Yes, you read that right. Top 10 bad SEO ideas and not top 10 good SEO ideas. I wanted to look at this subject from a little different view. The world of search engine optimization is complicated so there are many ways you can do it in a bad way. So what are the top 10 list?
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1. Thin content:
There are pages on your web site that have very little to no unique text content. Google started actively punishing this type of content with the release of their Panda algorithm in February 2011. In any event, each page on your site needs some real unique, quality content, on them.
2. Creating large numbers of pages to rank on as many terms as possible:
It used to make sense to create pages to each variant of a search term a user might use, as it would help you rank for those terms. This was because of the power of a title tag.
3. Copying SEO practices of others:
Trying to understand why that competitor is ranking high is often not a good use of time, and copying their questionable practices is definitely a bad idea. Google is quite clear on what types of practices they want publishers to follow, and it's best to focus on that approach to SEO.
4. One dimension link building:
May publishers learn the importance of links in SEO. and they start figuring out ways to get poeple to link to their sites. You need to use many approaches to building your reputation and visibility, and then creating content on your site that others will want to link to.
5. Not implementing a mobile-friendly site:
According to Google, more than a half of their searches come from mobile devices today.
6. Focusing on keyword metatags:
Search engines rely almost solely on user visible text on your site in order to determine its raking. Text that is not user visible, such as the keyword metatags, stopped being significant years ago, because the spammers abused them so badly.
7. Purchase links:
The problem is that the it is in the strategic interest of the search engines to defeat this practice, and they are working hard to do so.
8.Swap links:
Search engines want links to represent endorsements. Swapped links represent barter, and they are trivial to detect. Don't swap links for the purpose of building page rank.
9. Implement duplicate content:
The trouble with duplicate content is that search engines want to rank the same content only once. So if you have multiple URLs on one site with the same content, one of these is just a waste of the search engine's time.
10. Cloaking:
When a search engine detects a site is cloaking, there is an excellent chance that it will lead to the site being banned. Your intent in implementing cloaking does not matter. So don't do it.
Here is an interesting video about how o deal with bad SEO.
I think it was really interesting to find out information about this subject. There has been many lectures in my courses about SEO but nothing about what not to do. I hope you learned more and also enjoyed this subject!
- Tanja Heikkinen
I like your point of view of the SEO. I really learned about your post what not to do and I even haven't think about it at all that we always have been told what to do but not that what not to do. I made my post about SEO in videos and thought that maybe I could have some advices that what not to do. You have a good video also in this blog post what is really good (not too long and easy to understand). I don't know why but I can't see your photo at the beginning of your blog post :(
VastaaPoistaIt is also good that you brought the mobile compatible to this blog post. I think that nowadays mobile is more important and marketers should focus on that even more because it is going to be even bigger thing in the future. But really good Tanja!
As I mentioned in my second last blog post, it's sometimes easier to approach a subject from a negative point of view :D It seems to work here nicely, good set of "do nots".
VastaaPoistaI am, too, bringing up the mobile-friendliness. Optimizing your website for mobile usage really is important if you think of UX, but how much does it affect the search result? When I did the website graders task I noticed that the graders I used recognized mobile-optimization (or the lack of it) so it surely isn't trivial. Or is it simply because mobile-friendly pages attract more visitors?
Tanja, what a great point-of-view for this blog. I really enjoyed reading it and it made me think about rewising the content in my lectures in the future - perhaps you can help me with this topic and we can design this idea to be part of the Digital Business -study module in spring 2016? :) Anyways, learned a lot and this broadened my thinking, so big thanks.
VastaaPoistaRegarding Kia's comment my best understanding is that mobile-friendliness has been one of Google's ways to rank a page, especially since April 2015 when they (once again) updated the algorithm. So it does affect the rank, but just like you say, it also attracts more visitors and better UX.
Thank you all for great discussion,
Ilkka