How To Protect Your Search Engine Rankings
Topics: search engine spider, link popularity, keyword density, pagerank, cloaking
Your website’s ranking on search engines is a vital element of your overall marketing campaign, and there are ways to improve your link popularity through legitimate methods.
Unfortunately, the Internet is populated by bands of dishonest webmasters seeking to improve their link popularity by faking out search engines.
The good news is that search engines have figured this out, and are now on guard for “spam” pages and sites that have increased their rankings by artificial methods. When a search engines tracks down such a site, that site is demoted in ranking or completely removed from the search engine’s index.
The bad news is that some high quality, completely above-board sites are being mistaken for these web page criminals. Your page may be in danger of being caught up in the “spam” net and tossed from a search engine’s index, even though you have done nothing to deserve such harsh treatment. But there are things you can do–and things you should be sure NOT to do–which will prevent this kind of misperception.
Link popularity is mostly based on the quality of sites you are linked to. Google pioneered this criteria for assigning website ranking, and virtually all search engines on the Internet now use it. There are legitimate ways to go about increasing your link popularity, but at the same time, you must be scrupulously careful about which sites you choose to link to. Google frequently imposes penalties on sites that have linked to other sites solely for the purpose of artificially boosting their link popularity. They have actually labeled these links “bad neighborhoods.”
You can raise a toast to the fact that you cannot be penalized when a bad neighborhood links to your site; penalty happens only when you are the one sending out the link to a bad neighborhood. But you must check and double-check all the links that are active on your links page to make sure you haven’t linked to a bad neighborhood.
The first thing to check out is whether or not the pages you have linked to have been penalized. The most direct way to do this is to download the Google toolbar. You will then see that most pages are given a “PageRank” which is represented by a sliding green scale on the Google toolbar.
Do not link to any site that shows no green at all on the scale. This is especially important when the scale is completely gray. It is more than likely that these pages have been penalized. If you are linked to these pages, you may catch their penalty, and like the flu, it may be difficult to recover from the infection.
There is no need to be afraid of linking to sites whose scale shows only a tiny sliver of green on their scale. These sites have not been penalized, and their links may grow in value and popularity. However, do make sure that you closely monitor these kind of links to ascertain that at some point they do not sustain a penalty once you have linked up to them from your links page.
Another evil trick that illicit webmasters use to artificially boost their link popularity is the use of hidden text. Search engines usually use the words on web pages as a factor in forming their rankings, which means that if the text on your page contains your keywords, you have more of an opportunity to increase your search engine ranking than a page that does not contain text inclusive of keywords.
Some webmasters have gotten around this formula by hiding their keywords in such a way so that they are invisible to any visitors to their site. For example, they have used the keywords but made them the same color as the background color of the page, such as a plethora of white keywords on a white background. You cannot see these words with the human eye–but the eye of search engine spider can spot them easily! A spider is the program search engines use to index web pages, and when it sees these invisible words, it goes back and boosts that page’s link ranking.
Webmasters may be brilliant and sometimes devious, but search engines have figured these tricks out. As soon as a search engine perceive the use of hidden text–splat! The page is penalized.
The downside of this is that sometimes the spider is a bit overzealous and will penalize a page by mistake. For example, if the background color of your page is gray, and you have placed gray text inside a black box, the spider will only take note of the gray text and assume you are employing hidden text. To avoid any risk of false penalty, simply direct your webmaster not to assign the same color to text as the background color of the page ever!
Another potential problem that can result in a penalty is called “keyword stuffing.” It is important to have your keywords appear in the text on your page, but sometimes you can go a little overboard in your enthusiasm to please those spiders. A search engine uses what is called “Keyword Density” to determine if a site is trying to artificially boost their ranking. This is the ratio of keywords to the rest of the words on the page. Search engines assign a limit to the number of times you can use a keyword before it decides you have overdone it and penalizes your site.
This ratio is quite high, so it is difficult to surpass without sounding as if you are stuttering–unless your keyword is part of your company name. If this is the case, it is easy for keyword density to soar. So, if your keyword is “renters insurance,” be sure you don’t use this phrase in every sentence. Carefully edit the text on your site so that the copy flows naturally and the keyword is not repeated incessantly. A good rule of thumb is your keyword should never appear in more than half the sentences on the page.
The final potential risk factor is known as “cloaking.” To those of you who are diligent Trekkies, this concept should be easy to understand. For the rest of you, cloaking is when the server directs a visitor to one page and a search engine spider to a different page. The page the spider sees is “cloaked” because it is invisible to regular traffic, and deliberately set-up to raise the site’s search engine ranking. A cloaked page tries to feed the spider everything it needs to rocket that page’s ranking to the top of the list.
It is natural that search engines have responded to this act of deception with extreme enmity, imposing steep penalties on these sites. The problem on your end is that sometimes pages are cloaked for legitimate reasons, such as prevention against the theft of code, often referred to as “pagejacking”. This kind of shielding is unnecessary these days due to the use of off-page elements, such as link popularity, that cannot be stolen.
To be on the safe side, be sure that your webmaster is aware that absolutely no cloaking is acceptable. Make sure the webmaster understands that cloaking of any kind will put your website at great risk.
Just as you must be diligent in increasing your link popularity and your ranking, you must be equally diligent to avoid being unfairly penalized. So be sure to monitor your site closely and avoid any appearance of artificially boosting your rankings.
Nelson Tan is the webmaster behind Internet Mastery Center (www.internetmasterycenter.com) Download $347 worth of FREE Internet Marketing gifts!
Previous Articles Highlighter:
How To Launch A New Business With Articles (1)
Article marketing is a simple and effective way to get word out about your new business. It's easy once you understand what publishers are looking for and you can tailor your articles to their needs.
How To Get Great Web Traffic (2)
You want to make sure that you have the most well organized site and that it is going to be one of the sites that really make a good mark on everything.
Finding The Perfect Online Business (3)
There are several reasons why it is very important that you find a forum you can trust and one that is helpful for you. First and foremost, the forum should have many different people on it.
The Importance Of Giving Publishers What They Want (4)
Know what publishers want before you even start writing an article. When you use article marketing to promote your site on the Internet, you are asking thousands of publishers to accept your work.
Create A Statement Of Professional Goals To Increase Your Income (5)
Topics: statement of professional goals Many entrepreneurs have given up setting statement of professional goals because they are convinced that such resolutions simply do not work. This may reflect a larger problem, mainly not knowing how to set and reach goals.
Major Traffic Source Of The Future (Actually Now): Blogs (6)
Through these software the blog invites the general public to opt-in if they want to keep their Inbox aside for other purposes, so that's 'pull' marketing. If they are flooded with mails they may miss yours, but with a newsreader they just click on your blog link to access all your posts past and present.
Online Video Marketing - The Effective Way (7)
Topics: online video publishing, online video marketing, making money with online video publishing Online video marketing has to be effective enough in order to make money out of it. How to market video online needs effective strategies considering the great competition nowadays in the online video market.
Advertising Your Home Business On A Budget (8)
When they are happy with your offerings and service, they will be willing to tell you whom you can contact, and they will pass the word for you. BUSINESS CARDS You can usually pick up 500 business cards for about $20.
The 5 Effective Methods Of Getting Targeted Traffic (9)
It's very easy to get 1,000 subscribers in a week. Of course, the organizer gets the most numbers, but he also puts in the most work to make sure the web server doesn't collapse due to traffic overload, the gifts don't go missing and the event proceeds on schedule.
How To Select A Search Engine Optimization Company (10)
Don't use a company that won't show your references because of any reason, confidentiality included. Remember--even doctors will provide references! The firm you choose should provide you with a minimum of two references, one that is from the past, and one that is current.
How To Index And Maintain Your Pages In The Search Engines (11)
Focus on building significant sections of your sites, create a sitemap pointing to these sections and let the spiders search for themselves. 3) Submit everywhere except the major SEs.
Why Are Publishers So Picky? (12)
It is important to publishers to have unique content. In addition to being unique, your articles must be search engine optimized (SEO). Your article will get noticed on the Internet if you write copy with carefully placed keywords.
How To Increase Your Search Engine Ranking (13)
Search engine rankings are extremely important for a successful Internet Marketing campaign. Before you go out and hire a search engine optimization company, try taking some of the simple steps listed above, and see if you can't boost your rankings yourself.
How To Play The Game Of Paid URL Inclusion (14)
How relevant the cost factor is will depend on your company. Another, and perhaps more important, disadvantage is the limited reach of paid URL inclusions. The largest search engines, Google, Yahoo, and AOL, do not offer paid URL inclusion.
What Do Pints Make? Prizes (15)
You are not supposed to know when the mystery shopper is coming in, hence the 'mystery' part, but anyone with any common sense can see that with a visit every month and usually on the weekend only eight days out of the month are worth worrying about.
When It Is Time To Move From Shared Hosting To Dedicated Server (16)
It also reduces the possibility that the server will be slowed down or crash due to the actions of the websites of others. With shared hosting, there are often many different websites, sometimes hundreds, which are being hosted on the same server.
Promote Your New Business With Article Distribution (17)
The other reason to promote your new business with article distribution is because of all the back links you'll get. The back links these remote sites provide for you look good as far as search engines are concerned.
What Kind Of Banner Advertisements Is Right For My Site? (18)
There are several ways so market and promote your website, one of them being though banner advertisements. What Banner Ads Can Do For You? Banner ads can help bring visitors from others sites to your own.
The Little Extras That Come With Domain Registration (19)
The domain registrant uses specific software that connects to the final authority for domain name registration. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers will do a database check for the requested domain name and if that site relays back that the domain name is available, then the business owner simply has to register it in their name.
Web Tools Add Character To An Online Business (20)
Topics: Pingdom web code, box.net coupon code, DomDat promo code Some business owners create logos to represent an online business. They think that these graphical images will give their business a certain amount of character and make it instantly recognizable to people that shop on the web.
Newer Articles Highlighter:
Using Content To Boost Your Traffic And Profits (1)
This is about building trust with your subscribers. If you send informative articles to them regularly, you are establishing yourself as an expert in your topic and gaining their trust.
E Books, Software, Audio Interviews, And Video (2)
I personally like the idea of the Internet and all it has to offer, there are too many things to list, and the marketing industry is doing a lot better cause of the Internet and the ability for companies to communicate so quickly now via the Internet.
How To Make Money Online With An Affiliate Website (3)
The program has paid on average over $1 million a year to their top 50 partners. How much you earn depends on how much traffic you drive to eBay every month.
The Benefits Of Having A Website (4)
If a company knows what they are doing then they can design their website themselves or alternatively they can get experts to do it themselves. The cost of this is by far outweighed by the benefits of having a tool that can reach millions of people everyday.
Things To Consider In Creating A Great Video Product (5)
You can make money with online video publishing by implementing these strategies. Stephen C Campbell (MBA, MSc, MCIM) is a business consultant who has conducted business throughout Europe, Far East & U.S.
How To Format Your Ezine Ad For Network Marketing Success (6)
The reader needs a quick and easy way of accessing your product or service. This means at least one link must be provided in your ad. Give a good, solid link to your web site, and most importantly, your product or service.
How You Can Create A Professional Network Though Email (7)
When you send out an e-mail, make it personable without divulging too much. If you are worried about whether or not you are sharing too much personal information, write a draft of an e-mail and have a friend look over it and analyze it for you.
Choosing The Right PHP Dating Software (8)
The design should be very attractive but simple. For any website its User interface will create the first impression on the visitor and it is more important in the case of a dating web site.
Getting Rid Of Writers Block For A Blogger (9)
If you still are having a hard time after trying a few of these ideas, search the Internet for some sites that are designed to help you find your next topic.
Understanding The Benefits And Advantages Of Using Autoresponders (10)
However, if you spend all your working hours answering these e-mails, how are you supposed to run your business? The answer is simple: use autoresponders. Autoresponders are programs that automatically respond to your e-mails without you so much as having to click on your mouse.
New Opportunities For Working From Home (11)
Typically affiliate programs will pay you a fee for each time someone clicks on the ad. Informational products have also become a huge moneymaker on the Internet. Informational products can be in the form of ebooks, articles, white papers, or any other format for providing useful information to customers in return for payment.
How To Discover Your Niche Market (Part 2) (12)
Mike took their ideas and created a product with it. His millionaire dollar idea came from people in his target market! This brings us to the next place you'll want to do research-discussion forums.
Boost Sales With Articles In Your Website (13)
If you have enough budget, buying PLR articles can also be a good option. Usually you can buy tons of articles with less than $20. If you have some more budget, you may also hire a ghost writer to develop the content for you.
What Directories You Should Submit To Your Blog (14)
If you are thinking about creating your own blog, there are a few techniques to follow that will make it the most effective. In order to produce and publish a blog that several Internet users will have desires of visiting, you have to publish material that many people are interested in.
The Basics Of Photo Gallery Software (15)
Not all photo gallery software is the same. Some are focused more on uploading images to the web, while others will only help you to create photo albums for people to browse while using your computer.
The Most Profitable Thing You Can Sell Online (16)
If you frequent forums a lot, there may be a person or two whose forum posts or rants are outstanding and would make a good read in an e-book. You will more than likely have to get their permission, but this still makes for an easy way to get content.
Targeted Expired Domain Traffic As A Powerful Tool To Success (17)
a) You can purchase an it and sell it along with its traffic to someone, who is looking for a domain that can provide immediate results. b) You can also register it for a year or so and develop a web site over it, advertise and pool together targeted traffic.
Learn Affiliate Marketing - Affiliate Marketing Myths (18)
Most of the real life firms spend a lot of money per month on the PPC (Pay-per-click) campaigns. Still they are not able to generate required results because they don't test their results properly.
Effective Tips On Creating Great Video Product (19)
This can make a snap shot of what your video all about. Cartoon and animations can be the best medium as your detailed storyboard. If you intent to hire a production company to create a great online video, you have to make it sure that you are able to participate in planning process.
How To Discover Your Niche Market (Part 1) (20)
With these two ways of doing research, you're almost ready to develop your product that will take care of your target market's problems. But wait, don't develop your product just yet, there are three important areas you must check before you spend your hard earned money and time developing a product.