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Free Website Content
Common Errors that Kill Search Engine Ranking
Killing Search Ranking
By Sharon Housley
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.
About the Author:
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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This article may be used freely in opt-in
publications and websites, provided that the resource
box is included and the links are active. A courtesy
copy of the issue or a link to any online posting would
be greatly appreciated send an email to sharon@notepage.net
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at http://www.small-business-software.net/free-website-content.htm
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