Search Engine Spam Techniques you should Avoid

Have you ever wondered what is considered spam in the search engines? First of all in a nutshell, you should know that the viewers should see exactly the same content that is delivered to the search engine spiders. Below are a few spam techniques that you should avoid with your site in the search engines. If you try to deceive the search engines, sooner or later your site will get caught, and all your hard work and time invested will be gone down the drain.

• Invisible or semi-visible text is not advised (including text that is too small to read). Users should be able to clearly see the text on the page.
• Meta Tag Stuffing/Alt Tag Stuffing Do not continuously repeat keywords in the title tag such as keyword1 keyword1 keyword1 keyword1 keyword1
• Bait and Switch trick. This is when you replace the original page that was used to achieve rankings then replacing it with another.
• The text used in your title and meta tags should accurately relate to the page itself. Don’t use any unrelated or misleading keywords
• Do not create a page that doesn’t all the user from using the browser’s back button to return to the search engine results.
• It is advised that you stay away from doorway pages, information pages etc. They have different names, but are generally the same thing.
• Do not use layers to hide the content from the viewers.
• Do not have multiple domains with same (similar) content. Its always better to focus your time, money and efforts on one url.
• Stay away from Link Farms & Free For All type sites.
• Hidden links of any kind is a big no no. The 1×1 transparent pixels use to be popular for hiding links to doorway pages.
• Avoid Cloaking. Cloaking serves up different content based on IP addresses. This is generally used to serve different content for the search engine spiders.

Basically, if your intent is to deceive the search engines and/users, then you will eventually be caught. It is always better to use legitimate techniques that are not considered spam. If you ever happen to get caught by Google, they will take your url out and once you have your site cleaned up, you will have to request them to review it for re-inclusion.