SEO the White
In the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the white wizard Sarumon goes from being wise and benevolent to sharing in the domination of Middle Earth. This character shift quite eloquently demonstrates the differences between white hat and black hat search engine optimization.
Try to remember scenes from the movies and the parallel becomes clearer. Imagine that Sarumon was not the head of an ancient order of wizards, but rather a well-respected SEO expert. Extending the analogy, imagine Sauron the Dark Lord as an evil corporate entity who seeks to hire Sarumon to put its website at the top of the search engine indices.
The point here is one of corruption and domination. Supposedly, any SEO expert can be swayed to perform black hat optimization for the right price. The Saurons of the industry want rankings at any cost; they aren’t interested in the health and relevancy of the search results. As corporations are apt to do, they want to dominate the competition by cheating rather than playing fairly.
We all have the option of becoming Sarumon, of casting aside ethics and performing black hat SEO. Of course, we can also choose to play the role of Gandalf in the whole mess. In the movies, Gandalf suffers because he refuses to join the Dark Lord but, in the end, triumphs. Meanwhile, Sarumon and his lot are left broken and defeated in Middle Earth’s equivalent of the search engine blacklist.
The lesson here is simple. Choosing white hat SEO is beneficial to the internet and the search engine indices. By playing fair and not giving in to dark desires, your site can eventually rise in the rankings past your competitors and their shady tactics. To choose otherwise is to invite your site’s eventual ruin.