Tricking the search engines just does not work. The search
engines do not look kindly upon webmasters who attempt to
deceive the search engines about the content contained on a
webpage.
1. Cloaking
Cloaking a website is a stealth technique used to provide a
copy of a web page to search engines while providing an
alternate copy to website visitors. The website copy
provided to the search engine is optimized and not always
reflective of the real content contained on the webpage.
2. Hidden Text
Another deceptive tip that will result in a search engine
ban, is done by incorporating text into a website that is
not visible to the naked eye, but is visible to search
engine spider. There are two ways that underhanded
webmasters might attempt this, the first is by changing the
font color to match the web page's background color. The
second fallacious way of deceiving the search engine using
hidden text is by using a single character like a '.'
period as a link. Black hat webmasters might attempt this
as a way to increase their websites link popularity.
3. Bad Links
While this is not as much a deceptive practice as an
indication that the webpage content has been abandoned,
links to webpages that no longer exist is an indication to
search engines that the content is no longer relevant.
4. Lack of Meta Tags
A website that does not make use of title and description
tags, will not result in a ban but could impact the ability
for a website to rank well. The title and description of a
website should be different on each and every web page.
5. Navigation Mistakes
Navigation should be "spiderable". Do not use javascript or
flash navigation, search engines can not spider javascript
menus. Adding a site map link is just not good enough, if
you do not use conventional navigational techniques, the
pages within your website will not always be indexed by the
search engines. Navigation should be logically structured,
links should not be hidden too deeply within the website or
the content contained on the buried pages will not be
considered relevant and will not rank well.
6. Valid Code
Observing the conventions of HTML are a necessity, if a
webpage's code is invalid, search engines might 'choke' and
be unable to follow the links or code. Be sure to properly
open and close all HTML code. Valid HTML is critical.
7. Keyword Stuffing
Keyword stuffing is a technique where a long list of
repetitive keywords, sometimes related sometimes unrelated
to the webpages content is used to trick search engines
into thinking the webpage is relevant. Rarely is this
effective and it is unlikely that it will artificially
inflate a websites ranking for any length of time.
8. Avoid Session IDs
Webpages within a website that uses session IDs or "ID=" in
the links will not always be recognized by search engines.
It is assumed by many search engines that when ID= appears
in the URL, that the webpage does not contain unique
content and that the webpage is not in need of indexing.
Avoid using ID= on dynamic or static web pages.
9. Nice Neighbors
Avoid listing the website in link farms. Search engines are
firm believers that you are like the company that you keep,
links should be solicited from reputable sources. Links
from spammy websites will not help a website rank well.
Many will say that there are no rules to search engine
optimization, they might be right, but the fact remains
that webmasters can influence their search engine ranking
through the tips above. Attempting to trick or fool the
search engines is a sure fire way to become banned. Search
engines have the ability to provide a consistent and steady
stream of traffic to websites, that stream can become a
trickle if you attempt to deceive.
----------------------------------------------------
Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll
http://www.feedforall.com software for creating, editing,
publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon
manages marketing for RecordForAll
http://www.recordforall.com audio recording and editing
software.
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