Ten Search Engine Optimization Mistakes to Avoid

Why has my website's rank decreased in the major search engines?

If you are asking yourself this question, then you may have been a victim of being penalized by the search engines for performing illegal Search Engine Optimization techniques within your website. If this is the case you may have possibly been banned completely and in order to resolve the problem, you must first assess what you did wrong.

After you've narrowed down the potential problem, you should act to fix it as soon as possible and then resubmit your website to be re-included in the appropriate search engine.

Below are ten things that should be avoided at all costs when performing Search Engine Optimization for your website. If you happen to use one of these techniques listed below, then you are sure to be penalized or banned in one or all of the major search engines.

For help or more information on performing search engine optimization for your website, contact Hudson Horizons today.

1. Keyword Stuffing is the act of repeating keywords within your website without any relevant context to the page. This can be done within the code, hidden text, Meta Tags or even in the body of your page content. Search engines will pickup the excessive amount of keywords being used within your site and penalize you for keyword stuffing.


2. Unrelated Keywords " Many website owners attempt to gain search engine exposure by using unrelated, but popular, keywords that do no relate to their website or the content on that page. An example of this is if someone uses a famous person's name in their keywords or Meta tags in order to come up when that person is searched for. This technique is considered spam by the search engines and can cause your page or even your entire website to be banned from the search engine directory.


3. Hidden Text is a technique of purposely hiding text on the page that is not visible to the user in an attempt to manipulate the search engines with more relevant content. Search engines pick up content, whether it's hidden or not, and will detect the hidden text and penalize you for using it.


4. Cloaking is a process of your site displaying different pages under different circumstances. Its primary use is to display an optimized page to the search engines and a normal viewable page to the end-user. The search engines will detect that you're trying to trick the search engines by displaying a false optimized page and will penalize your for cloaking.


5. Doorway Pages are pages that are created in an attempt to rank your pages higher in the search engines. It is normally an optimized page that is displayed to the search engines but when a user visits the actual page, it will direct them to another viewable page. Doorway pages are a thing of the past and are not recommended for use.


6. Redirects are segments of code used to direct the user automatically from one page to another when the page loads. This is border-line because some search engines may take these to be a type of doorway page. The use of redirects in your site should try to be avoided at all costs.


7. Duplicate Sites or Mirror Sites is the act of duplicating your website, with very similar content and even a different domain name, in an attempt to increase your sites exposure with multiple websites. This is highly frowned upon and if detected, will result in your website being penalized or possibly banned.


8. Interlinking is the act of linking two similar websites together in an attempt to increase your rank in the search engines. It is usually frowned up and should be avoided at all cost.


9. Automated Search Engine Submission " avoid automated submission tools that claim to submit to directories or hundreds of search engines because many rarely submit to the proper location, so directory editors will just ignore your site. Make sure that if you submit your website, you either submit it manually or you use a program that integrates directly with Google and Yahoo! and performs Automated Sitemap Submission.


10. Doing Nothing " doing nothing is just as bad as doing one of these items above. In order to get displayed in the top pages of a search engine, you must perform Search Engine Optimization for your website. Click here for 10 steps to follow to increase your website's rank in the major search engines.

For more information or help with Search Engine Optimization for your website, contact Hudson Horizonstoday.

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