The best way to avoid being blacklisted by the search engines is
to avoid using some questionable techniques that were once
popular to gain high rankings. Even if your website is not
blacklisted by using some of the techniques below, it may be
penalized (buried in the rankings) so your traffic will suffer
all the same. When a search engine blacklists a website it will
throw your listing off their site and block your site from
coming aboard again. This can be done by blocking the domain
name, the IP address or both.
Here are a few techniques to avoid, so that your site will not
be blacklisted:
Mirror Websites
Mirror websites are sites with identical content but different
URL's. This was once a method used to gain high rankings in the
search engines, but since search engines are smarter now, this
will only get you penalized or blacklisted.
Doorway (gateway) Pages
Doorway pages are pages with little real content for your
visitors that are optimized to rank highly within the search
engines. These pages are designed so that visitors will move
deeper into the website where the real content lies. Navigation
to the doorway pages are usually hidden from the visitors (but
not the SE robots) on the homepage.
Invisible Text and Graphics
Using invisible text (text the same or a very similar color to
the background) was once used to spam a homepage and some inside
pages with non-stop keywords and keyphrases. Also links to
doorway pages and hidden site maps can be done with invisible
text (or invisible graphics). Some designers will create a
graphic link with a 1 pixel by 1 pixel raster image and link
this to a hidden inner page such as a hidden site map.
Submitting Pages Too Often
Submitting the same pages to the search engines within a 24 hour
period can get you penalized and may delay your website from
being listed in the rankings. Some search engines believe that
pages submitted sooner than every 30 days is too much. The 30
day rule is a good rule to follow when submitting to multiple
search engines.
Using Irrelevant Keywords
Using irrelevant keywords in a website's metatags and / or body
copy in order to achieve high rankings will most certainly
backfire. Search engines now want to see parity between these
two areas and if your site is thought to be spamming with
irrelevant keywords, you site will be penalized or blacklisted.
Automated Submissions to the Major Search Engines
Using an automated service or software to submit your website to
the search engines can be extremely counterproductive. Most of
the major search engines and directories accept manual
submissions but do not like to be spammed with the automated
ones.
Cloaking
Cloaking is the practice of deceiving both the search engine and
the visitor by serving up different pages for each. The visitor
sees a nicely designed and formatted page and the search engine
robot scans a page of highly optimized text. Any practice that
is deceptive should be avoided and the downfall of cloaking is
that, if caught, the website can be banned permanently.
Using a Cheap or Free Web Host
Using a cheap or free web host can hurt in the search engine
rankings. Frequent downtime, pages taken down for exceeding the
bandwidth deter robots from indexing your site. If a robot
cannot access your site often enough, your site will be dropped
from the search engines. Hosting is cheap, so if you are serious
about your website get your own domain name and host not one
like geocities.com/yoursite.
Sharing an IP Address
Sharing an IP Address even from a legitimate web host can get
your site in trouble. If you have cleaned up your website from
all of the techniques mentioned above and your website still
does not get relisted by the search engines in a couple of
months, check with your host to see if you are sharing an IP
address with other sites. If so, you may consider moving your
website to a new host who will give you your own IP address or
at least one that is not shared with another company who has had
their IP address (an yours) banned by the search engines.
FAST's Director of Business Development and Marketing, Stephen
Baker, has stated that globally there are approximately 30
million crawl-able servers and approximately two-thirds have
been banned by the FAST network for spamming. If these numbers
are correct, your site may be blacklisted or penalize for "guilt
by association."
About the author:
Copyright © 2004 SEO Resource
Kevin Kantola is the CEO of SEO Resource, a search engine
optimization company, devoted to achieving high rankings and
increased traffic. Visit the SEO Resource website at
http://www.seoresource.net to see how your site may benefit.
