6 Ways To Get Banned By Google

According to research compiled by search engine optimization expert Mike Banks Valentine, Google drives 74% of traffic to most websites - talk about domination!

That's why it's amazing to me that people still attempt to try and trick Google by using questionable and dishonest search engine optimization techniques to achieve higher rankings. Want to avoid getting banned by Google? Just follow the following 6 tips:

1. Stay Away From Link Farms: A link farm is any group of web pages that all hyperlink to every other page in the group. Although some link farms can be created by hand, most are created through automated programs and services. A link farm is a form of spamming the index of a search engine (sometimes called spamdexing). Joining a link farm will illegally generate hundreds or even thousands of back links to your website in a very short period of time. Also, When submitting your site to web directories, be careful you don't "red flag" Google by adding too many back links at one time.

2. Stay Away From Cloaking: Here's an excerpt taken from an article written by search engine expert, Alan Perkins titled Why Cloaking Is Always A Bad Idea.

"The term "cloaking" is used to describe a website that returns altered Web pages to search engines crawling the site. In other words, the Web server is programmed to return different content to [a search engine] than it returns to regular users, usually in an attempt to distort search engine rankings.

Search engines have a problem with cloaking because it makes a mockery of their ranking algorithms. These algorithms rank pages partly according to what people will see on the page. When this information is deliberately withheld, the algorithm cannot do its job. Cloaking is the ultimate form of invisible text - nobody sees it, not even by viewing the HTML source code."

3. Don't Use Doorway Pages: Doorway pages are web pages that are created for for spamming the index of a search engine by inserting results for particular phrases with the purpose of sending you to a different page. They are also known as landing pages, bridge pages, portal pages, jump pages, gateway pages, entry pages and by other names. Doorway pages that redirect visitors without their knowledge use some form of cloaking.

Doorway pages are designed to increase a web sites ranking in a search engine. The doorway page is usually a replication of the key words and description of web sites. It relies on repetition of related words and phrases to increase search engine ranking.

4. Avoid Excessive Cross-Linking: Cross-linking refers to the linking between related websites – either by owner, as business affiliates, or within the same niche community. Cross-linking may be used for a variety of reasons. For example, to communicate to both search engines and site visitors that a website has important content - to build link popularity which promotes higher page ranks and overall website rankings, and to provide an alternative to calls-to-action in the event site visitors are not yet ready to make a purchase.

When used in excess, however, cross-linking is considered spam and could cause your website to be penalized. That's why it's important to read up on and study how and when to use cross-linking to a website’s advantage, to make sure that the quantity and quality of cross-links are accurate.

5. Don't Submit Multiple URL's From The Same Site: For example, don't submit mywebsite.com and mywebsite.com/index.html to the Google database, essentially trying to get two search results for the same page. While this will give you two or more spots in the search engine's listings, they will be listed together, and the only thing you will have accomplished is knocking other sites down in the rankings, which is unethical.

6. Don't Use automated Querying: According to Google's terms of service, "You may not send automated queries of any sort to Google's system without express permission in advance from Google. Note that "sending automated queries" includes, among other things:

Using any software which sends queries to Google to determine how a website or webpage "ranks" on Google for various queries; "meta-searching" Google; and performing "offline" searches on Google.

In closing, stay away from tricks and dishonest SEO techniques. Instead, focus your energy on building a quality, relevant content site for your visitors. You'll be much better off in the long run!