Search Result: Spam in the Search Engines
Many successful online
businesses know all about the importance of SEO (search engine
optimization). They can also tell you
that there is a very fine line between proper SEO and tasteless strategies
employed by spammers. While shady
individuals target search engines to receive higher rankings, these acts can
actually damage their credibility and prevent their sites from ever
succeeding.
Differentiating between legitimate and spamming SEO
So how does a user or a
search engine recognize the difference between SEO and spamming
techniques? The first step in learning
if you are appeasing the search engine or making a bad name is to understand
what actually constitutes as spam. As it
relates to the search engines, spam is defined as pages that are intentionally
created to persuade sites like Google and Yahoo into providing them with
favorable or redundant search results.
To avoid being placed in
this category, there are several questions a webmaster should ask in regards to
relative web content and strategies they plan to employ for optimization. The proof shows that these questions simply
are not asked enough, as many turn to spamming when their initial intent was of
actual goodwill. Instead of proper
search engine optimization, they merely think of the big payoff at the end -
generating traffic to their site, creating popular links, and most importantly,
making a substantial amount of money.
Common Search Engine
Spamming Techniques
The prominent search
engines have done their homework and are often able to distinguish legitimate
SEO tactics from those applied by treacherous spammers. Some of the most identified techniques
include:
• an abundance of keywords not related to a particular
site
• frequent ads found in comment sections
• trackbacks not related to a particular site
• frequent redirects
• • abuse of keyword density
•
• duplicate content
•
• text posted in small fonts
• • doorway pages
• •
link exchange programs and link farms
•
• the stacking of keywords
• •
text mainly composed of gibberish
•
• hidden text
• •
hidden links found in server logs
• •
obvious domain spam
• •
micro-sites
• •
page swapping
•
• typo spam
•
• cyber-squatting
Many
of the major search engines take the act of spamming very serious, as they have
invested a great deal of time and effort into identifying the numerous
techniques. They also understand that
more aggressive tactics are being used by legitimate businesses looking to
compete for those search engine rankings.
Unfortunately, many innocent users are placing themselves in that
unfavorable grey area thanks to the actions of determined spammers. The good thing is that some product
categories are not as competitive as others.
This gives genuine business owners the opportunity to promote themselves
with aggression, while staying on the good side of the search engines they look
to impress.
Associates
representing the search engines would ultimately like to shift emphasis away
from certain SEO techniques and focus on the real problem at hand. Here is the bottom line: several of the sites
being operated by spammers are intentionally devising their pages to manipulate
the search engines and cheat respectable individuals. If you are one of them, expect no mercy when
the search engine catches up to you.
