Friday, August 21, 2009

Questionable Practices Of Certain SEO Experts

By Cheryl L. True

Search engine optimization (SEO) experts are aware that content-rich, well-made web sites rank high. They are likewise aware that a great marketing strategy is the door to web success. Sadly, whether we like it or not, SEO experts are also human and some can resort to unethical practices. Here is a short list of what to avoid:

Using "hidden" text that is not really hidden - Web travelers can't see or read hidden text on your web page but search engines can. SEO consultants who recommend hiding text may suggest loading invisible keywords on the page or hiding keyword-rich text behind layers or images.

But the largest search engines where your web visitors will likely come from consider hidden text as "search spam." They will penalize your web site for using it. It may fool the search engines at first but once they recognize hidden text in your web site, they will probably ban it from their searches. It's a fact that well designed, content-rich web sites are the best performers when it comes to search results. Anything the user can't see will be a red flag for search engines.

Using redirects - There are legitimate reasons for using redirects but a top search engine ranking is not one of them. SEO consultants who recommend creating information-rich content for a page and then redirecting it to another page in your web site do not have your best interests in mind. In fact, the practice has been so common in the past that search engines have learned to penalize pages that use redirects and META refresh.

There are valid reasons for and ways to use redirects. Even so, anything but a permanent redirect is a disservice to your web site. Perhaps you've decided to change the domain name and you don't want to lose the content you've already created. Use robot exclusion tags for this purpose to minimize spam penalties.

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