avoid these search engine optimization pitfalls

there are a lot of sites out there providing information on how to improve your site's visibility to the search engines. but it is just as important to know what NOT to do, as making a single mistake can relegate your site to the bottom of the search engine pit - and we all know how deep that pit is!

so here are a few things to avoid when designing/developing a site:

1. cloaking is presenting one set of content to a user, but different content to a search engine. ^[1][2] BMW did this on their german site and got nailed by google, losing an untold amount of page views while its page, rank was set to zero. ouch.

2. do not join link schemes, commonly referred to as link farms.^[1][2][6] external links play a major role in how a site is ranked^[2], but do not give into the temptation to join link farms, whose only reason for existence is to influence search rankings.^[3] being a member of a link farm can be grounds for expulsion from search engine rankings!^[4]

3. do not try to stuff extra keywords or links on the page by hiding them.^[1][2][6] the techniques used to hide text vary: matching text color with background color, sizing the font to zero, placing the text behind images, or hiding the text via css; but the results are the same - search engines will deem your site untrustworthy!^[5]

4. do no overuse keywords. keywords have a positive impact on your search ranking, but overusing them can turn this positive into a negative.^[2][7] keyword stuffing can occur in the meta tags, title tag, url and even in the page text as was found by Matt Cutts, who found 50k worth of terms, including "plasma tv advanced chart" on a page hawking eternal youth rings ^[7] So use keywords - but use them judiciously!

there is one common thread that runs through these techniques; they are all born out of a desire to game the search engine rankings. if you are concentrating on providing valid, relevant information to your audience, then none of these issues will be a problem for you.

if you are interested in reading further, a good place to start is google's own Webmaster guidelines as well as yahoo!'s Search Content Quality Guidelines.

thanks for reading.


^[1]Webmaster Guidelines, © 2009 Google, last updated: august 19, 2009
^[2]Search Engine Ranking Factors, seomoz.org, viewed on november 3, 2009
^[3]Link Schemes, © 2009 Google, last updated: june 10, 2009
^[4]Information on Link Farms, © 2008-2009 Internet Search Engine Monitoring Center, november 3, 2009
^[5]Hidden Text and Links, © 2009 Google, last updated: june 10, 2009
^[6]Yahoo! Search Content Quality Guidelines, © 2009 Yahoo!, last updated: october 27, 2009
^[7]Avoid Keyword Stuffing, © 2009 Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO, blog date: july, 25, 2007