What to do to avoid getting banned

By Zahid Hossain

How would you feel if you found a link on the web that was interesting to you but when you click the link it takes you to a page that is total rubbish? You are not only disappointed but it also wastes your time. Unfortunately, this is often true in many cases. To get a good ranking, often web page designers use “spamdexing”. Spamdexing search engines is the practice of deliberately and dishonestly modifying HTML pages to artificially increase the chance of them ranking close to the top of search engine results. This spamming could result in your site getting banned from search engine indices.

To avoid getting banned by search engines, the first thing you have to do is to make sure that when a search engine sends spiders to your site it doesn't find any spamming technique in use, in an attempt to artificially inflate relevancy.

Hidden or Invisible Links

One reason why you could be banned by a search engine, is when you are creating multiple sites on the same or similar topic and linking them all together through invisible links. Generally, these types of sites have content that is very similar or exactly the same. But you really need to have unique content on each and every site and not link them all together where it really doesn't make sense to do so. If you are interested in learning more about spamming then you should read this article: Missing Backlinks in Google - High Rankings Advisor.

Keyword Stuffing

Most modern search engines have the ability to determine overuse of a word to increase the keyword frequency on a page. They also have the ability to analyze a page for keyword stuffing, and determine whether the frequency is above a normal level. So, while designing your site, remember not to stuff keywords or else you run the risk of getting banned.

Meta tag Stuffing

Do not repeat keywords in the meta tags more than once, and do not use keywords that are unrelated to the site's content. If it isn't represented in the text content, it shouldn't be in the meta tags.

Hidden Text

Putting text (usually keywords) where visitors will not see them, in order to increase a page's keyword relevancy. This is commonly done by making some text the same as the background color of the page.

Cloaking

Cloaking is a very borderline method, in which visitors and search engines receive different versions of a page. The page served to search engines is often a relatively ugly page simply designed to rank well. Cloaking is very risky, and should be considered very carefully. You also get what you pay for, so it pays to go with the best should you decide to pursue this method.

Code Swapping

Optimizing a page for top ranking, then swapping another page in its place once a top ranking is achieved. This is also known as “bait & switch”.

Link Spamming

Google page ranking algorithm gives a higher ranking to a website the more other websites link to it. Some spammers may create multiple web sites at different domain names that all link to each other. Another technique is to take advantage of web applications such as weblogs and wikis that display hyperlinks submitted by anonymous or pseudonymous users.

Spamming refers to practices that are dishonest. These techniques mislead search engines to give a page a ranking it does not deserve. To optimize your ranking, do not use any technique that will encourage search engines to ban you. Instead you should emphasize on how to optimize for your visitors. So remember the tips regarding spamming when you are designing your web site, and avoid getting banned by the search engines.



(Zahid Hossain is an SEO and international student at the Florida Atlantic University, pursuing degrees in Marketing and MIS. Zahid has been in the U.S. since January 2000, and intends to build his career as an SEO. Zahid can be contacted at zahid@Webcast1.com.)


References:
http://www.webopedia.com http://www.highrankings.com http://en.wikipedia.org