Things that Hurt Your Web Site's Ranking

Are you using any of these techniques on your web site? If so, you could be hurting your web site's ranking on search engines...

Written Feb 04, 2010, read 3553 times since then.

More people are realizing that having a beautiful web site is not enough. You need people to find your web site on Google, Yahoo, or Bing / MSN in the first place. So how do you improve your web site’s ranking? Do you know what helps your ranking, and what hurts your ranking? There are some do’s and don’ts when it comes to search engine optimization. By applying these principles, your web site will be more easily found on search engines, which translates into more leads for your business.

Let’s start with the don’ts! These things hurt your web site’s ranking, so make sure your web site doesn’t utilize these techniques…

1. Buying links from other web sites. This is probably the biggest myth when it comes to Search Engine Optimization (SEO). The myth is that if a lot of people like your web site and link their web sites to yours, it will improve your web site’s ranking. Well, this is somewhat of a half-truth. Let me explain what I mean… Suppose you own a restaurant in New York and you have a web site. If I am a real estate agent in the area and I really like your restaurant, I may put something on my web site that says, “Here are my restaurant recommendations for clients who just moved to the area. Go to this web site…”, so I provide a link to your web site on my web site. The idea is that the more people link their web sites to yours, the higher ranking your web site receives. That means if someone were to type “restaurant New York” in Google, your web site is more likely to appear first in the search results.

The reason I say this is a half-truth is that yes, having links helps your ranking, but Google and other search engines do not want to create an industry of buying and selling links. Suppose you come to me and say, “You get a lot of traffic on your web site. How about I pay you $_____ to provide a link to my web site on your web site?” Search engines are very smart, and they have ways to detect that a link has been bought. So buying links actually hurts your web site’s ranking.

2. Keyword stuffing. Maybe you have seen this on a Craig’s List ad before. People may place an ad that says something like “Apartment for Rent -- $900 per month”, and at the bottom of the ad, they have a long paragraph listing every keyword they can think of. It looks something like this: “apartment, apartments, rent, rental, rentals, condo, condos, Seattle, Capitol Hill, U-District, Central District, Queen Anne, downtown…” and on and on. Search engines such as Google frown on this because they want you to build a web site for your potential clients, not for search engines. While having a long paragraph full of keywords may sound like a good idea to put on your web site, it actually hurts your web site’s ranking.

3. Hidden text. This is another thing you can get penalized for by search engines. Imagine if your web site has a black background. At the bottom of the page, you put a lot of keywords in black, and no one can see it but search engines. The idea is that the hidden text is not for your potential customers to read but it helps search engines find you. Again, Google doesn’t like manipulation of its search engine, so it penalizes you by giving you a lower ranking.

Learn more about the author, Aaron Muller.

Posted by Oliver Wu, Bellevue, Washington | Feb 04, 2010

I've heard of these techniques before but never knew they can hurt your ranking. Thank you for pointing them out!
Posted by Anni Ala, D.C., Seattle, Washington | Feb 05, 2010

Thanks! Search engine optimization can be a bit confusing for a novice & I really appreciate these tips!
Posted by John James, Redmond, Washington | Feb 05, 2010

Quick things that can be addressed right away. Thanks for the posting.
Posted by Michelle Linden, seattle, Washington | Feb 05, 2010

It was good to know about the hidden text... I'd been considering adding some to my website, but now I won't!
Posted by Pat Milligan, Seattle, Washington | Feb 05, 2010

Can someone please tell me what SEO people do after adding keywords to domain names, webpage title, the webpage name, headlines, content, images, alternative image text, meta tags and links? After the initial keyword placement in the development of the website what is done besides simply refreshing the keyword heavy content and adding more landing pages?
Posted by Aaron Muller, Seattle, Washington | Feb 06, 2010

Pat,

Build links from external websites to yours.
Posted by Laura Dodson, CPA, Seattle, Washington | Feb 06, 2010

How would the search engines know if a link had been bought? Could you be more specific?

Tax Preparation and QuickBooks Training
Posted by Aaron Muller, Seattle, Washington | Feb 06, 2010

Search engines know via a few signals.. I dont know all.

1 - Footprint tracking code (from automated link resellers) 2 - Multiple off topic outgoing links 3 - Bunched links around titles such as sponsored resources, advertising etc
Posted by mohamed elgharib, El-Mahalla El-Kubra, El Gharbiya Governorate Egypt | Feb 27, 2010

i will follow this article about ( Things that Hurt Your Web Site's Ranking ) this is good article , i want u to write more and more , you good writer thanks about your article
Posted by Josh Lothman, Houston, Texas | Mar 09, 2010

Nice article. Thanks for the info! I was wondering, does this mean if I become a member at a forum that has nothing to do with my website, and I create a signature that has a link to my site so that every time i post my link is on that website, does that hurt my seo or help?
Thanks
Posted by Robert Muller, Seattle, Washington | Mar 19, 2010

Aaron, this is a very useful article. A lot of people don't realize the reason Google has been so successful. It's because it brings in relevant content. It is constantly purging irrelevance. As site owners we should all focus on relevant content. Relevant link backs, etc. You can play a couple tricks for the short term, and have a quick ranking spike and then go back down again or you can talk to guys like you and see where and how to effectively publish relevance on the web to increase you search engine traffic. If you are relevant, you will stay relevant :-)
Posted by Tyler Oakley, Seattle, Washington | Mar 20, 2010

Hi Sir,

Great article. I would like to learn about the do's and don't of developing quality inbound links via article writing and link exchange...
Posted by Maximus Kang, Issaquah, Washington | Apr 02, 2010
Hi Aaron,

A few others I'd love to include would be:
- Incorrectly using your Robots.txt file (this could potentially tell the crawlers to not crawl nor index your site entirely)
- Duplicate content (having multiple copies of the same content on your website without proper use of a canonical tag)
- Not tracking errors with webmaster tools or results with analytics
I think your article helped a lot of people as I found it very easy to read!

Cheers,
Posted by ashok sharma, mumbai, Maharashtra India | Apr 02, 2010

very cofusing !
Posted by Evan Milton, Mill Creek, Washington | Apr 02, 2010

Good practicle information. I appreeciate your knowledge.
Posted by Maximus Kang, Issaquah, Washington | Apr 02, 2010

Hi Ashok, just wondering if it was one of the points that I brought up or not?

Cheers,
Posted by Linda Baldridge, Monroe, Washington | Aug 11, 2010

My sentiments also, we are an Internet Marketing Consulting firm, our first steps are the search engine optimization of our business clients website before we even discuss promoting it across the internet.

Linda | http://www.onsitelocal.com