(Want to trust a web marketer, but you’ve been burned before? We understand. Read our page on web marketing and see how you feel).

Search engine optimization (or SEO) started out as a trick. Back in the late 90s and early 2000s, SEO techniques were generally straightforward manipulations of search engines. For this, and other reasons, SEO companies still have a bad reputation. If you’re making up your mind about whether to hire one or even to engage in search engine optimization at all, we’ll explain where this reputation came from, why SEO is still important, and how to separate white hat from black hat.

These terms originated from old westerns of course. But in a search engine context a good working definition is:

White hat SEO techniques generally aim at working with Google and with it’s goal of providing people with the content they want to see, Black hat SEO techniques typically focus on tricking Google into ranking a site higher, without providing any more value.

Examples of black hat SEO techniques include some of the now-outdated practices like stuffing keywords into the footers of pages that are the same color as the background or creating doorway pages that show humans one thing and search engines another.

White hat SEO techniques include making sure your site is easy to navigate, or creating high-quality content that attracts people.

Besides the obvious problem that black hat SEO is rather unethical, it’s not a good idea to contract a firm that uses black hat SEO because in the long run, these techniques are almost always punished by Google.

The goal of Google is to make it easy for users to find whatever content they’re looking for. The goal is to serve users . Black hat SEO hurts users by giving poor content an unfair advantage using crude technical hacks.  As Google’s algorithms are update twice a day, one can be sure that if a Black Hat SEO technique works, it’s only temporary.

Companies have fallen apart overnight in the past because they trusted black hat firms and wound up  completely blacklisted by Google. A single update can be all that stands between black hat SEO and total catastrophe. For instance, in 2006, BMW (yes, the gigantic automobile company) was completely removed from Google’s index for using doorway pages. It was later restored after the site returned to acceptably white-hat practice.

You should always make sure that your SEO company is using techniques that are perfectly on the level. However, even if you employ the whitest of white hat firms, there are still some facts of SEO that inevitably frustrate business.

This last point is a particular headache for businesses. Time was, a company could confidently write twenty thousand dollar checks to marketing firms because they knew they’d see return on investment. These days, some companies are reluctant to give 500 dollars to an SEO firm because they have no idea what will become of that money.

I feel it’s important to stay on this point for a second – this is an extremely big deal. This is what the Being Found Help Center is all about. The confusion and resulting lack of confidence demonstrated by businesses has had huge ramifications for our economy.

Because of the Internet, marketing doesn’t work anymore. If accounting or human resources or logistics suddenly stopped working, then you can imagine how disruptive that would be.

The fact that SEO experts, who are the only ones with any inkling of how marketing suddenly works now, are so distrusted is a hugely significant fact. Many SEO companies have abused trust. Many businesses refused to learn the rules. Anyone who doesn’t solve this problem for their company will be at a serious disadvantage in the future.

First of all, SEO companies do need to find better ways to communicate what they do and why it matters. And there are too many unscrupulous SEO companies out there for sure. Much of the onus is on SEO companies to communicate better.

But if you’re a company wondering how to better navigate in this world, there are a few things you can do to feel confident in an outsourced SEO firm:

Make sure their techniques are firmly white hat: Black hat techniques may work in the short term, but they’re always punished eventually. You don’t want someone to call you in the middle of the night one day and inform you that your website has been blacklisted. Make sure that whoever you work with keeps customer expectations in their mind.

Understand enough about SEO that you can quantify the work: I really hate to say this, because so many businesses have been so abused by slick search engine snake oil salesmen. But if everything your SEO firm says to you goes in one ear and out the other, the problem is on your end.

SEO is hard to understand, but so was the old paradigm of marketing. You have to know enough to understand your strategy. You have to somehow find the time to become educated. SEO has existed for a while, and anyone trying to learn it now will wind up feeling like they’ve started watching a movie right in the middle. But there are plenty of resources to help catch up. If you don’t know which ones to trust, Moz’s guide for beginners is an excellent place to start.

Don’t give up: Whether white hat or black hat, sometimes things just don’t work. As I said, no one really understands Google. But don’t turn your back on search engines because of bad experiences. People use Google in the middle of conversations. They use Google in the middle of buying products. SEO isn’t going to become less important anytime soon, poor reputation or no. Whatever you do, you can’t give up.