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[L399]List Website Search Engines

by Courtney Tuttle, Cou

We have two lesser nightmares, and those are that we have been banned from Yahoo and MSN. No matter what we call it, be it blacklisting, banning, or even a less deadly sand-boxing, the result surely would cause a catastrophe.

In order to prevent this, we need to know the common methods and techniques that get people banned. For anyone that is using the techniques, they should undo them quickly! A boost in ranking for a few months is never worth a lifetime of zero traffic.

I've been working in the industry for quite some time, and have worked with hundreds of sites. I've consulted pretty large companies, as well as individuals. I've seen mistakes that many have made, mistakes that got people banned.

From my experience, the most common mistake that gets people banned from Google is using automatically generated pages. There are a few types of automatically generated pages that are really common.

The first type of automated pages is a directory created by scraper programs. The program scrapes a search engine's results for a particular keyword, and copies the content. You can add a list of thousands of keywords, and the program will make a page for each one. These directories have caused every site I've seen them on to get banned from Google. This happens because there isn't a single word of unique content on any of the pages.

The second type of automatically generated page I've seen is created with dynamic link directory scripts. You add the script onto a page of your site, and a link directory is created, adding hundreds of link pages to your site. The problem there is that your post-slash URLs are exactly the same as the other 3,000 or so people that use the script. Google catches on, and you can't even find your homepage in their index anymore.

If you are going to use any kind of generated page, here's some advice. Make sure that you can choose what you want to URL to be. If you can't, it won't match the URL theme for your site, and every one else that uses the program will have the same URLs. Secondly, you need to add plenty of unique content to every single page. You never want to have any pages that aren't unique.

Let's move on to another technique that will get you banned. I don't know how people think they can still get away with hidden text! You can't. One of my client thought they could get away with it because they did it with a style sheet. Guess what? His site got banned. Don't even think about trying hidden text. Along the same lines, never use pixel links. Obviously a human can't find a pixel link. Does anyone really think Google is dumb enough to not know that a pixel link is only to manipulate results?

The last and major way that sites get banned from Google can make you crazy, and it happens more often than you would think. I have on more than one occasion found my site on another domain. I'm not saying that I found a page that had been copied; I found that my entire site had been copied. In this case, you are in big trouble, and you need to take legal action quickly. I got the site deleted, and amazingly got my ranking back.

Here's a rule of thumb that you should always keep if you want to keep getting traffic from Google, Yahoo, and MSN: only add content to your site that your users will find useful. They won't use your link directory, doorway pages, hidden text, automated pages, and if you use them you will get banned.

If you are professional with your search engine optimization efforts and keep your customer in mind before you start considering “what the search engines will think” you will reap a lot more than what you sow. Chances are, if your visitors like your website, there is a very good likelihood that the search engines will like it too.

With this in mind the following 10 tips focus on how to develop your website with your visitors in mind whilst also conducting effective search engine optimization activities.

1. Pick appropriate keyword phrases

This is the single most important thing to do when it comes to optimizing your website for search engines. The words and phrases that your potential customers type into the major search engines are the keywords your site should be using within the specific areas of your webpage (see below; Optimizing your Page Titles and Optimizing your Content). There are a number of useful keyword research tools available on the web such as Wordtracker and Keyword Discovery (both offer trial versions).

However, if you want to find out accurate figures of how many people are searching for your targeted keywords per week/month/year run a Google Adwords and/or Overture campaign and you will get extremely accurate figures of search engine traffic whilst (hopefully) generating income that will pay for your research.

2. Optimize every page on your website

Optimizing each webpage is overlooked by so many websites and can be the difference between competing for a highly competitive keyword phrase such as “Irish Hotels” on your home page and competing for a much less competitive keyword phrase such as “Hotels in County Galway” on another relevant landing page. After that they can check out the rest of your website that is all about “Irish Hotels”.

3. Optimizing your Page Titles

All of the major search engines have 100's of different algorithms that compute where your webpage should be listed for different keyword searches. Putting your keywords within the title description tag of your pages is one of the most important SEO techniques and will help your website climb through the rankings and allow your visitors to remember exactly what your page is all about when they save it to their “favorites”.

4. Optimizing your Page Content

It is sometimes very difficult to write content for your website. Not only do you need to put the information you want the visitor to see in front of them in an easy-to-read style, you also have to keep in mind the keywords your page is targeting so that you can rank better within search engines.

One of the best pieces of advice I have come across is to write for your visitors and include the keywords as much as makes sense. Read what you have written out loud to yourself and a few others. If it sounds stupid… lather, rinse, and repeat.

5. Create an inbound linking strategy

Submitting your site to website and article directories is a very beneficial way to drive targeted traffic to your website.

Links within these sites not only brings visitors to your website, but search engine “spiders” are easily able find your website and index your pages within their results. If your site doesn't have a link pointing to it on the World Wide Web the search engines will never find it and you will never see any traffic from Google or the other big ones.

6. Descriptively labeling your links and images (aka the anchor text)

This technique is both common sense and good practice. Telling your visitors what the link that they are going to click on allows them to know exactly what they are going to be directed to. Saying “click here” is not enough to help them understand what they're going to find once they click through. Be as descriptive as possible with every text and graphical link on your site. When writing your anchor text and alt attributes you can almost always describe the page you're pointing to by using its main keyword phrase which is a major factor that search engines take into account when it comes to ranking your web pages.

7. Make sure your site is spider-friendly

Your website may look fantastic. You and your web designer may be talented graphic designers who can make Flash and JavaScript dazzle your visitors with a show that would put Michael Flatley and his River Dance to shame. However, if your website contains Flash and Javascript it's important to know that search engine spiders have difficulty reading this code (or appreciate the effort you put into the design). The way around this is to provide navigation alternatives such as static links and a site map to allow the spiders crawl deep within your website and index the web pages within their results. Overuse of Flash, JavaScript, and images can also lead to your web pages being very slow to download. If these file types are used sparingly your visitors and search engines will appreciate your efforts a lot more.

8. Create Fresh Content

When you are optimizing your website properly you will see a trend. If you are doing something that benefits your websites visitors then the search engines will reward you for it.

Blogs and forums are effective and easy ways of adding new information to your site on a regular basis. However, if your only purpose of setting up a blog or a forum is for better search engine rankings then there really is no point in doing it. Only add a forum if it contributes something beneficial to your website and if you have the traffic to make it interactive enough for visitors to return to it. And, only add a blog if you have something of interest to say on a regular basis. Once you have your blog and/or forum up-and-running you should optimize them with the same professionalism you do with any other page on your website.

9. Do not think that you can trick Search Engines

As noted before, “If you are doing something that benefits your websites visitors then the search engines will reward you for it”.

If you try to trick the search engines by hiding keyword phrases, joining link farms, or any other sneaky practice your sites will be removed from the search engines and it will take you a long time to get back in (and you will also have to spend more time cleaning up your website before they will accept you).

10. Offer something unique

If your website offers something that is unique and interesting to your target market and it is properly optimized (by applying all of the techniques listed above) you will not only rank well within the major search engines, you will also get the added benefit of people linking to your website in forums, blogs, and through other websites which will send your site more visitors and create more inbound links which will help it rank higher.

Remember it's human visitors that you are trying to impress, not search engine robots.

Article Source : Pg. 92

About Author

Both Courtney Tuttle & Barry Fenning are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.

Courtney Tuttle has sinced written about articles on various topics from Motorola Cell Phone, Mobile Phone Reviews and Internet Marketing. Courtney writes product reviews and publications such as this one on and you can use his knowledge to. Courtney Tuttle's top article generates over 33100 views. to your Favourites.

Barry Fenning has sinced written about articles on various topics from Iphone Reviews, Internet Marketing and Increase Adsense Revenue. Barry Fenning is the owner of The articles available on this website are suitable for people that want to learn how to conduct effectiv. Barry Fenning's top article generates over 2400 views. to your Favourites.