SEO FAQs | Search Engine Optimization & Search Engine Spam
How can spam be on a web site?
Normally when we think of spam we picture our email inbox cluttered with unwanted and unasked for mail, usually about medication, porn, real estate or sex aids. In search engine optimisation spam refers to something different, to techniques used to try to fool search engines, and web users. Some of these techniques, for example the use of hidden text, cloaking, and redirects, were quite successful in the early days of the search engines, and were much used forms of web site positioning, but their spiders have become much more advanced over the years and can now detect such spam. And when they do, they penalise the site because spam is their worst enemy. Visitors to search engines expect relevant results in the SERPs for any query they make, and sites using spam can be highly irrelevant. It has happened to all of us, a query is entered, a result appears to be what we want but when we click the link we are delivered to some site that has little or nothing to do with our original query.
Search Engine Spam Techniques: Hidden Text
Hidden text is text that is visible to search engine spiders but not visible to users. This is done by placing text in the same colour as the background, and is primarily used to fill a page with keywords without actually adding any relevant content, especially when the site is filled with images. Because it is adding irrelevant content, most search engines will penalise any web site which uses hidden text.
Search Engine Spam Techniques: Cloaking
Cloaking is a technique that relies on a search engine's 'politeness'. When a spider visits a web site, it alerts the server by identifying itself. In this manner it allows the server to give priority to human visitors when a site is very busy. Spammers can use this 'politeness' by returning a highly optimised page to the spider and a completely different page if the user is human. Search engines will detect this cloaking eventually, and when they do it invariably results in being banned outright.
Search Engine Spam Techniques: Doorway Pages
Doorway pages are pages created solely for the purpose of ranking first for a particular keyword or phrase. Usually the pages are bereft of any relevant or useful content and stand out from the rest of the web site. When discovered it results in being permanently dropped from the search engine's index.
What is a Link Farm?
A Link Farm is a set of pages on the web that have been built for the sole purpose of increasing the number of links to a web site, in order to increase link popularity and thus move a site up the rankings in a search engine. Generally, they require a link back to their site. The search engines now recognise Link Farms as being a form of spam and are likely to ban or penalise any site that participates in them.
Finding out if you are banned in Google.
It is quite easy to discover if your web site has been banned by Google, simply use the 'site' command in Google's search box. Type in "site:www.yourwebsite.com" and it will return all the pages that Google has crawled and added to its index. If no pages are returned, then either Google hasn't indexed your site yet, or has dropped you from its index.
Why build a sitemap?
We build sitemaps because it provides an easy way for visitors to see at a glance the layout of the site and to navigate through it without problems. A sitemap also provides search engine spiders with a single-entry point to your site containing links to every page you want crawled. You can see examples of sitemaps by visiting some of the sites in our portfolio, or you can enter 'sitemap' into a search engine query field and check the results. Google provides official guidelines, and has added a sitemap program that allows you to create a sitemap specifically for Google.
Why don't all my links show up in Google?
Almost every site owner has scratched his head over this one, because when you use the link: command in Google it doesn't return all the inbound links that are expected. It used to be that Google displayed only those backlinks with a Google PageRank of 4 or better but this is no longer the case, although quite how they now choose which backlinks to display is still a matter of debate. Don't worry about it, think of it as just a sampling and continue as before with your gradual link building strategy, remembering to check on sites supposed to link back to you on a regular basis. Better still, use the Yahoo site review program.
What is 'Anchor Text' in a text link?
Quite simply, anchor text is the text that is used within an html link to identify it. The following is an example of anchor text: Avatar Web Solutions optimised web site design. When you choose your anchor text it should contain whatever keyword or phrase that you are trying to be ranked higher for, and should also be an accurate description of what the user will find when he clicks on the link.
For more FAQs, just follow our links below:
- Frequently Asked Questions - guarantees, frames and cookies.
- Frequently Asked Questions - Search Engine Optimisation FAQs.
- Frequently Asked Questions - Pay Per Click advertising campaigns.
