The best way to avoid being blacklisted by the search
engines is to avoid using some questionable techniques that
were once popular to gain high rankings. Even if your
website is not blacklisted by using some of the techniques
below, it may be penalized (buried in the rankings) so your
traffic will suffer all the same. When a search engine
blacklists a website it will throw your listing off their
site and block your site from coming aboard again. This can
be done by blocking the domain name, the IP address or both.
Here are a few techniques to avoid, so that your site will
not be blacklisted:
Mirror Websites
Mirror websites are sites with identical content but
different URL's. This was once a method used to gain high
rankings in the search engines, but since search engines are
smarter now, this will only get you penalized or
blacklisted.
Doorway (gateway) Pages
Doorway pages are pages with little real content for your
visitors that are optimized to rank highly within the search
engines. These pages are designed so that visitors will move
deeper into the website where the real content lies.
Navigation to the doorway pages are usually hidden from the
visitors (but not the SE robots) on the homepage.
Invisible Text and Graphics
Using invisible text (text the same or a very similar color
to the background) was once used to spam a homepage and some
inside pages with non-stop keywords and keyphrases. Also
links to doorway pages and hidden site maps can be done with
invisible text (or invisible graphics). Some designers will
create a graphic link with a 1 pixel by 1 pixel raster image
and link this to a hidden inner page such as a hidden site
map.
Submitting Pages Too Often
Submitting the same pages to the search engines within a 24
hour period can get you penalized and may delay your website
from being listed in the rankings. Some search engines
believe that pages submitted sooner than every 30 days is
too much. The 30 day rule is a good rule to follow when
submitting to multiple search engines.
Using Irrelevant Keywords
Using irrelevant keywords in a website's metatags and / or
body copy in order to achieve high rankings will most
certainly backfire. Search engines now want to see parity
between these two areas and if your site is thought to be
spamming with irrelevant keywords, you site will be
penalized or blacklisted.
Automated Submissions to the Major Search Engines
Using an automated service or software to submit your
website to the search engines can be extremely
counterproductive. Most of the major search engines and
directories accept manual submissions but do not like to be
spammed with the automated ones.
Cloaking
Cloaking is the practice of deceiving both the search engine
and the visitor by serving up different pages for each. The
visitor sees a nicely designed and formatted page and the
search engine robot scans a page of highly optimized text.
Any practice that is deceptive should be avoided and the
downfall of cloaking is that, if caught, the website can be
banned permanently.
Using a Cheap or Free Web Host
Using a cheap or free web host can hurt in the search engine
rankings. Frequent downtime, pages taken down for exceeding
the bandwidth deter robots from indexing your site. If a
robot cannot access your site often enough, your site will
be dropped from the search engines. Hosting is cheap, so if
you are serious about your website get your own domain name
and host not one like geocities.com/yoursite.
Sharing an IP Address
Sharing an IP Address even from a legitimate web host can
get your site in trouble. If you have cleaned up your
website from all of the techniques mentioned above and your
website still does not get relisted by the search engines in
a couple of months, check with your host to see if you are
sharing an IP address with other sites. If so, you may
consider moving your website to a new host who will give you
your own IP address or at least one that is not shared with
another company who has had their IP address (an yours)
banned by the search engines.
FAST's Director of Business Development and Marketing,
Stephen Baker, has stated that globally there are
approximately 30 million crawl-able servers and
approximately two-thirds have been banned by the FAST
network for spamming. If these numbers are correct, your
site may be blacklisted or penalize for "guilt by
association."
About the Author:
Kevin Kantola is the CEO of SEO Resource, a search engine
optimization company, devoted to achieving high rankings and
increased traffic. Visit the SEO Resource website to see how
your site may benefit at http://www.seoresource.net or
mailto:seoresource@...
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