What SEO Techniques to Avoid?
SEO has always been a popular and valuable practice for any website owner to engage in to ensure their site is found and ranked well on Google. However, the search engine algorithm has changed dramatically in recent years.
Nonetheless, Google continues to add new techniques and techniques to its algorithm. This article will provide you with information on outdated tactics and what you should do instead.
Which SEO techniques you should avoid, the list below should help
Stuffing keywords
The fundamentals of SEO are to ensure that your site contains relevant content that people are looking for. Including keywords in your content can help, but only if done correctly.
Using a high density of keywords in your content may appear to be keyword stuffing, which will almost certainly result in a Google penalty and a drop in rankings. Instead, use your keywords naturally throughout the article rather than cramming them all into one large block of text.
Hidden Text
This used to be a great way to get your keywords to rank in search engines, but it is no longer the case. Google now penalises sites that they believe are attempting to manipulate their rankings, so make sure your SEO techniques are legitimate and there for no other reason than to add quality content.
Paid Links
Paid links used to be a great way to boost SEO, but Google has changed its algorithm, so they are no longer as effective as they once were. Google now prioritises sites that use specific link-building techniques, such as buying links or offering them in exchange for promotion elsewhere on the web. These links will eventually be penalised by Google, and your site will suffer as a result.
Cloaking
Cloaking occurs when a website owner creates the same page in two different styles, one for search engines and one for humans. This used to be a great way to get around web spam filters, but it no longer works as well as it used to, and so many sites have been penalised for using cloaking that Google has now outright banned it.
Open Site Explorer
Using this site to determine which of your pages are ranking high for a specific keyword is no longer recommended. The site is constantly changing and updating, frequently adding new techniques that have already been banned.
Noindex Banners
There was once a significant benefit to using a no-index tag on an on-page element, but Google SEO now considers these to be spammy and harms your overall ranking. Instead, use rel=”no-follow” on any links you believe are critical to your rankings.
Keyword Density
If you use an article with a high keyword density, Google will consider this keyword stuffing and will penalise your site. Instead, try to use more descriptive keywords in your content that the average person is more likely to search for.
Flash Movies
Using Flash movies on your website used to be a great way to ensure that your site was visible on both desktop and mobile devices, but this is no longer the case. Google no longer allows flash sites on their engine, so if you used flash videos on your site, you will have lost a lot of money.
Blog Networks
Blog networks are now obsolete and ineffective, especially if you have recently purchased links to promote your blogs. This is because over-optimization will result in a penalty, and your site will suffer as a result. If you decide to do something like this in the future, be cautious of buying links only from reputable sources.
301 Redirects
When you have a new domain, Google may take some time to crawl the site, but 301 redirects can help with a faster crawl and improve search engine rankings. However, in recent years, Google has made it so that using a 301 redirect too frequently in a short period of time can have the opposite effect and negatively affect your rankings. Instead, try to avoid doing this as much as possible and only use it when absolutely necessary.
Page Titles
Using keywords in your page titles can help with rankings in some ways, but Google’s SEO algorithm has changed, so this is no longer the case. Instead, try to keep your titles descriptive so that users can distinguish between pages without using any keywords.
As you can see, many of the techniques used to get a website ranked high in search engines are now obsolete. Instead, concentrate on producing high-quality content for your target audience and only include keywords when it feels natural and necessary.
If you follow this advice, your website will eventually begin to rank highly without any negative Google penalties as a result of the work you have put into it.