There are some SEO violations that are best avoided if you want to evade Google’s harsh penalties. These desecrations are quite difficult to perform without prior intention, so don’t panic if you feel that you may have stepped on a few toes! In fact, a search engine will consider a number of signals before deciding to smack you with a penalty.
But to stay on the safe side, check out these 6 most common SEO violations to AVOID:
1. Cloaking
When it comes to SEO, it’s best to keep Harry Potter’s cloak of invisibility in Hogwarts. Cloaking refers to the process of tampering with the presentation of your website. Usually this involves showing humans and search engines two entirely different versions. Since accidental cloaking is close to impossible, search engines will view it as intentional.
2. Thin Content
Google’s Panda update targets thin content with no foreseeable backbone or structure. It’s lack of substance makes it unattractive in the eyes of search engines. Use content that search engines approve of and consider to be both useful and valuable.
3. Stuffing Keywords
You may assume that filling your content with keywords will make search engines take notice. And you’re right, search engines WILL notice, but not in the way that you perhaps hoped. Instead of awarding you for your genius efforts, you will be penalised for it.
4. Invisible Text
The tactic of hiding text by blending it with the same coloured background of the web page is referred to as “hidden text”. This is often carried out after stuffing keywords and is one of the most commonly used SEO violations to avoid. Unfortunately, search engines are not so easily fooled. They will treat it as spam and you could be penalised for it.
5. Too Many Ads
There is a specific algorithm that deals with sites containing too many ads. This is referred to as the Page Layout Algorithm, otherwise known as Top Heavy Layout. A site containing way too many ads is incredibly frustrating for the user and search engines alike. This is because search engines such as Google strive to give users the best possible user experience. Websites containing too many ads will not meet these high expectations, which is why they will be targeted by the Page Layout Algorithm.
6. Copied Content
A Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) take-down request should be addressed as soon as possible. Google are coming down hard on sites that have breached the copyright law. This is referred to as the Pirate update. It is present to ensure that nobody has stolen work or content etc. belonging to someone else.
So there you have it, the top 6 SEO violations to AVOID.
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