by Jerry Minchey

Here are 3 popular search engine ranking techniques that can get you banned by Google and the other search engines. They may work for a short time, but if you use any of these techniques, you're on borrowed time. Sooner or later you will get banned. (There are other ways to get banned by Google, but these 3 techniques are the ones that most banned sites are guilty of using.)

It's quite possible that if you're banned by Google, your site may never get reinstated. Even if you are finally "forgiven" by Google, it could still take several months to get relisted and then you still won't get your original PageRank back for a long time, if ever. Most people just start over when they get banned. Getting banned by Google is a serious matter.

Here are the 3 most abused search engine ranking techniques that can get you banned

1. Blatant repetition of keywords. Shoot for a keyword density of 2% to 6%. I have seen #1 rankings with less than 1% and more than 10%. Don’t repeat keywords over and over. Use your keywords in sentences. Search engines call a sentence a group of three or more words that start with a capital letter and end with a period, question mark, etc. "Remember that "stop" words (the, a, and, etc.) are not counted as words.) It doesn’t have to be a real sentence.

2. Don’t use invisible text. This is an old trick that can get you banned in a hurry. There are two ways people have used to stuff invisible keywords. Having the text and the background color the same and using a 1x1 transparent .gif image. Many search engine optimizing “experts” are still telling people to use these tricks.

3. Cloaking. Having a page that is optimized for search engines may not be the best page for making sales. You want to have a page that gets ranked high on search engines, but you also want to have a page that does a good job of selling your product or service. Some people try to accomplish both things by showing one page to search engines and a different page to everyone else. This is called cloaking. How you do this is complicated. I won’t go into how you do cloaking, but just remember that it is an old trick that has been banned for a long time, but many people still try to get away with it. Maybe some do by using special techniques, but I wouldn't risk it.

Now Hear it Straight from the “Horse’s Mouth"

Below is a section quoted directly from Google. Take notice and believe what they say. Don’t let some “expert” tell you something different if you don’t want to get your site banned by Google.

Here’s what Google says:

Quality Guidelines - Basic principles:

• Make pages for users, not for search engines. Don't deceive your users, or present different content to search engines than you display to users.

• Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you'd feel comfortable explaining what you've done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, "Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn't exist?"

• Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the web as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.

• Don't use unauthorized computer programs to submit pages, check rankings, etc. Such programs consume computing resources and violate our terms of service. Google does not recommend the use of products such as WebPosition Gold™ that send automatic or programmatic queries to Google.

  
  Quality Guidelines - Specific recommendations:
  

• Avoid hidden text or hidden links.

• Don't employ cloaking or sneaky redirects.

• Don't send automated queries to Google.

• Don't load pages with irrelevant words.

• Don't create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.

• Avoid "doorway" pages created just for search engines, or other "cookie cutter" approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content.

These quality guidelines cover the most common forms of deceptive or manipulative behavior, but Google may respond negatively to other misleading practices not listed here, (e.g. tricking users by registering misspellings of well-known web sites). It's not safe to assume that just because a specific deceptive technique isn't included on this page, Google approves of it.

Webmasters who spend their energies upholding the spirit of the basic principles listed above will provide a much better user experience and subsequently enjoy better ranking than those who spend their time looking for loopholes they can exploit.



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Note: The above article is reprinted with permission from www.SearchEngineU.com
Search Engine Optimization Techniques for Beginners
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