What are the big things I shouldn't do that will decrease my rankings?

What things are considered spam?

[hiker_jjw]

[webmasterworld.com ]

Q: [Webmasters] What are the big things I shouldn't do that will decrease my rankings on Google?
A: In no particular order:
- invisible text, invisible links.
- deep redirects.
- excessively large pages.
Last Updated:02/16/2001 - 21:07 added by:Brett_Tabke

Anyone want to add anything to this?
Thanks in advance!

[allanp73]

Cloaking...
duplicate content...
Super small text...
Meta refresh...
Incorrect use of tables or images. Sometimes people use an image for the background, usually a dark image then they use white text so that the user can read it. They are not trying to spam but Google would see white text on white background. I have seen this mistake many times. The same can happen with tables.

[WebGuerrilla]

>>Anyone want to add anything to this?

Anything that even remotely suggests that you have the slightest understanding of how the Gogle algo works...

[Macguru]

>>What are the big things I shouldn't do that will decrease my rankings?

Spam aside,

sitting on your inbound links while competition is running a marathon.

[Liane]

pop ups and pop unders.

[Jane_Doe]

Ask yourself if you've done anything where if your site got red flagged and reviewed by a Google engineer would anything look fishy?

Also check out the list of categories on the Google spam report - doorway pages, sneaky redirects, etc.

[hazardtomyself]

I have a directory site. No spam and not an affiliate site; not selling anything. I have several pages with links to other sites. They are direct and clean links. I do need to track the click thrus so I can tell them how much traffic I'm giving them. In order to track the click thru traffic I am considering having the link go to another of my pages that includes a meta refresh and redirect to the intended site. Will Google not like (and penalize) my site for having meta refresh/redirects, or will Google not like to follow the link to the other sites? I will be happy to send my URL via stickies if anyone wants to see the site.