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Search Engine Optimization Mistakes: Spam

Spam or “spamdexing”, is one of the most common mistakes made in search engine optimization. Spam is any search engine marketing method that a search engine decides is detrimental to its efforts to deliver relevant, quality search results. Most of the search engines have written guidelines as to what they consider to be spam. Ultimately though, any activity the search engine feels is harmful can be considered spam whether they have published guidelines about it or not. Sometimes determining what is considered spam is difficult because each search engine has their own set of standards. Below are a few items known to be considered spam by most of the search engines:

What’s considered “spam”?

• The use of deceptive redirects
• Useless content. Garbage aimed at keywords without providing relevant information.
• Hiding text behind images
• Using the same or similar color for both your text and background
• Code that generates multiple pages on a particular subject with slightly different density, distribution, and frequency amounts
• Having only inbound links, no outbound
• Cloaking (bait and switch), serving one page to a spider and another to users
• Doorway pages that have no valuable content and direct traffic to a different domain
• Anything within frames deemed as being deceptive

Search engines classify spam as…

A. Hidden Text or Links – In order to place several keywords on a page without altering the look and feel of the site, some spammers will hide the text or make it very small.

• Same or similar color for both your text and background, utilizing tags, graphics or other CSS techniques.
• Hidden text in forms tag <input type=”hidden”< even though a form does not exist on the page
• Putting keywords inside a <noframes> tag even though no frameset exists on the page
• Hidden layers inside style sheets
• Transparent images for a link, using hidden links (possible in div/layers). It is something that can be seen by the search engine but not by the visitor.

B. Hallway Pages or Doorway Pages - doorway pages were somewhat acceptable about four years ago

• Developing several pages tuned to 1 keyword or phrase and submitting to the search engines
• Users click on “doorway” page and then are sent to a dynamic page

C. Frames

• Anything seen within frames as being deceptive will get you blocklisted

D. Deceptive Redirects

• Meta refresh tag, javascript redirect, or 302 Code at the server
• 301 permanent redirects to a different URL are okay

E. Cloaking – seen as being a loaded weapon designed to deceive

• Cloaking tools have the ability to find out if it is being visited by a spider by the IP number or referrer. Knowing this, you can give the search engines pages that are stuffed full of keyword rich text, no tables, frames, plug-ins or any other layout restrictions that will often weaken a regular webpage’s position in the organic results.
• Offers you the ability to fine tune per search engine
• Cloaking can easily get you blocklisted.

F. Unrelated Keyphrases

• Unrelated keyphrases on your pages that have nothing to do with the actual content on your site (i.e. popular keywords like “online gambling”)

G. Keyword Stacking or Stuffing

• Using important keywords over and over; repeating them multiple times.
• Lack of stop words might make the search engine consider content as spam

H. Link Farms

• One method used to increase link popularity, has been to create multiple websites linking to each other.
• Link popularity depends on the quality of incoming links not just quantity.
• Link farms will not produce quality links and therefore will not assist your link popularity.

How the major search engines define spam:

Google’s Webmaster Guidelines outlines techniques to use to help Google locate, index and rank your website. They specifically state the following techniques may cause them to remove your site from the Google index:

• Having hidden text or hidden links
• Using cloaking or sneaky redirects
• Using automated queries to Google
• Loading pages with irrelevant keywords.
• Having multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with near duplicate content
• Using "doorway" pages created just for search engines

These are not the only practices Google disapproves of. Like every other search engine, Google doesn't like any attempt to manipulate their results by using deceptive practices. They recommend the following to webmasters:

“Webmasters who spend their energies upholding the spirit of the basic principles listed above will provide a much better user experience and subsequently enjoy better ranking than those who spend their time looking for loopholes they can exploit.”

In order to eliminate commonly used search engine spam techniques used by deceitful SEO consultants or firms, Google posted the following list of “red flag” items for you to beware of when choosing who will optimize your website. Google says to walk away from any SEO practitioner who:

• Owns and utilizes shadow domains
• Places links to their other client sites on doorway pages
• Offers to sell keywords in the browser address bar
• Does not distinguish between organic search results and paid advertising (pay-per-click)
• Guarantees rankings for long obscure keyphrases
• Operates using multiple aliases or falsified WHOIS info to mask their spam techniques
• Obtains traffic from "fake" search engines or spyware
• Is not listed in Google or has had some of their client’s domains removed from Google.

Report spam to Google via their form or you can email Google at spamreport@google.com. It is very rare for Google to ever manually remove a website from its index. Instead, they will tweak their algorithm and spam detection software to combat spam techniques it knows is clogging their search engine.

NOTE: Since Yahoo! owns Altavista, All the Web and Inktomi the following spam policies and webmaster guidelines apply to all of them.

As laid out by Yahoo!, webpages are considered spam “that are considered unwanted and appear in search results with the intent to deceive or attract clicks, with little regard for relevance or overall quality of the user experience.” Yahoo! tries not to index sites with:

• Any text that is hidden from the user, but visible to the search engines
• Sites that misuse their competitor names and products
• Pages that have the same, or near duplicate content as other pages
• Multiple domains offering the same content
• Lots of pages which are automatically generated and/or have little to no value
• Pages that redirect the user to another page
• Cloaking techniques employed
• Pages built just for search engines
• Pages that use too many pop-ups which interfere with user navigation
• Pages aimed at artificially inflating search engine rankings
• Sites with multiple, unnecessary, virtual hostnames
• Excessive cross-linking used to boost link popularity
• Pages that diminish the accuracy, diversity, or relevance of search results
• Pages that appear deceptive, fraudulent, or provide a poor user experience

You can report spam to Yahoo! through a form on their website.

NOTE: Yahoo! will also allow you to report copyright violations. Send an email to copyright@yahoo-inc.com to request that they review and remove any content published that you feel is in violation of copyright protection.

Teoma/Ask Jeeves list on their Site Submission Terms page the techniques that will prevent you from being ranked. They will not rank your site if you:

• Use deceptive text
• Have duplicate content
• Use metadata that doesn’t accurately describe the content of your webpage
• Include off-topic or excessive keyphrases
• Fabricate pages to lead users to other web pages
• Cloaking
• Use intentional misleading links
• Use self-linking referencing patterns
• Misuse affiliate or referral programs

To report spam to Ask Jeeves or Teoma, send an email to jeeves@askjeeves.com

To find out what MSN Search views as spam, visit their content guidelines. They state that the MSNBot will view the following as spam techniques:

• Utilizing techniques like joining link farms to try to increase your site’s link popularity
• Adding hidden text or links throughout your website
• Stuffing your pages or ALT tags with irrelevant keyphrases aimed at increasing a page’s keyword density.

MSN also recently announced, in their new MSN Search Engine, having duplicate content on multiple domains and cloaking are additional items that can cause your site to be penalized or permanently removed from the MSN Search index.

You can report spam to MSN through a form on their website.

NOTE: Just like all websites are not created equal, neither are all SEO consultants or firms. It is not enough for you to base your decision on price alone. Work with a firm like Alpine Search Engine Optimization that you know follows by strict, non-spamming guidelines, has referenceable clients, and practices and abides by the Code of Conduct and Code of Ethics.

Search Engine Optimization Mistakes: Javascript and CSS

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