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However, after seeing all those things that you should do, I felt that another thread is needed, one that tells all those new to SEO what not to do, things that are very likely to stop you from being indexed well or that may even get you penalised.
This thread may be quite controversial as all of us have experienced things that work here but not there.... Okay, here I go to make a start...
Things to avoid if you can!
1. Frames
2. Java applets navigation
3. Flash navigation
4. JavaScript only navigation
5. Signing gazillions of guestbooks
6. Registering with free for all link pages
7. Hidden text (or divs or whatever)
8. Text as graphics and no ALT tags
9. Missing structure of document, instead using FONT SIZE to indicate headings
10. Pointing ten domain names onto the same site
11. Redirects that trap visitors
12. All dynamic pages with many variables (or session IDs)
13. Plenty of JavaScript that pushes content down on page in the code
14. Too many outgoing (offsite) links
15. No outgoing (offsite) links
Hmmm... I am not sure if these and other "deadly sins" of SEO can be easily sorted by importance, but it doesn't look too bad...
I am pretty sure I have forgotten some obvoius things. What would you add? How would you sort the list?
I have a couple different domain names that point to the same place with a 301 (to transfer the PR in case people link). Most of them are just misspellings of the main domain. (like [googel.com)...]
Number #4,14,15 are probably something you do want to stay away from....as for the rest (done correctly).....go for it!
Why #8? No ALT tags? Care to explain?
Why #8? No ALT tags? Care to explain?
Hardwood Guy - what Mozart meant was don't use images to display text *without* having an ALT tag......
At least, I hope that's what he meant.
;)
Good idea for a thread Mozart.
TJ
Thanks,
Jude
Why not? It works just great....
Nick
>> Signing gazillions of guestbooks
Why not? It works just great....
Let them learn that the hard way. Not recommended for beginners and weak hearted ;)
Jeeze I wish I could get the *definitive* answer on this particular one.
I want someone to sign their name in BLOOD that, either;
a)it's DEATH to do this, or
b)it's absolutely excellent to do this, IF you do it this way, blah, blah
Now, I'd prefer GoogleGuy blood, but in the interim I'll accept any blood *_*
Okay, as there were a couple of questions about my reasoning, I guess I better explain a little. But for the sake of keeping this threat to the topic it will only be little explanation as the search function of WW should find plenty on each item.
iJeep, Mr Bo Jangles:
redirecting multiple domains via 301 (permanent redirect) is the correct way to go about this. Beginners often buy a few domains and simply point them to the same site without the 301. Google thinks of them as duplicate content and ignores all but one site, so links to the other sites transfer PR into the void. Your way of 301 redirects saves the situation gracefully.
georgeek:
exactly! 2, 3 and 4 are the navigational pitfalls. Both for Google and for accessibility reasons you need to at least provide another means of navigating, be it via sitemap or a text-link navigation as a footer-include. The text-links also provide good Google food and therefore are better than options 2, 3 or 4.
Hardwood Guy, Powdork, Trillianjedi:
There are those companies that feel like a quick first website build from their brochures. "Scan those in, put 'em up, done!" Without proper knowledge these sites sometimes end up as text converted to graphics and so Google starves on those sites as it can't find anything to index. For Google and for accessibility reasons you need to provide at least ALT tags - and better still don't ever think of converting text to images on any website!
percentages:
Yes, all of those points can still be done (if done correctly). However, if the beginner avoids them their ranking will be better in most cases.
jude2:
Outgoing links (#14) lessen to some extend the PR that you can give back to your own site, if you have a looot of links you may be viewed by Google as a link farm and be penalized. No outgoing links (#15) on the other hand costs you points in trying to establish yourself as an authority. So like often in life, the right balance is needed. In your case there is nothing to worry I'd say.
Nick_W, mil2k:
;-) The rest: search for "bad neighbourhood"
here's what NOT to do!
Don't whine too much about the Googlers
Of course, one should avoid "7." and "11." as recommended by Google. Also, I would follow Google's guidelines for webmasters, e.g. "Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number (fewer than 100).".
Use Hx tags to indicate the document structure and use external CSS to style those.
That gives you the best of both worlds.
Darko
Use Hx tags to indicate the document structure and use external CSS to style those. That gives you the best of both worlds.
I don't see any benefit in using Hx tags in the post-Dominic area.
submitting URL to many guestbooks kills PR. I've sacrifized a site with PR3 to proove my theory. I submitted an internal page and within 2 weeks PR was gone from all internal pages. index.html still kept PR3
Guestbook links are partly ignored. However, they don't hurt (for reasons already explained).
In general you cannot compare different situations in time to prove a theory (because external conditions are changing). Also, submitting one internal page and all internal pages drop to PR0 sounds like a different problem. There are numerous other explanations, e.g. problems with the PR displayed in the toolbar or the pages are removed from the index because they were down when Google tried to spider them.
So the logic behind "Google does not do that because otherwise you'd be able to hurt your competition" is very shaky. You can set up 100 completely irrelevant porn pages linking to your competitor, and that would impact their position, too, while possibly bringing them some adult traffic.
You can set up 100 completely irrelevant porn pages linking to your competitor, and that would impact their position, too, while possibly bringing them some adult traffic.This would also most likely cause their site to not show up at all when viewers use safe surfing (trip the adult content filter).
We seem to have forgotten a big no no. Hidden links
Unless things have changed recently, having too many links per page looses a significant amount of PageRank too.
Stay away from tables for layout purposes (use CSS for positioning) if you can
Mozart ... eh? ... what has this got to do with SEO?
Currently, there is no disadvantage in using css instead of headings
CSS instead of headings? The headings are still there if you use CSS. Their appearance is just modified.
Inbound link text: 10 points.
title: 10 points
domain name: 7 points
large h1-h2 headings: 5 points
first sentence of first paragraph 5 points
path or filename: 4 points
proximity (multi kws): 4
beginning of a sentence 1.5 points
bold or italic text: 1 points
usage in text: 1 point
title attribute: 1 point
alt tag: .5 point
meta descrip: .5 points
meta keywords: .05 point
Or how about:
PageRank Weight
PR of incoming link: 10 points
Relevance of incoming link: 7 points
Inbound link text: 7 points
Proximity (multi kws of incoming link): 4 points
Outbound links: Dilutes PR
Relevance Weight
title: 10 points (reduced if kw density low)
domain name: 7 points
subdomain: 5 points
directory name: 4 points
file Name: 3 points
large h1-h2 headings: 5 points
first sentence of first paragraph 5 points
proximity (multi kws): 4
beginning of a sentence 1.5 points
bold or italic text: 1 points
usage in text: 1 point
title attribute: 1 point
alt tag: .5 point
meta description: 0.5 points
meta keywords: 0.05 point
outbound links: needs substantiation?
Also - ;)
keyword competition index: 10 points
SEO Experts ability to get everything right: 10 points
17. Don't cross-link your sites too heavily
Is this just a recommend no-no? I've seen many #1 ranks sites on Google that use this method.
I agree that it's spam, but does Google? They haven't seemed to care yet.
Guestbook links are partly ignored. However, they don't hurt (for reasons already explained).In general you cannot compare different situations in time to prove a theory (because external conditions are changing). Also, submitting one internal page and all internal pages drop to PR0 sounds like a different problem. There are numerous other explanations, e.g. problems with the PR displayed in the toolbar or the pages are removed from the index because they were down when Google tried to spider them.
Here you go again, 2nd time today. You're full of theories my man, but speak as if you knew for sure. At lest say "In my oppinion..", because nobody knows anything to be 100% truth.
I belive strongly that submitting my url to guestbooks caused my internal pages PR to drop from PR3 to PR0. Here's the background.
- site is 2 years old
- non commercial, nothing to sell, nothing to advertize
- unique content, pictures, videos, forum of a TV show
- It's had PR3 (no fluctuations) ever since I started using google toolbar, and probably earlier but I wouldn't know (so over a year)
- google backlinks haven't changed for over a year, except now 1 internal page (the one I submitted) shows 4 guestbooks (and only that) as backlinks
Darko
Has the 'too similar link text' idea been mentioned? I think that may be very important, even if it only applies in a minority of cases.
1. Frames
If I hadn't spent 3 months a year ago changing from frames to stand alone pages (because frames were considered 'frumpy'), I'd go back to them in a heartbeat.
All main navigation and table of contents stuff stuck in their respective frame pages meant that content pages were lean and mean, nothing to distract the indexers from what I wanted them to see.
As regards "distracting the indexers", in a non-framed site - well, just arrange for all the navigation links to appear after the main content - something I did a little while ago and which seems to have helped immensely. The technique of putting the navigation in one column of a table and the content in another, then making the content appear first is well documented and quite elegant.
DerekH
I just want to say that your example isn't a prove in a scientific manner. (ciml already explained this). Just because you did X and Y happened doesn't mean that X caused Y. I just gave some examples of other explanations (I clearly said 'e.g.'). I didn't claim that these are the reasons for your drop - I just want to figure out that there are other possibilities which you cannot rule out.
If you want to prove a theory, you have to compare different situations at the same time.
Darko
