What is Gray/Grey Hat SEO?

Grey Hat SEO is a search engine optimisation technique that lies between White Hat SEO and Black Hat SEO. It combines elements of both approaches, making it a middle-ground strategy. This method is considered effective and suitable for most types of websites, as it can deliver good results without causing major harm.

Although Grey Hat SEO techniques are generally less powerful than White Hat SEO, they still help reduce the risk of penalties from algorithm updates, which is a common issue with Black Hat practices.

A Fact: Many website owners who manage SEO themselves, or even those who hire digital marketing consultants, often do not realise that they are using Grey Hat SEO techniques. This is mainly because the term is not clearly defined—it is neither fully White Hat nor entirely Black Hat SEO.

For example:

Situation #1: A “general category blog” is linking to a “website” which is relevant to a “particular topic”.

Situation #2: The same “general category blog” is asking for a fee to link back to the “same website” from the same “particular topic”.

In this case, the situations are partly in favour of Google’s guidelines (for earned links) and partly against them (for paid links). But consider this: if visitors coming from a general blog find the linked website genuinely useful for information on that specific topic—even if it is a paid link—then what? Will Google classify it as Black Hat or White Hat? Honestly, there is no clear answer!

This is exactly the kind of scenario that falls under Grey Hat SEO. It sits in the middle ground—it can either increase your website traffic or, in some cases, decrease it. That is why it is extremely important to understand Grey Hat SEO techniques in depth before applying them for a successful SEO campaign.