What NOT to do!
Google
places a very strong emphasis on the quality and relevancy of
their search results. As the undisputed leader in the world of
search engines, they know that in order to stay on top they must
make sure that their users are satisfied with the quality of the
search results provided. To that end, they do not take kindly
to several techniques used by many webmasters and
Search
Engine Optimization (SEO) experts. These techniques can and
will get a site banned from Google or at the very least result
in a Page Rank (PR) penalty. (PR will be discussed in more detail
later.) A list of the most common (and dangerous) techniques is
below:
Submitting
multiple URLs for the same site - An
example would be submitting mysite.com and mysite.com/index.html to their
database, thereby essentially trying to get two search results for the same
page.
Cloaking - Cloaking is having two separate pages,
one optimized for the search engines and a different one optimized for the
viewer. In other words the search engine sees one page but the user is
redirected to a different page when the link is clicked. Cloaking is a big
no-no with Google.
Doorway pages - In order to get a good listing in the search engines,
some webmasters will load the home page with keywords. But a page filled with
keywords comes across as nonsense to a human viewing the page. Therefore the
webmaster will do a redirect to another page that is much easier to read (or
have the user click a link to get to that page). This is basically cloaking. And
as we now know, cloaking is a no-no.
Hidden text - Some webmasters
will place hidden keywords on a page and make the font color the same as the
background color (for example white text on a white background). This renders
the text invisible to the human eye but the search engine spiders can still see
it. This results in a higher Page Rank and search engine listing for those
keywords. Hidden text is often used on a doorway page. Using hidden text is a
sure way to get banned from Google fast!
Hidden links - The number
of pages that link to one of your pages has a direct effect on how high your
page appears in the search results (and that page's PR). As with hiding text,
hiding links will also result in a ban or PR penalty.
What not to do
continued.....
