The purpose of search engines such as Google and Yahoo is to provide relevant results for their users.
Such effective searches require the identification of the most relevant pages and the removal of websites that are using manipulative techniques to try and rank higher.
In many cases, techniques are followed which are not only ineffective but can also be considered spam by search engines.
We can now look at some of these manipulative techniques that can cause websites to be penalised and even banned by Search Engines.
1.
Hidden Text Hidden text is text that users are unable to see when visiting a webpage.
For example, this technique is where keywords are placed (usually in a repetitive manner), somewhere on a page and the colour of the text is the same as the background of the page so that it cannot be seen by visitors to a website.
Search engines can detect this and will penalise and even reject such pages.
2.
Alt Image Tag Spamming Alt Tag spamming is another way that people try to get keywords into their websites.
You can tell when a website is using Alt Tag spamming when you hold a mouse over an image on a page, a small popup appears and you can see keywords repeated.
The Alt Tag is meant to be a textual description of the image it is attached to and it's use can be beneficial to search engine optimisation when used correctly.
However, penalisation occurs when an Alt tag has obvious keyword repetition/stuffing that a search engine can recognise as spam.
3.
Meta Tag Stuffing Meta Tags are HTML coding which are used to provide information about a web page and are a useful and acceptable way of adding keywords to a page.
If a website is trying to rank well for a term such as tents, meta tag stuffing would involve adding the term tents within the meta data repeatedly.
Search engines can detect such spamming and will penalise such techniques.
Likewise, high traffic keywords are often added into Meta Tags that are completely unrelated to a web page in order to generate more traffic.
Some search engines can detect when the keywords in a keyword Meta tag don't match up with the actual content of a site and will penalise such pages.
4.
Title Tag Stuffing The title tag appears on the top left hand corner of a webpage and is the main information that is displayed in search engine results.
Title tags should introduce a website to potential visitors and encourage them to click through to a site.
Title tag stuffing occurs in a similar fashion to Meta tag stuffing where keywords are entered repeatedly into the title tag.
However, search engines place a higher priority on Title Tags than Meta Tags when it comes to ranking websites and the consequences for spamming within the title tag are much more serious.
5.
Content Duplication Content duplication is an obvious spamming technique that is becoming more of an issue today.
Content duplication issues can occur when content is copied from other websites or when it is copied from other pages within a website.
Search engines do not want to be displaying the same pages in their search results and duplication of content may mean that search engines don't index some pages at all.
Even worse, a search engine crawling program might stop indexing all of the pages of a site because it finds too many copies of the same pages at different websites.
There are many Black Hat techniques that are used to try and influence search engine rankings that can lead to negative effects on search engine visibility.
Some sites may succeed in getting higher rankings in the short term however these techniques are likely to be spotted quicker as search engines become more and more sophisticated.
Such effective searches require the identification of the most relevant pages and the removal of websites that are using manipulative techniques to try and rank higher.
In many cases, techniques are followed which are not only ineffective but can also be considered spam by search engines.
We can now look at some of these manipulative techniques that can cause websites to be penalised and even banned by Search Engines.
1.
Hidden Text Hidden text is text that users are unable to see when visiting a webpage.
For example, this technique is where keywords are placed (usually in a repetitive manner), somewhere on a page and the colour of the text is the same as the background of the page so that it cannot be seen by visitors to a website.
Search engines can detect this and will penalise and even reject such pages.
2.
Alt Image Tag Spamming Alt Tag spamming is another way that people try to get keywords into their websites.
You can tell when a website is using Alt Tag spamming when you hold a mouse over an image on a page, a small popup appears and you can see keywords repeated.
The Alt Tag is meant to be a textual description of the image it is attached to and it's use can be beneficial to search engine optimisation when used correctly.
However, penalisation occurs when an Alt tag has obvious keyword repetition/stuffing that a search engine can recognise as spam.
3.
Meta Tag Stuffing Meta Tags are HTML coding which are used to provide information about a web page and are a useful and acceptable way of adding keywords to a page.
If a website is trying to rank well for a term such as tents, meta tag stuffing would involve adding the term tents within the meta data repeatedly.
Search engines can detect such spamming and will penalise such techniques.
Likewise, high traffic keywords are often added into Meta Tags that are completely unrelated to a web page in order to generate more traffic.
Some search engines can detect when the keywords in a keyword Meta tag don't match up with the actual content of a site and will penalise such pages.
4.
Title Tag Stuffing The title tag appears on the top left hand corner of a webpage and is the main information that is displayed in search engine results.
Title tags should introduce a website to potential visitors and encourage them to click through to a site.
Title tag stuffing occurs in a similar fashion to Meta tag stuffing where keywords are entered repeatedly into the title tag.
However, search engines place a higher priority on Title Tags than Meta Tags when it comes to ranking websites and the consequences for spamming within the title tag are much more serious.
5.
Content Duplication Content duplication is an obvious spamming technique that is becoming more of an issue today.
Content duplication issues can occur when content is copied from other websites or when it is copied from other pages within a website.
Search engines do not want to be displaying the same pages in their search results and duplication of content may mean that search engines don't index some pages at all.
Even worse, a search engine crawling program might stop indexing all of the pages of a site because it finds too many copies of the same pages at different websites.
There are many Black Hat techniques that are used to try and influence search engine rankings that can lead to negative effects on search engine visibility.
Some sites may succeed in getting higher rankings in the short term however these techniques are likely to be spotted quicker as search engines become more and more sophisticated.
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