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The Don'ts of Search Engine Optimization ( SEO)
The things that I will talk about in this article are about what
is called in SEO "black hat" SEO. What's been talked in previous
articles are what we call "white hat" To learn more on "white
hat" strategies, refer to any of the articles above. From this
point on, it'll be about "black hat" strategies.
Black Hat What's this mysterious "black hat" SEO strategies? Is
it the latest fashion trend? No it's not a fashion trend at all.
Should I do it? Does it work with the SE's or is it just a waste
of time? The answer to these questions depend upon who you are
talking to. Many employ these strategies and continue to do so
today.
My answer to these questions is yes they do work. However, in my
opinion, Black Hat strategies are quick fixes with short term
gains. I see it as continuing to work hard and not necessarily
smart. I am lazy, so I want to do something once and let it go
from there. Black Hat strategies do not allow this. Your site
may get the rankings quick, but soon your site will be at the
back of the line. (or out of the line completely). Black Hat
involves spamming and the SE's do not like this. They will find
your site, penalize or ban it completely from the index. Then
your off again starting a whole new site employing the same
strategies. White Hat strategies start off really slow. And I
mean ssllllooooowwww.. But eventually get momentum and out last
the rest. The reason it is so slow is your at the mercy of the
search engines. Ever heard of the infamous Google Sandbox? Well
experts say it could take any new site 6-12 months to get out of
it! You kidding me? I have to wait a year to see results in
Google? Who has that kind of time? You? Definitely not me. I'm
lazy but not that lazy. I have bills to pay today, not next
year. This is why many webmasters go with black hat instead of
white hat.
Even with this flaw, white hat will pay off big in the long
hall. It will flow continuous money into your mailbox while
others are jumping around trying to get new sites started to
keep their black hat strategies going.
What Not To Do? Ok, ok, you have me convinced. I do not want to
go with the black hat strategies. But what would be considered
black hat? How can I avoid it? Just hold on a second. I'm
getting there. Didn't I tell you I was lazy. The rest of the
article is focused on the things not to do. By the time I am
done, you will know what not to do to your website to not get it
banned. There are 2 ways of spamming. On-page and off-page.
Sounds familiar? Same factors to help you rank well are the same
that can get you penalized or banned. Let's start with our own
backyard. Your thinking...Yea, yea I know "As momma always told
you." Yep. See your getting it!
On-page
Keyword Stuffing First up to bat, keyword stuffing. What is
that, you may ask. Almost sounds like some food. Making me
hungry just thinking about it. I'll take some chicken with a
side of chicken stuffing, mash potatoes and keyword stuffing
please. Anyway, in my opinion, there are 2 forms of keyword
stuffing. I call them keyword list stuffing and keyword body
stuffing. They will not get your site banned, but it won't rank
you well either. Let's get into the first one, keyword list
stuffing.
Keyword List This involves adding every word known to your niche
in the meta keywords. You see a website with meta keywords and
it is stuffed full with 1000 or so keywords. Look like they got
the dictionary and started writing. Seriously. As funny as it
sounds, there are websites out there that do this. People, this
not going to get you ranked. It will not get you banned, but
definitely will not get your ranked on the first million pages!!
Some SE's do not even read the list to begin with. Keep it
short. No need to add the A-F section of the dictionary to your
keyword list.
Keyword Body This is the process of taking your keyword list
(Probably too big to begin with) and repeating it all over the
page. It makes no sense to the user, just a bunch of words all
over the place. I haven't seen this much, and I hope I do not.
Will not help you in anyway.
Also, while we are on the subject, over using the keywords is a
no, no. Some websites will take their main keyword and repeat
over and over and over. You'll see it in the Title, meta
description, everywhere. This strategy will get you banned or
penalized. Again, it's an attempt to appear more relevant than
the website really is. I have seen the tactic work, but not for
long. If your ranked well, and you put in your main keyword and
you suddenly see a site up that has no business being there.
Check back again in a few days and you'll see that site gone.
The Invisible KeyWord Sounds like a Super Hero. When there is
trouble with ranking your website, call "The Invisible KeyWord"
No, please do not! He is a enemy, not a hero. This is involves
taking your keywords, put them on the body of your website and
make the color of the font the same color as the background of
the website. It's invisible to you or I, but visible to SE's.
It's a process of spam to make the website appear more relevant
because it has the keywords in the body. SE's have caught onto
this tactic and you will be penalized or banned for this. I have
seen this tactic done. But I have the visible ink. One way to
tell, is when you visit a website and you see a big blank space
at the bottom or somewhere towards the bottom, take your mouse,
point and try to highlight the space. When it highlights, it
will reveal the words!!
Formatting Keywords This is when you bold, italicize, or
underline every keyword on the website. There is no need to
emphasize every word. Now you know those words are not that
important in every sentence. Come on now! Just once is fine.
Twice at the most. This tactic could end up backfiring. The SE's
will give less importance to the words.
Excessive Link Pages This is having too many links on one page.
Normally, it's 100 or more that's a problem. Experts have
difference numbers that they believe will hurt. I believe 100 is
most agreed upon that will hurt your SE rankings. A rule of
thumb I try to do is stay with around 15-25 links on one page.
Anything more than that can create clutter on your website. It
will make it difficult for your surfers. Besides that, it does
not help the websites you are linking to. If a surfer cannot
find their site because it's buried on a page with over 100
links, do not expect any traffic.
Missing Title I just had to put this in there. This won't get
you penalized or banned, but since this article is about what
not to do, I had to talk about this. This is so common among
websites. You would be surprised at how many websites do not
have a Title at all. Makes you want to put a ad up on the back
of a milk box. "Has anyone seen this Title"? or a Wanted sign in
the Post office Wanted "Website Title" $1000 reward if found.
This is so big. This is one of the top reasons why websites do
not rank period. Just this one change alone could move a website
from the 100millionth page to the millionth page. What is your
site about? Why should I click on it?
Off-page
I really shouldn't call this off-page. Technically it's really
not, but I wanted to make a clear difference here. The
difference between on-page and off-page is on-page is the way
you set your site up. Off-page involves more of the linking
side. You cannot really help who links to you and SE's know
this. That's why I am not talking about that kind of off-page.
You'll see more of what I mean as you read along.
Link Farms Link Farms? What is this? Is this where links are
raised before sent out to the internet? Not quite. Link farms
are a bunch of webmasters getting together to setup 1000's of
sites and pointing the links towards each other. There are a few
ways of accomplishing this. When you do your link campaign,
stick with hard reciprocal linking. Many are not aware, but
there are link director sites like PowerLinks or Linkvault that
brag about helping your build links fast. These are essentially
link farms. Avoid them like the plague. How do you know? The red
flag is usually when you have to add some kind of script to your
website in order to do a link exchange. Don't do it. Again,
short term success, but short term gains.
Banned / Penalized Sites Again, you cannot control who links to
you, but you have full control over who you link to. Avoid
linking to other penalized or banned sites. This can eventually
affect you. Why? Remember, a link pointing to a site is a vote.
So your voting for this banned or penalized site that the SE's
have stated is bad news. If your voting for them, then that must
mean your site is also bad news. Ever heard of the saying,
"Birds of a feather, flock together?" I have. It's another one
of the sayings that didn't make sense to me until later on in
life.
How do I know if I am linking to someone that is banned? The
easiest way to do this is by checking the pagerank of the site
you are linking to. You can download the Google Toolbar to do
this. If you see a grey bar for the pagerank. It's been banned.
Now, do not confuse a 0 PR with a penalized site. Having a PR of
0 does not mean the site has been penalized. It'll be grey'd out
if it is penalized.
That's all for now folks. I'm sure there will be other tactic's
that will arise as SE's catch them. Malicious webmasters will
continue to look for quick, easy ways to beat the SE's. The SE's
will catch it, update their alogorithms and the cycle will
continue. It's a endless cycle as to why I say "white hat"
eventually will out last the "black hat" and flow continuous
surfers to your site producing tons of money. White hat
strategies will hold up through all the changes to the SE's. The
choice is always yours. Whatever works for you. Good luck and
happy optimizing.
John Cal
Adult Entertainment Online Shopping Ebooks & Digital
Products
About the author:
SEO Expert