Newbies frequently make these web design mistakes, let’s make sure YOU don’t. These well-known “black-hat” SEO tactics don’t work anymore.
1) Link Farms – Web Design Mistake #1
A link farm is a series of websites that were created solely to contain a list of free links. These links point to sites that were submitted by their owners in an attempt to gain recognition. Sometimes, the link farm is a web of sites that interlink with each other.
Google won’t put up with these web design mistakes. These websites are trying to get high search engine rankings for websites without earning those rankings through good content.
If you use link farms as a way to build PageRank (PR), you are taking a huge risk. Even if your website has great content, your website will still get penalized or banned. The search engines figure if you had good content you wouldn’t resort to tactics designed to manipulate search engine rankings.
This SEO tactic may initially bring in results… but those results tend to fade and can result in Google removing your site from their listings entirely.
You should occasionally search your domain name in the search engines to see what sites are pointing to you. If you see websites or pages that are simply long lists of links, check into getting your links removed. They are hurting your site’s PR.
2) Doorway Pages
Doorway Pages are a form of landing page that is designed solely for the search engine. Sometimes they aren’t even viewable to the human visitor. These pages use a redirect script that automatically points the visitor to another page on the website. The human visitor never even sees the doorway page. This is known as cloaking and is definitely considered an illegal practice by Google and other search engines.
A landing page is acceptable by search engines if it is in the form of an informative, well-written article. Human visitors can read and enjoy it. They are not being redirected to the website’s main pages.
3) Keyword Stuffing- Original Web Design Mistake
Also known as Keyword Spamming. One of the original illegal SEO techniques, keyword stuffing occurs when you load a webpage full of particular keywords, either in the meta tags, other script tags, or in the content itself.
This is different from optimizing the page for particular keywords because the same words are being repeated dozens or hundreds of times in no credible or informative way.
Keywords are hidden in several ways, for instance, some people will make the text the same color as the background. Search engines see it, but no human visitors can. Others will hide keywords in script tags, or use CSS to position keywords outside of your visible screen area. No human visitors can see it – but search engines can.
At first, using such techniques might sound like a good idea. However, search engines can detect whether a keyword is being used properly. They will penalize or ban your site for using any of the above techniques to stuff keywords into your site.
Oftentimes, the only way to see if a site has been stuffed with keywords is to view the source code. Visit the site in your browser, click “View” and then “Source Code.” A page of HTML will display. If the same keyword repeats hundreds of times, then the page has been stuffed. It is in violation of virtually EVERY search engine’s rules.
4) Scraper Pages or Auto-Generated Pages
Scraper pages are those comprised of search results or content automatically pulled from dozens or hundreds of websites. This is a form of plagiarism since no part of the scraper page is original content.
Such sites are used to display Google Adsense Ads or ads that pay the site owner when a visitor clicks on it. Search engines have evolved. They are now very good at banning such sites from their results. Human visitors can detect them easily as well.
Scraper sites are easy to spot … They are snippets of other webpage content, or search results, and don’t make sense.
The tactics listed here are obvious web design mistakes. They will surely get your website in trouble if you use them. The search engines are getting smarter every day. It is always better in the long run to just load up your page with good content.
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