Free Website Promotion, Website Traffic, and SEO Tips

Most Search Engines have a list of practices that they recommend websites avoid. Most of these practices can subject your website to being banned. I suggest you take a look at Search Engines TOS and make sure you aren’t violating any of them.

Here is a list of some of the top practices to avoid:

1.Cloaking
Cloaking is the process of displaying different pages to a Search Engine than to humans. Cloaking goes against the Terms of Service of most Search Engines. However, I have seen many pages use cloaking to rank high for years. Many major companies that will never get banned by the Search Engines use cloaking. In fact, a while back even Google® got caught cloaking, albeit they did explain it away as a programming error. Cloaking is not a technique I recommend at all, and beginners should learn more about it weighing it’s pluses and minuses, prior to deciding whether or not it is worth the risk for their situation. I personally would NEVER recommend using cloaking.

2.Hidden text
Text that is hidden by making it the same color as the background or a color very close to the background color is also known as invisible text. The practice of having text that users don’t see is a no-no in Search Engine’s eyes and will likely cause your site a penalty in the long term.

3.Hidden Links
Links to other sites or other areas of your site that can’t be seen to normal website visitors is another no-no. Putting up links that can’t be seen by humans, but can by the Search Engines is a technique that can penalize your website or get it banned. I am amazed at how many sites I find doing this. I assume in most cases they don’t realize it’s a bad practice, but my thought is “if you are embarassed to show the links on your page, then don’t link to those places”.

4.Tiny text
Text that is practically invisible because it is 1 pixel by 1 pixel in size, is considered by most search engines to be SPAM. You can get your site banned for this practice.

More to come…