Using all of the SEO practices that have been discussed is designed to ensure one thing: the success and longevity of a well run site, defined and designed with the search engine’s principles for user experience and ease of ranking. As with any system that is designed to help interpret information and translate it into something that can be quantified and actionable, there is going to be the temptation to circumvent the process and skip to the front of the line.

As with any type of cheating there are consequences to this behavior, this is how long term success can be short circuited by short-term gains.

Though White Hat SEO can take time, as the processing of improvements to a site can take time, and as with any level playing field, all the competitors have the same advantages and disadvantages. Focusing on Page Rank Development is like ensuring compound interest. Small amounts of principal that sit, slowly gathering mass, gaining inertia, will eventually perform the miracle of exponential growth.

The small inputs all work together to build a positive feedback loop, much like a network economy, becoming more than the sum of its parts. Good content on a standalone page is only worth a very small amount, but surround it with all the other tags, and links and that same content becomes worth so much more.

Like a single, useless fax machine, a site is not the product of only what comprises it, but what surrounds it. Many fax machines raise the value of each one as a tool, thus the network of information is what SEO attempts to position a website inside of. This is the change that our perspective needs. White Hat SEO is about connections, not exploitation, and in the long run that’s where the value lies.