Poor Practices Linger Even Though Search Engine Optimization Has Become More Established
search engine optimisation has become more mature as a method but bad habits persist. Many techniques that most search optimization specialists would think of as unethical are still being tried despite that the search engine algorithms try to diminish the effect of such bad habits.
An organization may look at a rival’s website that has a good search engine positioning and decide to copy some of what has worked for them. These may be good and bad practices. However, the competitor may have built a good reputation with reliable references by being the first enterprise in its area. As other competitors arrive in the market, some of search engine optimisation that he used may not be as successful for the new arrivals. Looking at the website of another successful enterprise may not help either: every enterprise is different to a search engine, and the search engines will be looking at your organization’s website from a different perspective to find what is significant.
It is possible that a business may choose touse some of the unethical search optimization practices on the basis that a rival’s website is still using them and they appear to be successful for its search engine positioning. It is better to remain ethical in your own optimisation and reduce the chances of being punished by the search engines. Unethical optimisation does get punished in the end.
The best way to build the reputation of your organization’s website is by backlinks from other domains. A backlink reference from a doorway page may sound like a good idea – but not to the search engines. The search engines are increasingly driven by quality content, and if the only reference to your organization’s website it can spot is from somewhere with no significance at all it will not elevate your listing. It may cost your enterprise to obtain these connections on doorway pages and yet damage the reputation of your website. The search engines generally discredit backlinks that have been bought, unless they are backlinks from reputable directories such as Yellow Pages.
Backlink acquisition is also done by publishing items produced to market your organization’s website. The problem now is to publish items of a quality that will be approved by the search engines without being considered as spam.
Keyword stuffing can still be spotted on many organization’s domains.An example is an area of a web page, often towards the bottom where many of site visitors will not notice it, containing nothing but keywords that may have a loose connection to the real purpose of the page. When search engines were young this stuffing may have influenced, but these days it is more likely to harm your domain’s search engine positioning. It also appears messy and will damage your site’s reputation.
Unfortunately, search engine optimisation is a method that is little understood even by some IT specialists, let alone by people outside the trade. However, as with many specialised methods, someone with a little knowledge of what is involved can be dangerous. He will not be aware that certain practices are now beyond the pale, and he may persist in using unethical search optimization methods in the hope that they will work.
Tags: marketing online, optimization, seo, web traffic, Website Marketing