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In the online media, the topic that is most discussed is search engine optimization. For an expert, understanding the technicalities involved with it is a cakewalk. But this is not true in the case of a beginner. Lots of new words are added to the search engine dictionary and finding out what means what calls for great attention and research. If you find difficult to squeeze time for making in-depth research, here are the terms that are used most frequently in the online world of search engine optimization.

Meta Tags: One among the determining factors of the page ranking of a site, meta tags deserves more attention. These tags are a must if you want the search engines to list your site more accurately in their indexes. The meta tag elements are placed in the head section of a HTML document and are often visible to the users.

Keyword density: This term refers to how often a keyword is used in the website. Keyword density is the part of basic SEO.

Pay Per Click: This is an advertising model, where the advertisers have to pay only when the visitors actually click an advertisement to the advertiser’s website. This way, website owners can buy better positions in the search engine results. Yahoo! and Google are two among the leading players in the pay per click industry. Though Google is not a pay per click search engine, it do offers PPC advertisements in text boxes to the right side of the search results.

Inbound links: More often, you would have come across this terminology. Playing an important role in search engine marketing, inbound links bring visitors to your site from other websites.

Outbound links: This is also a common terminology in the SEO world. An outbound link is a link from your site to another website.

Link popularity: Link popularity and inbound links go hand in hand. This is a measure of determining how many sites link back to you. It is said that you can increase the traffic to your website by increasing the inbound links.

Spiders: No, not that Peter Parker kind of spider, a spider in a search engine is a program that automatically fetches web pages and feeds them to the search engines. This program crawls all over the web and hence the name. Wikipedia definition says that a webcrawler (spider) is ‘a program or automated script which browses the World Wide Web in a methodical, automated manner’.

SERP: This is not a hard-to-digest search engine jargon. SERP refers to Search Engine Result Pages. When it comes to search engine page ranking, it is advised that you give high priority to the first 30 results.

Anchor text: You would have seen this terminology in forums were topics on optimizing images in a webpage are discussed. An anchor text refers to the visible text for a hyperlink.

Doorway pages: Doorway pages or gateway pages are an all-time favorite of the Black-Hat SEO experts. These pages are chiefly created for spamming the index of search engine. This is done by inserting results for particular keywords chiefly for the purpose of taking you to a different page i.e. when you click a doorway page from the search engine result listings, you will be redirected to another page with a fast meta refresh command.

Affiliate marketing:A higher level search engine promotion, affiliate marketing refers to a marketing program where the advertisers pay an affiliate for directing potential traffic to their site.

With the growing popularity of search engine optimization marketing came another term – ‘SEO myths’. Yes, if a new SEO strategy is added to the online media, it will be followed by a search engine optimization myth, stronger than the former! SEO gurus strongly recommend that you keep away from these myths to make your site free from the darker side of SEO. You would come across an endless listing of top SEO myths. Read on to learn about some of the greatest SEO myths.

Multiple Domains: If the SEO firm you approach happens to mention anything about multiple domains, make sure that you keep away from them. This approach can be helpful, but often it is not. In addition, this method could be expensive and managing multiple domains could eat up your time, especially if you have a small team to manage the same.

Invisible Text and Links: No professional SEO firm would adopt this approach to handle their search engine marketing requirements. It is strongly advised that you don’t entertain the addition of invisible links or text in your website. This method could fetch you immediate results that is true. But in the long run, chances are high that your site gets blacklisted by the search engines.

Search Engine Resubmission: Some firms tend to resubmit the URLs to the search engines and directories every few weeks. This can in no way improve the page ranking of your site. On the other hand, this could reduce the ranking of your site.

Guaranteed Overnight Results: Remember, no one can guarantee 100% organic results within 24 hours. It would take months to build quality link and loyal readership for your site. However, you can gain instant results by opting for the back-door SEO approach. But it takes just few minutes for the search engines to push you out through the front doors. Yes, never go for Black-Hat strategies, if you are aiming for long-term results.

Meta Tag Stuffing: Meta tags play an important role in improving the ranking of your website, agreed. But don’t think that you can reach the top listings by stuffing your meta tags with keywords and more keywords. Just follow the basics, list your main keywords, followed by a neat and crisp description about your services and that is all! Rest will be taken care of by the search engines.

More Links The Better: Increasing the count of inbound links and outbound links won’t hurt your site; however, there are certain guidelines one needs to follow. If there are outbound links in your site, make sure that they are directed to relevant sites, same thing applies in the case of inbound links.

Search Engines Cannot Index Pages with Flash Files: This is a big myth! Yes, search engines cannot index Flash movies by it, but you can make the search engine index your pages following certain optimization tactics.

If a site reaches the top position in search engine results, and retains the position for a longer period, don’t nurture the impression that it is powered by the Black-Hat SEO strategies. Though unethical SEO promises fast results, you cannot rely on the same for long-term gain. Yes, for a site rich with the Black-Hat tricks, chances of it getting blacklisted are high.

For Black-Hat SEO practitioners search engine optimization is a war. They try every nasty trick to get into the search engine listings; however, they end up getting blacklisted by them. Short-cuts are fun to follow, if and only if they take us to the right destination. Black-Hat SEO strategies often fail to take you in the right path and bring back the rank of ‘search engine spammer’ to your website!

If you are a new entrant to the online world of search engine and search engine optimization, it is advised that you have a fair idea about Black-Hat SEO and what factors make your site a ‘black-hat breeding ground’. Here are the notorious Black-Hat techniques you should avoid:

• Keyword stuffing
• Invisible text
• Doorway pages

Keyword Stuffing: Keywords are a must for search engines, agreed. But packing your site with an endless list of keywords could make it rank high as a search engine spammer! If you have pretty good idea about the online habits of internet users, it won’t be a tough task to uncover the keywords used by your potential customers. On the other hand, for those who are new to the concept of optimizing the web pages, tools like Overture Keyword Selector Tool, Google Keyword Tool and Wordtracker will be the right pick.

Invisible Text: If you thought you can get in to the search engine listing by hiding text all over your website, you are doing a big mistake. If search engines had a hate list, invisible text could have been the first entry to it. There is no denying the fact that placing invisible text could multiply your search results. But, remember that this is a short term gain and if the search engines detect this strategy in your site, be ready to say goodbye to your site.

Doorway Pages: Wondering what a doorway page is? Well, these are standalone pages created to serve as doorways to your site. You would come across numerous SEO firms that rely on doorway pages for search engine marketing and some of them go to the next level by offering software to create such pages. If you are keen on short-term gains, you can rely on these firms. On the other hand, if long term gains and increased business conversions are your focus, it is better that you keep away from this filthy Black-Hat SEO strategy. Doorway pages provide no secret entry to the search engines, rely on other ethical SEO strategies and take your website to the top of the search results.

Link Farms And Bad Neighborhoods Could Spell Disaster:

Yes, bad neighborhoods could drag your site to the status of a search engine spammer. If you have outbound links to websites with bad reputation, chances are high that the search engines penalize you for the backdoor entry. More often, search engine firms rely on link farms in generating the link popularity of the site. Here again, this approach is efficient as a short-term goal, the long-term gain of this approach will be the rank as a search engine spammer. There is no point in keeping hundreds of links in your website. It is advised that you keep the links in a page to the minimum, lower the better. Also, when you participate in a link farm, the links that you obtain to your site will be from totally irrelevant sites. Building link popularity is a long-term process and you can succeed in this, if and only if you link to relevant sites.

The offers provided by Black-Hat SEO firms will be too tempting to take up. Yes, you can have the confidence of guaranteed results with these firms; in addition, you can gain the rank of search engine spammer as a long-term gain.

Search engine marketing has more to it than onsite and offsite SEO. Yes, it is all about building popularity, positioning the brand and maintaining a traffic flow to your site. When it comes to maintaining the web traffic, you cannot do without web analytics. Yes, web analytics gives a complete idea about the customer traffic and their behavioral patterns. What else can promise you increased business conversions, than adopting your USP to the requirements of the client! Also, these analytics explain in a simple way about the results of the investments you have made in search engine marketing. Read on to know what adds to the importance of web analytics!

Shortcut to Maximize ROI

Your online business is a big success, but you have no clue where the chief source of your revenue is! Are you in such a situation? If yes, just turn your attention to web analytics. These analytics will help you find the sources that have the highest browse-to-buy ratios; also, you can identify which referral sources generate the maximum revenue and orders for your business. This detailed analysis report helps you find out which visitor groups have got the higher tendency to convert into members or customers.

Measure the Strength of Your Keywords

Your site carries an endless list of keywords and you want to analyze which keywords the potential visitors used to reach your site. Does that sound impossible to you? Wait till you find out how a web analytics report could help you with the same. This report gives a detail analysis about the traffic to your site and their path. Analyzing this data gives you a better insight about the keywords that are effective for your business. Also, you can remove the ‘inert’ keywords from your site based on this report.

Optimize Your Business Conversions

The user behavior and conversion rates show how you can further improve your business. In addition, you can identify where you went wrong and can alter the content and navigation of the site accordingly.

Identify Where People Are Exiting Your Site

This is one of the main characteristics of web analytics. This feature allows you to have an understanding about where users are exiting your site. Yes, this analysis helps you to discover what is costing your sales. If the report indicates that a majority of the visitors leave the site on a particular page, just pay close attention to the contents and features of the page and find out what went wrong.

Formulate a Better Business Plan

You can draft a better business plan and course of action with the aid of web analytics. The main advantage of sketching your business plans based on web analytics is that you are dealing with facts and not on assumptions.

Google Analytics: The Supreme Advisor

Having the support of a supreme advisor could fill you with an unlimited confidence level, isn’t it? A reliable source, Google Analytics provides you with a detailed statistics about the visitors to your site. If your search engine marketing requirement is handled by an SEO firm, you can make the most of this tool to analyze how efficient are they in putting your marketing goals in terms of the search engine language. Another advantage of using Google Analytics is that you can track all online campaigns, from emails to keywords, irrespective of the search engine or the referral source.

It is advised that you go for the assistance of a professional SEO firm for your web analytics requirements. Such firms could give you a better advice and suggestion regarding how you to go about with your search marketing campaign. Choosing firms that offer periodical web analytics report would be a better move.

Much has been said about the importance of choosing the right keyword. Whether you are a novice or an expert, you would be pretty much aware about the role of keywords in increasing the page ranking of a website. More often, people realize the tougher part of keyword selection only when they get closer to the things! This is where the good old practice of research comes into a role. Turn your attention to the words of connoisseurs in the field or just observe how top ranking sites remain just that – top ranking!

Keyword is the basic foundation to your search engine marketing. Before getting started with your search keep in mind that keyword research doesn’t mean choosing the most searched phrases. It is all about finding the keyword that defines your business in a unique way. If you are opting for the keywords, you are putting your site against a tough competition. On the other hand, when you choose a popular keyword with limited competition, no strain is required from your side to take the site to the top listings. Yes, keyword research is all about common sense and in-depth research. However, before getting started with your search, there are certain things that are too important to ignore.

Keyword Types:

Let us begin with the types of keywords. If keywords are to be classified, you would come across generic and branded keywords.

• Generic keywords

If your prospective clients are not familiar with the brand name of your company or products, it is advised that you stick to generic keywords. Yes, for those who are in the initial phase of product launch and campaigning, generic keywords can do the perfect job. In such cases, you can use keywords that are directly related to your business.

• Branded keywords

If you have already created a mark of your own in the online media, choosing branded keywords could do wonders in your search engine marketing. When campaigning with branded keywords, you can begin with your company name, its products and services. You can also mix branded keywords with generic ones and create unique key phrases.

Keyword research comes with its own set of jargons. It is advised that you have a better understanding about what means what!

Popularity: As the name says, popularity refers to the number of people searching for a particular keyword or keyword phrase. Whichever keyword you choose, make sure that it has high popularity ratings.

Competition: A wide majority of the people, especially newcomers to SEO, offer ignore the importance of keyword competition. Optimizing for a competitive keyword could make it more difficult for your site to get top rankings. Thus the mantra here is to choose popular keywords with less competition.

Relevance: The keyword you choose should be relevant to your business and services. If increasing business conversions is your goal, you certainly should pay attention to the relevance of the keyword to your site.

Tools to Choose

It is advised that you get the assistance of keyword research tools like Wordtracker and Overture for your research. When Overture lists the highest number of searches on overture during the previous month, Wordtracker provides the results in predicted number of searches over all the engines per day. The keyword results in Wordtracker are combined from Metacrawler and Dogpile. SEO virtuosos recommend that you combine the efficiency of both these tools to uncover powerful keywords unique to your business. You can also get the assistance of Google’s Keyword Tool for your research.

Tips that click

• The main thing that you should keep in mind is to ‘think like a layman’. Don’t expect people to be aware of the technical terms and jargons involved with your business. Think from the perspective of your potential customers and begin the search. At the same time, you should not completely avoid the technical jargons. Yes, try to strike a balance between both.
• Don’t spread your focus to multiple customer groups. Target a particular customer group and design your research parameters accordingly.
• Give equal importance to secondary keywords.
• Gather research information about your industry and keep yourself updated with the latest search engine marketing strategies.
• Don’t use single keywords, using keyword phrases could do a better job!
• You can also try localizing your keywords i.e., take advantage of the geographic location; this could make your keywords more specific.

Remember, keyword research is just the beginning of the journey and you have miles to go to create a mark of your own in the World Wide Web. Good Luck!

If you thought Pay Per Click (PPC) advertisement is the brainchild of the online media, you are wrong. The concept of PPC was introduced right in the offline days, however, in a different name. When it was launched the first time, experts christened the concept as Pay Per Order (PPO) or Pay Per Response (PPR). It goes without saying that this marketing strategy failed to create an impact in the audience. But the online media has a different story to tell. Pay Per Click management was an instant success! Read on to know what made is meant by pay per click management and what made it click!

Short-Cut to Instant Traffic

Pay Per Click campaigning is indeed the shortcut to build instant traffic to your website. Definition says that PPC is ‘a cost model allowing advertisers to pay for performance by only being charged when a targeted lead is brought to their site’. This approach promises guaranteed web traffic. For those who want immediate results, pay per click management is the answer.

Remember, there are many factors that contribute to the success of a PPC campaign, ignoring the importance of these factors won’t do any good in building your brand popularity. So buckle up and find out what are the essential ingredients to brew a perfect Pay Per Click campaign.

Find the Killer Keywords

Yes, to launch a successful pay per click campaign, you need keywords that click! Before getting started with your search, sit back and think about your marketing goals. Analyze where you are and where you want to be, who your customers are and how you want to approach them. Jot down all these and sketch a game plan. PPC advertising begins with the selection of keywords that you feel will bring potential visitors to your site. On choosing the targeted keywords you are required to bid on them to get a position with that particular PPC provider. The rank for the keyword will be determined based on the amount of your bid. These keywords will be listed as advertisement in related sites, allowing visitors to reach your site through these links. You will be charged for one click at the amount you have as your bid for that keyword.

You can also rely on tools from Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing or MSN AdCenter to find out the targeted keywords in an easier way.

• Yahoo’s Keyword Suggestion Tool

With this tool you can get the searched variations on a particular keyword for the previous month. This tool comes in handy in locating keyword phrases unique to your business.

• MSN’s Keyword Research

MSN’s keyword research tool is similar to the Overture suggestion tool, but includes search queries for 2 months instead of just the previous month. With this tool you can find keywords that are horizontal in nature to your query.

• Google’s Keywords Bid Tool

This tool goes to the next level by providing graphic representations of the volume of searches on each phrase apart from displaying the competition of that particular phrase in the next column. The keyword comparison chart of Google is of great use in finding the popular keywords with lesser competition.

Get Help from Pay Per Click Providers

Yes, you read it right! You can get assistance from Pay Per Click providers like Google and Yahoo to take your PPC campaign on the right track. Choose a provider based on their marketing credibility and the value added services they offer. On deciding upon the PPC provider provide them with details on your business and choose a keyword with their assistance. Now you have to bid for the selected keywords, you can choose the bid value based on your preferences. The main advantage of getting the assistance of a PPC provider is that they will track your ad campaign, calculate the total number of visitors clicked on your advertisement and deduct the amount from your account as per your bid.

Remember, getting involved with PPC campaign without proper budgeting and planning could burn your fingers. Whether you choose a PPC firm or providers like Google or Yahoo, make sure that you discuss about your requirements and budget in detail. Also, make sure that you carry on other free marketing efforts like SEO and directory submission along with the PPC campaign.

Search engine marketing has more to it than improving the page ranking of your site. It is all about brand building, brand positioning and big money! Yes, you cannot do without search engine marketing, if you want to create a mark of your own in the online media. Statistics reveal that nearly thousands of websites are added to the World Wide Web everyday, resulting in an increased competition. It is a must that you equip yourself before entering the online world; else chances are high that your pages be lost in the mystic knots of the web. Many factors contribute to the success of search engine marketing. Sticking on to a single strategy and aiming for rocking results won’t take you anywhere.

Why Search Engine Marketing is important

Are you still wondering why to approach potential customers through the online media? Well, turn your search to the statistics revealed by the representatives from Hitwise, Neilsen/NetRatings and others at the recent Search Engine Strategies conference held in London and you are sure to get amazed at the search habits of the people around the globe. These results reveal that around 81% of internet users prefer search engines for navigating the web and the search engines Yahoo!, Google and MSN are the most preferred ones. Aren’t these findings strong enough to echo the importance of search engine marketing for promoting your online business and services?

When it comes to search marketing, people often give high priority in adopting the standards set by Google. It is indeed the popularity of Google that resulted in this approach and the findings by Hitwise further strengthens the power of Google. However, as a rule of thumb, it is recommended that you take the search strategies set by the major search engines into consideration.

Findings of Forrester.com reveal that ‘search engine market will grow to $11.6 billion by 2010’ and this growth will be boosted by search’s targeted and pay for performance structure. This hints that this is the right time to launch a search marketing campaign. Yes, a small effort spent now could earn you big results in the future.

How Can I Improve Traffic Through Search Engine Marketing?

The web traffic is related to your website type and keywords you have used for the optimization. If you are aiming web traffic through the DIY SEO approach, you can rely on keyword tools like Wordtracker and Overture. These tools could be of great use in identifying targeted keywords unique to your business. Also, you can select the keyword phrases based on their popularity and competition. However, it is advised that you get expert advice before deciding upon the keywords. Getting the assistance of SEO firms and companies is an economical alternative to search engine marketing. Such firms offer packages that cover the entire search engine marketing requirements.

Is Hiring SEO Professionals Necessary?

Yes, it is. If you have a thorough knowledge on the nuances involved with search engine marketing, you can confidently go ahead with your personalized SEO campaign. But if you are new to search marketing and want to take your products and services to a global level, it is advised that you don’t opt for the DIY approach. At such instances, hiring an SEO professional is indeed the smart move.

SEO companies are doing this day in and day out and it won’t be a difficult task for them to understand your business and your target customer group. Also their industry exposure allows them to keep updated with the changes in the search engine algorithms. Such firms take different aspects of search engine optimization into consideration for promoting your products and services. When it comes to keyword research it is better that you leave it to the hands of the experts in the field. And no one can handle the web designing and usability than these professionals. Wondering what designing has got to do with search engine optimization? Well, if you want the spiders to effectively crawl your website, the design of the site should be search engine friendly. Remember, search engine marketing is not all about placing the keywords and optimizing the content, there are lots of other factors like link building, link popularity and PPC campaign that contribute to its success.

Don’t think that you are done with your dealings with keywords once the keyword research is over. Placing the keywords in the website is an art to be mastered with patience and dedication! Yes, giving less importance in keyword placing could spell D.I.S.A.S.T.E.R. Read on to find what experts say about this subtle art!

Reach the Search Engine with Your URL

Using a keyword rich URL can double the chances of your site getting listed in the search engine results. You can use a combination of the keywords that is easier to understand for the customer and the search engines. Tools like My Domain Friend could assist you with domain name suggestions.

Create Keyword Rich Meta Tags:

Importance of Meta tags in search engine ranking is one among the most debated topics, when some claim that Meta tag is a must in search engine ranking, others say it is true the other way round. To be on the safer side, it is advised that you include both the primary and secondary keywords in the Meta tags.

Meta tags fall into three categories:

• Description

The meta description tag is intended to provide a brief description about your site to the search engines and directories. It is this description which will be displayed in the search engine results. Meta description should contain the most important keywords and keyword phrases related to your products and services. The Meta description should be convincing to the reader and the search engines as well. When search engines look for keywords in the Meta description, visitors will be interested in the information provided in it. Thus, you should strike a balance between the two. Don’t end up creating lengthy meta descriptions, standards suggests that an ideal meta tag should contain a maximum of 160 characters, including space.

• Keywords

Meta keywords are one among the contributing factors to the page ranking of your site. The meta keyword tag should include both the primary and secondary keywords. Make sure that you list the keywords based on priority i.e. from the most important to the least important. Each keyword phrase should be separated with commas and keep keyword repetition to the minimum.

The Magic of Title Tags

It is not too good an idea to ignore the importance of title tags. This is an element included in the header part of an HTML page and it will be visible in the search results too. Title tag demands high priority, thus make sure that you include only the primary keywords in the title tag. Statistics reveal that nearly all search engines make use of title tags for determining the page rank of your site. More often, people tend to put the same title tags for all the pages. Avoid following this! It is strongly recommended that every page should have a unique title tag.

Alt Image Keywords

You would be aware that search engines can’t see images, they can read only text. Thus, the only way to promote your site through images will be to use Alt Image tags. This is an HTML code and you can include the description of the picture in this. Remember to include keywords related to the image in the alt tag and also keep it short and crisp.

Include keywords in the links

If you have interlinking in the site, make sure that you make these links keyword rich. Creating keyword rich links is a surefire approach to lure more traffic to your website.

Importance of a keyword rich content

In a bid to create SEO friendly content people often end up creating contents jam-packed with keywords and more keywords. It is important to make the content keyword rich, agreed. But if you want to make it appealing to the user and the search engine, there are certain things that you should keep in mind.

• Prepare content for visitors, not for the search engine spiders.
• Avoid black-hat SEO strategies to keep your website from getting the rank of search engine spammer.
• Avoid filling the pages with irrelevant keywords.
• Make sure that you give high priority to primary and secondary keywords in your content.
• Always get the assistance of experts for selecting the keywords unique to your service.

Mastering an art is indeed a time consuming process and lots of factors are required in perfecting the same! Thus, it is advised that you proceed with your keyword research and positioning with great patience and complete dedication.

Organic SEO is gaining fast popularity these days. If you have heard of SEO, you certainly would have heard about organic SEO. If you haven’t heard about the latter, read on to know what it is and what benefits it has to offer.

Gone are the days when driving more traffic to the site was simple and easier! Today, the teeming number of websites doubled the competition in the genre of search engine placements and rankings. With this came many back-door optimization strategies. Though the ‘non-organic approach’ speeds up initial ranking of the site, this strategy could earn your site the rank of ‘search engine spammer’. Yes, using the non-organic approach runs a higher chance of getting your site banned by the search engines. This is where organic SEO comes into a role.

The organic approach keeps your site in the search engine results for a longer time. Wondering how? Simple, this approach feeds the search engines what they want – relevancy! Search engines love relevant content and take such a site to the top of the listings. Organic SEO gives high priority to including keyword rich content in high value regions like anchor text, headings, titles, meta tags and meta descriptions. In short, keyword rich content is the key behind organic search engine optimization. Another contributing factor to the growth of organic SEO is link popularity. You can boost the link popularity of your site by acquiring links that point to your website. The benefits of ‘non-organic’ or ‘black hat’ strategies pale in comparison with that of organic SEO! If you are looking for long term benefits at low costs, organic SEO is the right choice for you.

The advantages of organic SEO promises higher return on investment. Yes, studies reveal that searchers prefer to click on natural search engine results rather the paid ones. In addition, the link building strategy of this approach keeps your site in the top search listings for a longer period. However, you cannot turn a deaf ear to the downside of organic SEO. The main weakness of this approach is that you will have to wait for a longer time to see the result of your natural search engine optimization campaign. Well, if it is worth the wait, why not give it a try?

To make the long story short, whichever approach you choose, an ongoing optimization campaign is a must. The ranking and placement strategies set by the search engines keep changing, thus you can retain the top listing if and only if your site is updated with these revisions.

If you are planning to bring your website to the top of the search listing via spamming, you are playing a risky game! Yes, the website you have created is the result of your hard-earned money and is built on your dreams of a successful eBusiness. And do you want all these dreams to shatter just because you tried a ‘back-door’ entry to the search engines?

Let us begin with the definition of search engine spam. Different people define spam in different ways. When Tim Mayer, VP, Web Search for Overture, considers spam as “pages created deliberately to trick the search engine into offering inappropriate, redundant, or poor-quality search results”, others claim it to be ‘the unethical way to cheat search engines’. All these definitions points at one fact – search engine spamming is a short-cut to disaster! Many people fall prey to the search engine spam techniques without their knowledge. Having an understanding about the black-hat strategies could keep you from being blacklisted by the search engines. Here we will discuss about the methods that multiplies the chances of a site to get listed as a ‘Spam’.

Strict No-No’s

Here is a quick-checklist to find whether your site has the spamming ingredients:

• Invisible text (Text that is of the same color as background)
• Irrelevant keywords
• Improper use of headings (For instance, <h1> - <h6> should not be used within paragraphs)
• Usage of doorway pages or mirror sites
• Stuffing the pages with keywords
• Duplicate content

Above mentioned are the primary contributors to search engine spamming. Now we will move our focus to the secondary contributors. More often it is the unethical or non-organic strategies adopted by the SEO firms that pushes your treasured website to the ‘spammer pit’. Terms like ‘instant link popularity’ and ‘incredulous link framing’ are good to hear, but before you go by their words make sure to check the following:

• A wide majority of the SEO firms create free-for-all (FFA) websites just for the purpose of linking to each other. But the truth is that these sites serve as spam magnets instead of improving the page ranking of the site. By taking your website to participate in a link-farm, you are increasing the chances of getting your site penalized by the search engines.
  

• If the SEO firm claims to offer ‘instant link popularity’, make sure to check which method they are adopting to achieve the same. Remember, the most legitimate way to build the link popularity of a site is through the major directories.
  

• Cloaking – this is a practice of providing different content or URLs to users and search engines. If the search engine finds out that your site serves different content to search engines than to users, your site will be penalized or banned.

• Make sure to check with the firm whether they have the permission to perform automated submission and queries.

You can also refer the guidelines set by popular search engines like Google, MSN and Yahoo. Google’s Webmaster Guidelines suggests, ‘submit your site to relevant directories such as the Open Directory Project and Yahoo!, as well as to other industry-specific expert sites’. MSN’s Guidelines for Successful Indexing says that adding a sitemap allows MSNBot to locate all your pages easily. It is advised that you stick to the suggestions of these connoisseurs to save your website from getting blacklisted.

In short, Search Engine Optimization is not a mystery science. It is built on algorithms and pure common sense, if you want to impress the search engines, take the front door instead of battling for the back-door approach!