5 terrible SEO ideas

By Richard Bradshaw | October 10, 2008

Having looked at many small businesses websites, I’ve compiled a list here of 5 things that many of them are doing wrong with regards to SEO. I’m not saying that SEO isn’t important, but some techniques just don’t work. So, here goes…

1. Keyword Stuffing

What’s it mean?

It’s tempting to think that search engines love keywords, especially in large combinations. If a page says “foo” on it 100 times, most in bold and some as headers then it must be good right?

Well - no, not exactly.

Google defines keyword stuffing as “…the practice of loading a webpage with keywords in an attempt to manipulate a site’s ranking in Google’s search results.”

It goes on to explain that this could negatively effect results.

What’s it look like?

Here’s an example of some bad code found on an SEO specialists site.

<meta name="description" content="website promotion, web site promotion uk, website promotion, website promotion nottingham, web site promotion uk, web promotion uk, website promotion marketing, website marketing uk" />

This seems like a great idea, but lets see that search result in google:

Example of Keywords Stuffing on Google

Example of Keywords Stuffing on Google

As you can see, this looks spammy. This won’t help click through rates at all.

Other examples would be paragraphs of keywords in the footer of a site, or keywords that are either a small font size, or positioned with css to be off the page.

What can we do to fix it?

Well, if you have endless lists of keywords with no benefit to the reader - delete them.

A better example for the meta tag example below would perhaps be:

<meta name="description" content="Our company provide awesome SEO to enhance your sales and assist customers" />

Or some other such marketing spiel. This is what the user will see on the search engine results page (SERP) if there isn’t a relevant snippet, so it’s worth spending some time writing this to make your site sound relevant to the search query.

2. Cloaking

What’s it mean?

Basically, it’s the idea of serving search engine spiders one load of content, and vistors a different load. Often the search engine will get a list of keywords, whilst the user gets actual content.

What’s it look like?

This can be done using redirects, either in the server settings (check the .htaccess file in the server root) or using a server side or javascript redirect.

If your site is doing this, you should stop immediately, or face being dropped by Google. Not ideal.

What can we do to fix it?

Simply stop doing it. Don’t attempt to mislead search engines, simply write better content in the first place!

3. Linking to and from link farms

What’s it mean?

Linking to other sites or directories in return for links inward to your site. In this case, the links are from irrelevant sources, primarily designed to manipulate search engine results. Back in the late 90’s this worked well due to the naivety of early search engines such as Inktomi. Modern engines include penalties for linking in certain ways. Google has specifically said that

“[Link schemes are in] violation of Google’s webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact your site’s ranking in search results.”

In other words, this practice is not a good idea.

What’s it look like?

Pages of links to sites that are of no interest to the reader. These are either buried on a page somewhere, or are on the front page. Front page links are the worst type, as they may lead users to come to the conclusion that your site lacks substance.

What can we do to fix it?

Link to relevant sites, and encourage sites to link to you, but don’t link to directories just so they link to you.

4. Splash or Doorway Pages

What’s it mean?

A landing page designed to entice search engines in again stuffed with keywords that has little or no content.

What’s it look like?

Check your site for any pages with spammy sounding names. Any pages that have no content or are obviously not designed for humans to read.

What can we do to fix it?

Delete, delete, delete!

Optimise your site so that landing pages are relevant and designed to allow human visitors to access information and understand your sites purpose.

5. Duplicate Content

What’s it mean?

Many pages that included the same information over and over and over and over again. This oculd be on different domains, or just similar pages in the same site.

What’s it look like?

Many URLs that display identical content, either on purpose or by mistake.

What can we do to fix it?

Check that your server side code doesn’t allow multiple pages to be generated with the same URL. This often happens if you are querying a database with different URL parameters. If this is unavoidable, either add a noindex meta tag to the pages that you don’t want indexed, or tell the search engine to ignore parameters in their webmaster section. Yahoo allows you to rewrite URLs to not include certain parameters for instance.

So, there you go, a quick round up of 5 ineffective techniques - any other things you’ve seen? Add them to the comments!

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