What Constitutes SEO Spam?
SEO spam is so hard to define, how do you know whether what you’re doing is right or wrong? Good question. And the answer is that you don’t always know, but there are some guidelines that you can follow that will help you stay out of the spam category. Basic, good web-design practices are your best defense. If you’re handling your web-site search marketing using the guidelines provided, by the various search engines you’ll target, you should be in a position not to worry about being classified as a spammer.
SEO spam is also called spamdexing (because you’re spamming indexes) and can come in all kinds of shapes and sizes. There are some spam techniques that are obviously spam. But then there are some that aren’t clearly spam, but that you should avoid. The list of spamming techniques is huge. But there are a dozen or so items on that list that are constant.
- Transparent Links: These are links that are included in the page, but that users can’t see because they’re the same color as the background.
- Hidden Links: These links are on the page but are hidden behind elements like graphics. They don’t turn the graphic into a hyperlink, but a search engine can find them and follow them, even when people can’t.
- Misleading Links: Misleading links are those that appear to lead to one place but actually lead to another. An example of a misleading link is one that reads www.onewebsite.com but actually takes you to www.differentwebsite.com.
- Inconspicuous Links: These links appear on a page, but they’re usually unnoticeable because they’re represented as graphics that are 1 x 1 pixels in size.
- Keyword Stuffing: Loading the content or the Meta tags of a web site with keywords that are repeated over and over.
- Meta Tag Stuffing: Stuffing Meta tags with keywords that are repeated over and over.
- Doorway Pages (or) Gateway Pages: These pages are designed specifically to draw search crawlers but are essentially useless to visitors. Often, a doorway page will have only the visible text, “click here to enter.”
- Scraper Sites: These are web sites that “scrape” or copy their content from other pages on the Web. Search engines don’t like scraper sites because they’re not original and because they usually direct visitors to another site that’s less relevant to their search terms.
- Machine-Generated Pages: These are web pages put together by a program that grabs the content from other web sites. The content that’s grabbed could be from within the current site or from sites belonging to other people. Usually these pages are considered spam because they are of no value to web-site users.
- Links in Punctuation: This is a clever scheme. Some unethical SEOs create a hyperlink that’s contained in a piece of punctuation. It’s done by using the following tag: <a href=link> </a>Include real words here</a> <a href=link>.</a>. This little snippet of code will leave the words in the link (and you can replace link with the web-site address of your choice) in plain text, but the period at the end of the link will contain the link. It’s small, so most people won’t notice it, but the link is there, so search engines will notice it.
- Cloaking: This technique is used to make a highly optimized version of your page appear to search engines, but a more user-friendly page appear to site visitors.
- Excessive Cross-Linking: Excessive cross-linking can be a sign that a company has created multiple domains strictly for the purpose of building a false linking structure with a single web site.
- Hidden Text: This text is the same color as the background of a web page so that users can’t see it. Search engines can, and the text is usually an incomprehensible collection of keywords and phrases.
- Duplicate Content: Duplicate content on a web site is construed as being a ploy to trick a search crawler into thinking the site is more relevant than it actually is.
- Link-Only Pages: These pages contain only links and should be avoided. The one exception to this rule is the site map that you make available to visitors so they can quickly find their way around your site.
- Redirect Pages: Redirect pages are usually coded for SEO, but again, they’re useless to site visitors. When site visitors land on this page, they’re asked to wait while they are redirected to another web site. Search engines look down on this practice because very often, the web page that is redirecting is optimized for SEO but not for people.
- Link Farms: Link farms are simply pages of links that are only created to artificially boost a linking strategy in an effort to speed the appearance of the web site in the top search ranking positions.
- Spam Blogs (or) Splogs: These are machine-generated blogs and their only purpose is to draw search engine rankings.
- Page Hijacking: Page hijacking is accomplished by copying a very popular page on the Web and using it to represent your site to search engines. When users see your page in search results, they click through the link only to be taken to your actual page.
Tags: Search Engine Optimization, SEO, SEO Spam, SEO Tips
December 20th, 2009 at 11:30 pm
Hello.
I like your site and wanted to know if you would be interested in exchanging blogroll links.
Thanks in advance
December 21st, 2009 at 6:38 am
[...] more: SEO Updates, News, Search Engine Optimization Best Practices Tips … Categories: SEO, SEO Tips and [...]
December 21st, 2009 at 8:40 am
Palapple Blog | SEO Solutions for your Business…
Thanks for sharing. Search engine optimization is indeed one of the most crucial areas in Internet marketing, it is a perfect bridge between technology and business….
December 21st, 2009 at 9:06 am
[...] Read the original here: SEO Updates, News, Search Engine Optimization Best Practices Tips … [...]
December 29th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
What a great article. I will share this information with anyone that needs it. It’s valuable, useful, and gives the kind of information that isn’t commonly found. I’m going back to see what else has been written on the topic. See our site for SEO Tips
January 6th, 2010 at 9:50 pm
“Keyword stuffing”, cloaking, “Mirror websites” (sybil attack) and “link farms” are all things you want to stay away from when using SEO. In fact, I would recommend keeping a far distance from any of the above because spammers are people who are aware that their pages and content are useless as well as unethical. This blog is very informative but for those who are learning of these SEO techniques (some say illegal SEO techniques), for the first time then my first suggestion is to read more about these questionable spam-related methods and know that Google and other search engines can remove your site from their index, sometimes for life. One last piece of advice is to try not to be connected in any way to spammers because it impacts your credibility online in a big way!
January 9th, 2010 at 3:15 pm
Stunning blog post about search engine optimization. I’m honestly very dumbstruck that that has not really been told before to such great lengths.
January 10th, 2010 at 5:05 am
I like your writing style thanks for the info -cheers-
January 19th, 2010 at 12:06 am
This is standard in terms of google. Nothing looks to irritate towards it than that!Coincidentally, this is exactly was worried about several years prior at the last big internet about seo some number of years ago in 1993!
February 3rd, 2010 at 9:30 pm
Amiable post and this post helped me alot in my college assignement. Say thank you you on your information.
February 6th, 2010 at 1:05 am
Great idea, but will this work over the long run?
February 6th, 2010 at 8:17 pm
I really liked reading your post!. Quallity content. With such a valuable blog i believe you deserve to be ranking even higher in the search engines :). Check out the link in my name. That links to a tool that really helped me rank high in google. This way even more people can enjoy your posts and nothing beats a big audiance
February 7th, 2010 at 7:36 pm
BTW, after months of reading this blog, I just had to comment on this one. What’s up with that?
February 12th, 2010 at 4:03 am
Hi,I’m taking some time to write you a comment. I hope you don’t mind I’ve bookmarked your page, your page is really helpful for me. Sophia x
February 15th, 2010 at 7:10 pm
quite interesting post. I would love to follow you on twitter.
February 20th, 2010 at 2:46 am
Hey, Just wanted to let you know that your site isn’t loading properly on my iPhone. Do you know if there’s some setting I need to use to make it show properly? Everything is out of line.
February 20th, 2010 at 1:13 pm
Hey I found your website by mistake on google while searching for something completely unrelated but I am truly glad that I did, You have just snagged yourself another subscriber.
March 2nd, 2010 at 9:37 pm
Hi, I can’t figure out how to add your site in my rss reader. Can you Help me, please? I really want to read your future posts.
March 7th, 2010 at 4:08 am
I do think this is a most incredible website for proclaiming great wonders of Our God!
March 7th, 2010 at 11:14 am
Hey I stumbled upon your blog by luck on msn while trying to find something really different but I am really glad that I did, You have just caught yourself another subscriber.
March 24th, 2010 at 8:08 am
I do think this is a most incredible website for proclaiming great wonders of Our God!
information remeron
April 1st, 2010 at 2:57 am
Thanks for this excellent blog.
April 11th, 2010 at 4:09 am
Thanks for the great post. I always try to save concrete or construction related posts like this one.
May 10th, 2010 at 11:20 pm
Artistically done is sick than well said.
May 11th, 2010 at 9:12 pm
Artistically done is richer reconsider than well said.
May 22nd, 2010 at 4:34 pm
Hey - nice blog, just looking around some websites, seems a really nice platform you are using. I’m currently using Wordpress for a few of my sites but looking to change one of them over to a platform similar to yours as a trial run.
May 22nd, 2010 at 10:15 pm
Only want to say your article is as tonishing. The clearness in your post is simply spectacular and i can take for granted you are an expert on this field. Well with your permission allow me to grab your rss feed to keep up to date with succeeding post. Thanks a million and please keep up the ac complished work.
May 24th, 2010 at 12:27 am
Hello. Great job. I failed to expect this on a Sunday. The reason being a good story. Thanks!
June 5th, 2010 at 10:14 am
Hi
Very nice and intrestingss story.
July 31st, 2010 at 2:05 pm
buy celebrex online vioxx vioxx vs
celexa at 60 mg any good
celebrex price online
celexa online dream pharmaceutical
celexa 80 mg
celebrex discount online order vioxx
celexa 40 mg
discount celexa online
buy celebrex no prescription
celexa pharmacy online
100 celebrex mg
buying celebrex online
where to buy celebrex
celexa online
purchase celexa
online pharmacy celexa
discount celebrex online
buy celebrex where
celebrex pharmacy online
buy celexa medication care programmes br
July 31st, 2010 at 2:05 pm
buy celebrex online vioxx vioxx vs
celexa at 60 mg any good
celebrex price online
celexa online dream pharmaceutical
celexa 80 mg
celebrex discount online order vioxx
celexa 40 mg
discount celexa online
buy celebrex no prescription
celexa pharmacy online
100 celebrex mg
buying celebrex online
where to buy celebrex
celexa online
purchase celexa
online pharmacy celexa
discount celebrex online
buy celebrex where
celebrex pharmacy online
buy celexa medication care programmes br
July 31st, 2010 at 2:05 pm
buy celebrex online vioxx vioxx vs
celexa at 60 mg any good
celebrex price online
celexa online dream pharmaceutical
celexa 80 mg
celebrex discount online order vioxx
celexa 40 mg
discount celexa online
buy celebrex no prescription
celexa pharmacy online
100 celebrex mg
buying celebrex online
where to buy celebrex
celexa online
purchase celexa
online pharmacy celexa
discount celebrex online
buy celebrex where
celebrex pharmacy online
buy celexa medication care programmes br
July 31st, 2010 at 2:22 pm
purchase celebrex
50 mg celexa
discount celebrex online
celebrex buy online canada
celebrex online prescription prescription vioxx zy
celebrex online pharmacy
buy celexa generic
celebrex online description chemistry ingredients