Top Ten Ways To Get Banned From Google
Posted Thursday 10th September 2009 by Tobias in SEO.
Top SEO Tips
The Google webmasters help forum is constantly filled with pleas for help from budding webmasters asking for SEO wisdom on why their site is not being indexed by Google, or has recently disappeared from rankings. Sometimes it can be a rather complex issue however a sudden drop in rankings or complete disappearance from Google can usually be accounted for by one of the following ten reasons:
Malicious Content
This is one of the least common occurrences, however is guaranteed to get you banned from Google. If you are hosting malicious content, including viruses or phishing material then this will be picked up and the penalties are severe. It is not so common as most webmasters have control over their content and do not support this sort of content, however if you are hacked or are hosting other sites/blogs on the same server that you do not have control over, there is a possibility.
Link Spamming
Links are certainly good currency for SEO however the Googlebot returns to your site and you are 1000s of links better off than you once were then you can get penalised. This comes from link farming or paid linking which is strongly against Google’s rules. Links should be sourced organically and the best way to do this is develop quality content which people will link to.
Hidden Links
All links and content should be visible and you should be linking to sites that are reputable. Often webmasters run into trouble with comments on blogs or forums that are to malicious sites, or sites which host Spammy or malicious content. Outbound links on your site should visible and to reputable and relevant sources.
Hidden Text
An old black hat trick is to include text that is the same colour as the background to boost your keyword density. Google can see straight through this and will penalise your site. Your content needs to be visible and with an organic keyword density. A good screening method is to ensure that it sounds appropriate when reading out loud. It should certainly be keyword specific and with a healthy keyword density, however too much and you can run into trouble.
Cloaking
This is another tried and tested black hat technique which Google has been aware of for some time. Cloaking refers to when the content on a user’s browser is different to that which is crawled by the search engine spider. Most of the time webmasters will be employing this method knowingly however if you are partnered with a disreputable SEO or web development company they could do it without your knowledge.
Doorway Pages
Also known as bridge or portal pages, they are often keyword specific landing pages generated by scripting languages. They will appear in search engine listings then redirect you using meta refresh, Java or server redirect, to a page that has nothing to do with that search term. These pages will often contain malicious or Spammy content and are potentially devastating for SEO.
Keyword Stuffing
This is an old black hat technique often used in conjunction with the formerly mentioned hidden content where masses of keywords are jammed into a webpage, usually the same colour as the background. Another technique is to stuff keywords into the meta description section of your CMS. As previously stated, content needs to have an organic keyword density and all content needs to be visible in order to maximise a page for SEO.
Duplicate Content
It is often said that content is king however we believe that only unique content is king. Google’s duplicate content filter is often a point of contention however if you are copying large chunks of content from another source and passing it off as your own then Google will penalise you. The interpretation of the duplicate content filter for content based linking strategies is different to copying content and posting it on your website. This can happen without your knowledge however there are steps that can be taken to protect your site.
HTML Code
The W3C set the standard of what HTML code is, current versions is HTML 4.01 and XHTML 1.1. For example, style definitions and JavaScript code should be put in external files, so the amount of code in an html document is kept to a minimum. There should also be a correlative code to content ratio on any webpage. Failure to comply will result in a drop in rankings.
Page Rank Spoofing
The page rank of a any site is readily available using the Google toolbar and it refers to how Google evaluates your site. It uses an algorithm to provide a numeric valuation based on everything that can be accessed by Googlebot. This numeric value can be manipulated by 302 Google Jacking, basically using a 302 server redirect [or meta refresh tag] to a website with higher page rank, then the next time Google indexes the site, the non ranking site will pick up the higher page rank. However questionable page ranks will be checked and spoofing will be penalised.
Related Posts
- SEO Basics: Writing SEO Friendly Content
- Search Engine Optimisation and HTML Validation
- Google Offers A Helping Hand To Webmasters
- Negative SEO: What It Is And How To Protect Against It
- Google Pagerank
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