White Hat Tactics=A Happy Google=Better SERPS For Your Blog=More Cash In Your Pocket
When practicing SEO (search engine optimization), it’s easy to get impatient and try to hurry things up a bit, if you care about where your site is in Google’s SERPS (search engine results page) don’t attempt it, keep your SEO efforts white hat. In the make-money-online-niche, search engine traffic is by far the best traffic to go after, and Google supplies the lions share of that traffic, so keeping Goog happy with your SEO efforts becomes a priority.
I’m not into black hat tactics or anything like that but I have looked for ways to get keyword anchored backlinks to this blog, and noticed I’ve fallen somewhat in the SERPS. So I’ve investigated and actually read some of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.
I learned that I was doing a few things Google really doesn’t care for:
Automated queries
Google’s Terms of Service do not allow the sending of automated queries of any sort to our system without express permission in advance from Google. Sending automated queries absorbs resources and includes using any software (such as WebPosition Gold™) to send automated queries to Google to determine how a website or webpage ranks in Google search results for various queries.
I wasn’t aware of this, and realized I was guilty as charged. I have and had been using a tool called serps finder and I have the older version to boot (the one that shows results 1000 deep as opposed to the newer one that only goes 100 deep.) Being somewhat of a stat junkie I’m always curious as to where I rank for my keywords.
Secondly: I just added some internal links in some of my older posts (to try and optimize for some keywords) another no-no! Google wants links added slowly and naturally over time. Any time there is a lot of link activity in short span of time there’s a good chance it’ll raise a red flag.
I’ve dropped in the serps, and assume it’s the linking I did (as Google crawled my blog today) so I’m learning as I go here, and hopefully giving you a heads-up so you won’t make the same mistakes. I think everything will even out over time, and I’ll just try and make Goog happy because A Happy Google=Better SERPS For My Blog=More Income it really is as simple as that!
Here’s the rest of Google’s Quality Guidelines FYI:
These quality guidelines cover the most common forms of deceptive or manipulative behavior, but Google may respond negatively to other misleading practices not listed here (e.g. tricking users by registering misspellings of well-known websites). It’s not safe to assume that just because a specific deceptive technique isn’t included on this page, Google approves of it. Webmasters who spend their energies upholding the spirit of the basic principles will provide a much better user experience and subsequently enjoy better ranking than those who spend their time looking for loopholes they can exploit.
If you believe that another site is abusing Google’s quality guidelines, please report that site at https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/spamreport. Google prefers developing scalable and automated solutions to problems, so we attempt to minimize hand-to-hand spam fighting. The spam reports we receive are used to create scalable algorithms that recognize and block future spam attempts.
Quality guidelines – basic principles
- Make pages primarily for users, not for search engines. Don’t deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users, which is commonly referred to as “cloaking.”
- Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you’d feel comfortable explaining what you’ve done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, “Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn’t exist?”
- Don’t participate in link schemes designed to increase your site’s ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or “bad neighborhoods” on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.
- Don’t use unauthorized computer programs to submit pages, check rankings, etc. Such programs consume computing resources and violate our Terms of Service. Google does not recommend the use of products such as WebPosition Gold™ that send automatic or programmatic queries to Google.
Quality guidelines – specific guidelines
- Avoid hidden text or hidden links.
- Don’t use cloaking or sneaky redirects.
- Don’t send automated queries to Google.
- Don’t load pages with irrelevant keywords.
- Don’t create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.
- Don’t create pages with malicious behavior, such as phishing or installing viruses, trojans, or other badware.
- Avoid “doorway” pages created just for search engines, or other “cookie cutter” approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content.
- If your site participates in an affiliate program, make sure that your site adds value. Provide unique and relevant content that gives users a reason to visit your site first.
If you determine that your site doesn’t meet these guidelines, you can modify your site so that it does and then submit your site for reconsideration.
So what does Google consider links from bad neighborhoods?
- Free for all link pages
- Link farms, or lots of links to unrelated sites
- Known web scammers
If you care about your position in Google’s SERPS keep the big G happy and follow their guidelines, keep your SEO efforts “white hat”.
Remember this: White Hat Tactics=A Happy Google=Better Serps For Your Blog=More Cash In Your Pocket!
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Hey Jerry, I agree it is wise to stay on the white hat methods as it is not a good thing to be penalized by google but some people will still take the risk and use black hat methods.
Dan’s last blog post..How to get more twitter followers
So true, it’s tempting to try and move up the serps faster, but no matter how you do it if it’s
unnatural the Goog could take notice and slap you. Then you just might have to start all over
again.:o(
Thanks for the reminder. Are bad neighborhoods only porn sites or are they other groups that should be avoided?
Thanks
Andy’s last blog post..MLM Email Leads for Enlyten Network Marketing
No, thank you for the reminder Andy, as I had planed on addressing that in my post, but had forgotten.
So I just added an explanation of what Goog defines as “bad neighborhoods”.
Found this blog while searching google and would like to say thank you and look forward to more posts. I have added to my list of bookmarks.
Thanks Proxy,
It’s good to hear from you!
Interesting post. I wonder what other types of ‘bad behaviour’ which aren’t expressly specified within Webmaster Google Guidelines which will move them to penalise a site.
Hi Adele, thanks for your comment. There are more than likely other things you could be penalized for. Google wants you to come online and fill a blog with hundreds of pages of good useful content, and over a year or two your back links, and traffic will gradually and naturally grow. People (Internet Marketers) are not that patient though, of course, so they try anything and everything they can think (there is a whole market devoted to this of course, it’s called seo ;o) of to speed things up, hopefully without upsetting Google. Do the “right” things and you rocket to the top of the serps and get some of that traffic, do the “wrong” things and Google drops your site into the dreaded “sandbox” and the small amount of traffic you were getting will dwindle down to nothing. It’s all a kind of balancing act really, Google has control over all that search traffic every day, and we (webmasters) are just trying to get a tiny little piece of the action.
I am really not happy with google. I rank #1 for live and yahoo but google is pushing me behind. Wonder what went wrong. How else can I do SEO?
Google can be hard to understand, and they’re not talking. I have a site (over a year old) that gets about 1000 uniques a month, but not one from Google? I have other related blogs that are much younger and get most of their traffic from-you guessed it-Google! Your site, like mine, probubly got stuck in Googles dreaded sandbox. I think the best course of action is to just keep up your white-hat (make sure you’re white-hat) link building efforts and shoot for as much traffic as you can get from Yahoo, Bing, etc. and in time Google will come around. I have heard the quickest way out of the sandbox is some backlinks from some high PR sites in your niche. Because of Googles lack of transparency, there is of course a whole lot of people who call themselves SEO experts, and will for a price help you out of your dilemma.
The first point under “basic principles” is such an important one – it’s so frustrating to click into a site and find that it’s more advertising than content, and of course a frustrated reader isn’t useful to anyone.
Putting interesting content onto a site should be the first priority, and readers, hopefully, will follow.
Ravi@How to make quick money´s last blog ..Treasure Coach Review and Bonus
I agree Ravi, content is still, and I think will always be where it’s at! I try to not post unless I’ve got at least 1000 words of good helpful content. Thanks for your comment Ravi, and did you notice I got the Top Commentators going on. You’re my #1 commentator and of course have a site wide backlink too!