White Hat Link Building: Where Google Draws the Line
White hat link building is earning links that someone at another site chooses to give, by methods that stay off Google's list of link spam. On 10 November 2026 that list, in the Link spam section of Google's spam policies (last updated 28 August 2026), held eleven examples, and the words white hat and black hat appeared nowhere on the page: Google's word for the far side of the line is spam.
Two of the ten results on page one for white hat link building put safety in their titles. Google's rules sort nothing by safety or by hat: they publish a definition and a list of examples. This post reads the parts that bear on links and sets each kind of link building against them in one table, with who decides the link and, where it is measured or documented, whether the link is usually followed. Then white hat vs black hat SEO in plain words, where directory submission sits and what a white hat link building service should answer before you hire one.
Google's link spam list has eleven examples, and editorial links, digital PR, resource pages and broken link building are not among them. What splits the kinds is who decides the link: an editor, a directory or the person who wants it. A directory decides by rules it prints, and a fee there can buy speed: AI Tools Inc's $129 Fast Lane leads with “Skip the line”. Of the 189 directories and launch sites we submit to, 147 ask nothing of your site and our catalog records a followed link at 116. For $29, Submitator files 30 of them, every one your pick, and keeps every badge live.
Where Google draws the line: its link spam policy
Google's spam policies run to 16 headings, and Link spam is the one that decides what white hat link building means in practice. It opens with one sentence: “Link spam is the practice of creating links to or from a site primarily for the purpose of manipulating search rankings.” Eleven examples follow, from link exchanges to forum signatures.
The page says plainly what happens to a site on the wrong side of it: “Sites that violate our policies may rank lower in results or not appear in results at all.” It also says how such sites are found: “We detect policy-violating practices both through automated systems and, as needed, human review that can result in a manual action.”
Older guides call the same practices link schemes, after the guideline Google used to publish under that name. Its old addresses now redirect to the Link spam section, so the list on the spam policies page is the current text and the one this post quotes.
What Google asks for instead
The spam page lists what not to do. The positive half sits on two other Search Central pages. The SEO Starter Guide (last updated 10 December 2025) says “Other sites linking to you is something that happens naturally over time, and you can also encourage people to discover your content by promoting your site.” And among its key best practices, Search Essentials (last updated 10 December 2025) lists “Tell people about your site. Be active in communities where you can tell like-minded people about your services and products that you mention on your site.”
Read together, those two lines are as close as Google comes to describing white hat link building, and neither uses the phrase: links that arrive because people found the page, and promotion that puts the page in front of the people who might link to it.
Natural, organic and ethical link building
Natural link building, organic link building and ethical link building are three names for the first half: links nobody asked for, given because a page was worth citing. White hat SEO link building takes in the second half as well, the outreach, launches and listings that tell people a page exists, while the decision to link stays with them. What makes a given backlink worth having once it exists is a question of its own, answered in our post on high quality backlinks.
White hat link building techniques, set against Google's list
Every kind of link building lands somewhere on that list or off it. The table puts each kind beside what the Link spam section says about it, quoted where it names the kind, and adds the question that settles most cases: who chooses whether the link exists?
White hat link building techniques and the rest, against Google's list of link spam
| Kind of link building | What Google's link spam list says | Who decides the link | Is it usually followed? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Earned editorial links | Not named | The writer or editor of the linking page | The linking site's call |
| Digital PR | Not named | Journalists and their outlets | Each outlet's own policy |
| Resource pages | Not named | The curator of the list | The curator's call |
| Broken link building | Not named | The owner of the page with the dead link | That site's call |
| Directories and launch sites | “Low-quality directory or bookmark site links”, read in our post on web directories | The directory, under rules it publishes: a review, a queue or a badge check | Followed on our catalog's record at 116 of the 189 we submit to |
| Directory badges and link-backs | No example uses the word; badges are covered in our post on reciprocal links | The directory sets the condition; the badge sits on your site | The badge links to the directory; the rel of your listing is the directory's |
| Guest posts | Not named on its own | The host site's editor | The host's call |
| Link exchanges | “Excessive link exchanges ("Link to me and I'll link to you") or partner pages exclusively for the sake of cross-linking” | The two site owners, by agreement | Whatever the two agree |
| Private blog networks (PBNs) | Not named as such | The network's operator, not an outside editor | Whatever the operator sets |
| Link-creating software: comment, profile and wiki blasts | Named in the example on automated programs, which our post on automated link building reads | The program; nobody at the receiving site | The receiving site's rule for links its users post |
| Forum and blog comments | “Forum comments with optimized links in the post or signature” | You, the commenter | Google's SEO Starter Guide asks sites to give every user-posted link “a nofollow or similar annotation” |
Quotes in the second column are copied exactly from the Link spam section of Google's spam policies (developers.google.com/search/docs/essentials/spam-policies, last updated 28 August 2026), read on 10 November 2026. "Not named" means no example in that section names the kind; guest posts appear inside a longer example, not as one of their own. The section has 11 examples and the table quotes three. The comment row's link rule is from Google's SEO Starter Guide (last updated 10 December 2025), read the same day. Directories: the 189 launch sites and AI, SaaS and software directories in our catalog export of 3 November 2026 that carry no intercept flag. A row counts as followed on our record when our admin marks its link dofollow and no census of its listings has flagged it as passing no equity. The third column is our reading of how each kind works; no column says how Google treats any one site, and no site is named in the table.
Read the third column. The four kinds the list never names (earned editorial links, digital PR, resource pages and broken link building) all end with someone else's yes. Most of the lines it does print describe links made by the person who wants them: comments that carry them and swaps agreed between two sites. Guest posts sit in between, since an editor publishes them, and the list mentions them inside a longer example rather than as a tactic of their own. Directories sit in between too, and they get a section of their own below.
White hat link building strategies: the four the list never names
The strategies that end in someone else's yes share one shape: make something worth linking to, then show it to the person who decides. A number from your own product for a writer to cite, a story a journalist can run, a useful page for a resource list, a live replacement for a dead link. How to run each of them, ranked by cost and by who decides, is in our post on where backlinks come from; this page keeps to where they sit on Google's line.
White hat outreach
From the outside, white hat and black hat outreach look the same: an email asking for a link. The offer inside the email is what tells them apart. White hat outreach points to the page, says why it helps the reader of the page it is pitched to and leaves the choice with the editor. Outreach that offers a link back in return turns the same email into the exchange line of the table.
White hat vs black hat SEO, and gray hat in between
White hat SEO is search work that stays inside a search engine's published rules: pages written for people, links Google can crawl, promotion that tells people the site exists. Black hat SEO is work built to get around those rules. Google's word for it is spam, and its policies open by defining it: “In the context of Google Search, spam refers to techniques used to deceive users or manipulate our Search systems into featuring content prominently”. The 16 policy headings read as a catalogue of black hat SEO, from cloaking, keyword stuffing and sneaky redirects to link spam.
Black hat link building
Black hat link building is the link half of that catalogue: private blog networks built to link out, link farms, software that posts links by the thousand, links planted on sites that were broken into, swaps run at volume. The label describes tactics, not companies. What the tactics share is that the person who wants the link creates it or trades for it, and the cost Google names is the one quoted above: a lower ranking, or no place in the results at all.
Gray hat SEO and grey hat link building
Gray hat SEO (grey hat in British spelling) is the ground in between: tactics where the person who wants the link still makes it, in a form or at a scale that no example on the list spells out. Grey hat link building is anchor text tuned to a keyword without quite being stuffed, or a comment that reads as helpful and was posted for its link. Google closes the gap in one sentence: “Our policies cover common spam practices, but Google may act against any type of spam practices we detect.” The list is a set of examples, not a boundary, so the test that holds is the third column of the table: who decides the link.
Where directory submission sits on Google's line
Is directory submission white hat? Google gives no tactic a hat, so put the table's question to a listing: who decides the link? A listing is a page a directory publishes about your product, under rules the directory writes. Some read every submission and turn some down, some look for their badge on your site, some sell a shorter wait. AI Tools Inc prints “No guaranteed placement” on its free card, and its $129 Fast Lane opens with “Skip the line”; none of the Fast Lane's six lines mentions a link. Our terms put the timing on the same side: “Many directories run their own review queues and approval times”. On the table's test, the directory decides.
Google's list mentions directories once, in “Low-quality directory or bookmark site links”. That line gets its full reading in our post on web directories, set against the directories people actually browse.
What a listing asks of you is printed directory by directory: 147 of the 189 we submit to want nothing on your site, 42 want their badge or a link back and 116 pass a followed link on our record. The startup directories table prints each of them with its rating, its link type and what it asks of your site.
A badge is a link back from your site to the directory that lists you, and our post on reciprocal links covers badges in full, directory by directory. With us, the badges your picks require sit in one component on your site; after that, every badge staying up is our work, not a commit you make per directory.
A listing is not an editorial link and we do not sell it as one; no label of ours settles where Google puts it either. It is a page another site publishes under its own rules, about a product that exists, for the people who browse that site. Our catalog prints what each directory asks of you before you file, and filing that layer is what we do.
AI Tools Inc: $129 for one Fast Lane listing. Submitator: $29 for 30 directories.
Pick 30 from the 189 directories and launch sites we submit to; we write each description, fill each form and keep every badge live. 60 for $49, 100 for $79, paid once.
White hat link building services: what they sell and what to ask
A white hat link building service sells people's time spent winning the kinds at the top of the table: outreach to editors and to the curators of resource pages, digital PR, offers to replace dead links, content made to be cited and sometimes articles written for other sites. Most charge per link or by the month, and our post on link building services sets out what those prices come to; the agencies that work for software companies are priced in our post on SaaS link building. Submitator is not one of them: it sells no outreach and no editorial links, and files directory submissions, the row of the table where the directory decides.
Questions for a white hat link building agency or company
- Which sites, and who runs them? Get the domains in writing before anything is placed, open a few pages on each and ask which of them the service owns. Owning a site is not the problem; keeping quiet about it is.
- Who decides to publish? Ask who at each site says yes to the link, and whether they ever say no. Where nobody at the site can refuse, the service is deciding for itself, which is the line the table draws.
- Where does the link sit, and is it followed? A link inside an article, one in a list and one in an author bio are different links. Open a live one and check the rel attribute on it (our post on dofollow and nofollow shows how).
- What happens if a link goes? Links get removed and pages get rebuilt. Ask whether a link lost in the first months is replaced, placed again or written off.
- What does the report show? Each link's live address and the date it went up, or a number?
Put to us, the questions get short answers. The sites: every directory we submit to is named in our catalog beside its Domain Rating, what it asks of your site and the link type on our record, and the two that belong to us, AlterBase and AffyList, carry a mark saying so; you choose yours in the dashboard, each with its Domain Rating showing. The yes: each directory's, under its own rules, and when one turns a submission down, one more directory is added to your selection by default for you to pick in its place (All Directories aside, since it holds the whole catalog already). A listing that goes: Scale lists re-submission if removed. The report: each of our three plans comes with real-time tracking and a detailed report.
The directory layer, filed for you
Directories are the row of the table a new site can start on in its first week, and they are the part Submitator does: 189 directories and launch sites, each one added to our catalog after a submission to it ran end to end. You choose the ones that fit your product; the filing is ours from there. We write a separate description for every directory, sized to the limits of its form, and complete each form on our side; no CAPTCHA ever reaches you.
We push each live listing's page through IndexMachine; that push is the free indexing ($25 value) attached to Starter, Growth and Scale. You connect nothing, and what gets indexed is still up to Google.
The timing is in writing: most directories are delivered in 24 to 48 hours, every directory within 21 days at most. A refund can be requested within 30 days of purchase, on the conditions in our terms.
Each plan is paid once: Starter, 30 directories for $29; Growth, 60 for $49; Scale, 100 for $79; All Directories, $149 for the catalog as it stands and each directory that joins after. AI Tools Inc, an AI directory in that catalog, asks $129 for one Fast Lane listing, marked “(one-time fee)”, and we file there on its free card; $29 with us is 30 directories, under a dollar a directory.
Sources for the text. Google pages, each read on 10 November 2026 and quoted character-exact: the spam policies (last updated 28 August 2026), the SEO Starter Guide (last updated 10 December 2025) and Search Essentials (last updated 10 December 2025); the count of 16 is the policy headings on the spam policies page, leaving out its closing section on other practices, and the eleven examples are the top-level items of the Link spam list. The words white hat, black hat and gray or grey hat were searched for on all three pages that day. The 2012 post is "Another step to reward high-quality sites" on Google's Search Central blog, dated 24 April 2012 and read on 10 November 2026. The old link schemes addresses (support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66356 and the link-schemes guideline on developers.google.com) were followed one redirect at a time to the Link spam section. Page one: the 10 results in Google US for white hat link building, collected on 10 November 2026. AI Tools Inc: its submit page (aitools.inc/submit), read on 10 November 2026, where the free card prices the listing at $0 and the Fast Lane card at $129 with six lines under it. Catalog figures come from our export of 3 November 2026: the 189 rows with a category and no intercept flag, AlterBase and AffyList among them. Followed: the admin's dofollow with no no-equity mark. A badge is counted where the row's badge rule is optional or required or its link depends on the badge. The sentence on directory queues is from the Refund Policy in our terms. Our founder describes the work on an order: a description written for each directory, CAPTCHAs dealt with on our side, one badge component kept up, a full test run before any directory enters the catalog and the IndexMachine push; that we file AI Tools Inc on its free card is from our guide to it. Our pricing page carries the prices, plan features and indexing bonus, and our terms the delivery times, the extra directory after a rejection and the refund window. No sentence here promises rankings, a higher Domain Rating or indexing, says how Google treats a particular site or alleges a penalty against anyone.
FAQ
What is white hat link building?
Getting other sites to link to yours by methods that stay clear of Google's list of link spam, so that each link exists because someone at the other site chose it: a writer citing your page, a journalist covering your story, a curator adding you to a resource list. On 10 November 2026 that list, in Google's spam policies, held eleven examples, and white hat work avoids every one of them.
What are white hat backlinks?
Backlinks the linking site gave on its own decision. To check one, open the page, find your link, read its rel and ask who put it there. If the answer is an editor or a curator, it is a kind Google's list never names; if it is you, through a comment or a swap, it is a kind the list does name.
What is gray hat SEO?
The ground between white hat and black hat: tactics where the person who wants a link still makes it, in a form or at a scale that no example on Google's list spells out. Grey hat link building is the link version, anchor text tuned to a keyword without quite being stuffed, for example. Google's page answers the idea in one sentence: "Our policies cover common spam practices, but Google may act against any type of spam practices we detect."
Is black hat SEO legal?
Google's spam policies are the rules for appearing in its results, and the cost they name is visibility: "Sites that violate our policies may rank lower in results or not appear in results at all." Some tactics go further than a broken rule. Google's own policy on hacked content describes content "placed on a site without permission, due to vulnerabilities in a site's security". Whether a given tactic breaks a law depends on the tactic and on where you are, which is a question for a lawyer.
Does Google use the terms white hat and black hat?
Not in its rules. On 10 November 2026 the words appeared nowhere in Google's spam policies, its SEO Starter Guide or Search Essentials, whose terms are spam, link spam and the 16 named policies. A Search Central blog post of 24 April 2012 did put "white hat SEO" and "black hat webspam" in quote marks, as other names for ethical SEO and for webspam. The hats are the SEO trade's words for staying inside the rules or working around them.
Is directory submission white hat?
Google gives no tactic a hat. Its spam policies name directories in one example, "Low-quality directory or bookmark site links", and the question this page puts to every kind of link is who decides it. On a directory, the directory does, under rules it prints, and directories do turn submissions down. We submit to 189 directories and launch sites, 147 of which ask nothing of your site, and our catalog prints each one's Domain Rating, badge rule and link type.
How do you know if a link building service is white hat?
Ask it four things in writing. Which sites, and which of them does it own? Who at each site decides to publish the link, and do they ever say no? Where does the link sit, and with what rel? What happens if the link goes, and what does the report show? A service that names its sites and lets you see each one is selling someone else's decision; one that sells a count of links from sites it will not name is selling its own.
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Their $129: one Fast Lane listing. Our $29: 30 directories.
AI Tools Inc's Fast Lane is $129 for one listing, $50 more than our 100-directory plan. Submitator is $29 for 30 directories you pick and $79 for 100, one payment, with a description written for each and every badge kept live.