It is the age old battle. There are the forces of good struggle to wage war on the forces of evil. The good will only do what is honorable, just and honest in order to win. All the while the evil forces are willing to do whatever it takes, regardless of consequences, honesty or morality.

But is this really true when it comes to internet marketing? Are all white hat techniques good for you? Are all black hat techniques bad for you?

We all know the stereotypical good guys versus the bad guys. The good guy is always supposed to win, right? Unfortunately that truly only happens in the movies.

Lately I have been seeing a lot more products coming to market that may be considered black hat material. The concern is no longer as clear as black or white, but is now considerable much more of a grey area to even some long time marketers.

The truth of the matter is that not all black techniques were in fact always considered to be bad. Not to mention, no one really knows exactly what level of "black" can be a problem for you or your websites.

How many people can honestly say they have "never" entered one too many keywords into their website? Exactly how many is one too many? One, ten, or maybe fifty keywords? Who told you how many you can or cannot have listed? Did some search engine officially tell you that "you have too many keywords" or did they simply pull your site? The problem is they leave it up to you to "guess".

To take this a step further, how come it seems that all of the black hat techniques work much better then white hat techniques? Well, because many of them simply are better at earning you money. However, the people who determine if a technique is considered to be black hat are the ones who are also the ones who make the most money, Yep Search engines.

Now, here lies the problem. If I make $100, and you "steal" $50 from me, I will get mad. But if I make $100, and you only "earn" $25, I will be happy.

See that's because I kept more profit. See nobody likes to pay out more then they have to. After all we are all in the business of making money.

Maybe you have been around for a while, decided that you could come up with your very own techniques for "beating the system". But, see the search engines take their cue from Vegas. In Vegas card counting happens all the time. It is not truly considered illegal, IF, and only IF you can do it in your head. You cannot use any tools to help you.
However it will get you banned and blacklisted at just about ever casino worldwide. Heck, no one likes a cheat, even if you're not cheating. But you see, the house makes the rules. Rule number one is that you are not supposed to have an advantage over the house,

It was not until the casinos realized that people could get the odds in their favor that this became considered a "black" practice. Even though only a few people could do it, they frowned upon it so heavily that it became unwritten law.

Now think of your favorite big brother search engine as a "granddaddy internet casino". If you do stuff that will piss them off, then you will likely get yourself pulled from the rankings. Your sites could go from generating thousands per day to non-existence in a day. Losing your income that quickly is too much like working a real job if you ask me. When you develop new tactics of winning at the Internet Marketing / Search engine Game, then you had better keep in mind that they may not like your methods.

It is not up to me to tell you one way or the other which techniques to use for promoting your website. You can pick and choose what tactics work best for you. Are there some that will get you banned, yes. Are there some that might get you banned, yes. Are there a few that are "black" that no one even things twice about using, Yes.

Take the time to learn which ones are which. Study what the white hat techniques are, and what the black ones are. Make an informed decision on how important your business is, and what any long term effects might be to any tactic you choose to use. Like any coin, you cannot have one side without the other. The coin itself is not good or bad, but how it is used determines the outcome.