Internet Marketing, SEO,

Dirty Practices in SEO that Lead to Google Penalty (Part I)

July 21, 2016 Nashaat Quadri 0

SEO industry has had a roller-coaster ride in the past ten years. From shady practices, spamming and the resulted Google penalties to improved practices and content marketing, SEO industry has come a long way. Spammers and black hat SEO professionals gave it a shady reputation a few years back, but the stalwarts fought back and the industry ushered in an era of creativity and quality. Many SEO resellers India companies have learned these lessons and are now doing well. You too should be aware of these facts, so that you don’t end up facing the consequences of practicing black hat SEO.

However, not everyone is following the standard practices. There are people, who are still treading the old path and are taking shortcuts to reach on top of search engines using shady practices. I would like to share some horror stories from the SEO world here.

If you make mistakes, that’s fine. The real problem occurs when you are intentionally doing the things that are condemned and frowned upon by Google. You need to update your practices periodically to keep yourself in the business and keep on reaping rewards for your efforts.

Avoid keyword stuffing and hidden text

If you mention the same term multiple times or the title tags comes with dozens of city names, it’s not liked by Google. Hidden text is also frowned upon by the daddy of search engines. Don’t use keyword stuffing in Google My Business listing names. It’s like playing with Google’s ranking signals and carry the possibility of being penalized.

Tip: Keep your homepage title short and don’t stuff it with all the city names in your neighborhood.

Don’t manipulate Google Maps

Some people manipulate Google Maps to add their own business at the locations used by others. It’s not good SEO practice and falls in black-hat SEO. Don’t try to “hijack” the rankings of other businesses using virtual office addresses or UPS store locations.

Don’t include content which is barely readable and don’t hide it intentionally.

Don’t use the same content on different pages

Sometimes the webmasters insert almost similar content on many web pages and just the product category or the city name is swapped. People know that that is bad SEO practice, but it’s still widely practiced.

Tip: Tweak the content and add something which adds value and sounds interesting to the reader.

Avoid Link spam

Have you tried something like local listings? Website owners do link spamming in the name of distributing press releases to be posted on local news websites.

Same goes for directory submissions and article marketing. If you’re practicing lots of link spam, you’re heading for doom. Spam is always bad, be it videos, or other stuff on web 2.0. You need to check your backlink profile periodically to make sure there are no spammy links there. If spam is ever detected in your profile, your website might be penalized soon.

Don’t cloak your company as a high ranking website; this is completely black hat.

Most of the SEO reseller businesses are found to be engaged in such black hat practices, which is not good. Initially, you may notice some SEO benefit but as soon as Google notices such kind of practices, your website stands to be penalized and all the rankings you have managed to climb up to will be vanished in a matter of seconds.

–To be continued

Nashaat Quadri

Nashaat Quadri is a content marketing enthusiast, a blogger and a motivational speaker. He has helped many companies increase online traffic and boost their search engine rankings. He has also helped individuals and businesses become successful web content publishers themselves. Public speaking is his passion and he regularly conducts motivational workshops for peak performance.

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