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.
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