little deeper. These terms are as stupid as it comes, but hey, it is what it is. Let me just preface this with my definition of anyone that provides online marketing in any form, “one who markets clients online does so to help the client reach their goals in return for compensation.”

I would like to now give you my take on these stupid labels people put on themselves and others.

White Hat marketers can definitely be good people, that is definitely not in question. But usually these people are more about promoting their own name rather than promoting their customers. If Dell comes to you with a budget of $100k per month and they want you to buy links, build doorway pages, use cloaking and other tactics that are against search engine TOS, are you really going to turn them away and tell them you are against those things? Most good white hat labeled people would try to educate the client and get them aligned with how they view the world, but a customer like Dell will usually have their mind made up and want things to go their way. At that point, a ‘true’ white hat would bail on Dell and hold true to their beliefs. Of course, we all know this person doesn’t exist.

White hats are so worried about their name and reputation, it usually becomes more about themselves than the customers. Sure, you want to steer the customer to what you believe in, but it’s really not about you. These are also the same cats that will tattle on anyone that does better than them because white hat never finishes first. The only way they have a chance is to tattle on grey and black hats in hopes they are penalized by the engines. (example of this species: Doug Heil) Doug is the biggest of self proclaimed white hats there is. He’ll kill your mother and molest her dead body if it meant he was viewed as a white hat. Doug, i’m sure you’ll read this since you probably google alert your name, but you know it’s true. Why can’t you just do your work without making so much noise about people and shaking your finger at people who might do things you don’t approve of? It’s because you are a douche bag. No offense, just speaking my mind and asking WTF!

Black hats try so hard to get their clients where they want to be, but they really don’t think that far ahead of what might happen to the clients down the road. There are black hats that are great at what they do and some that are typical. They most definitely put the customer first and do whatever they can to reach the finish line, but they don’t always think things through. It’s not about their name or reputation, like a white hat, but it is the opposite extreme of what a white hat would do. Also, black hats aren’t really into the game of telling everyone how good they are, so they’re a bit of a mystery. I would label most people that are really good at online marketing, black hats. You can’t get someone where they want to be without applying techniques that the white hat world would frown upon.

The last thing is the Grey Hats. These are the guys who will do what it takes, yet not go too far. They’re the one’s who might throw out hoax stories to build linkbait (although they shouldn’t admit to it when it becomes a hit). They usually produce great results without any storyline to go with it. They seek great results and will go on uncommon grounds to produce the results. They are conscious of the clients well being, yet they are also conscious of what might happen if they made a wrong turn. They don’t promise results, but they are sure of their work. It’s the perfect of two worlds. They also are very good at keeping their mouth’s shut and not telling the world their secrets.

The point of this post is that there is not one hat that is right or wrong. We’re all online marketers and we all have one duty; help our customers. It shouldn’t be about your name or company, it should be about producing results for your customer. The guy who wrote the hoax story did an exceptional job, the only fault was admitting it was fake. Call him black hat, whatever, he sent more traffic to those guys site than anyone has in years.

Think of it like a tax man. Would you want a guy who is on the IRS side of things and makes you pay as much as possible? Or maybe a guy who pushes the lines and saves you as much as possible, without getting you in trouble, or a guy who saves you more than legally possible and 2 years down the line you’re hit with the law and you have to pay huge penalties?

A rat is a rat is a rat. What are you? I’m a rat.