Many people who have websites are not totally up to date with what is considered to be search engine spamming. Having worked on search engine optimisation for a few clients, I have come across websites that are using spam techniques to help elevate search engine rankings. When I confronted clients about this, they honestly did not know they were using a form of spam nor did they realise the consequences if detected by the search engines.
So what is search engine spamming? A simple definition would be; deliberately designing website pages that offer poor and irrelevant content, and are used to trick search engines into ranking the content highly for inappropriate search results.
People tend to use spam as a way of attracting as many visitors to their website. When caught by the search engines, this will result in a major setback to business. Websites will be blacklisted from the search engines and chances are they will not appear in the index for a very long time.
Not sure if you are spamming? Below are a few common forms of spam techniques that you should avoid.
Doorway Pages – Optimising a single webpage to perform exceptionally well in search engine ranks for a group of keyword phrases (keyword stuffing on the webpage). Once a user clicks on the link, they will be automatically redirected to a completely different website.
Invisible Text – Using text that is not visible to the human eye (having the same colour text as the background colour). The invisible text will usually contain a large number of keywords (keyword stuffing).
Link Farms – Joining community websites that provide large volumes of irrelevant links to your website.
Along with other forms of spam, these techniques should be avoided at all costs. If you are not sure whether your site uses some form of spam, then it would be best to contact a search engine optimisation specialist before it could result in your website being blacklisted.
Past clients who were using some form of spam and were not aware of itBusiness Management Articles, had taken a big loss by having their website blacklisted in some search engines. The road to recovery can take very long and it is one that no one would like to follow. Be cautious!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David Touri works for SEO Sydney, the SEO Consultants. He has worked on various projects and offers search engine optimisation in Australia.
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
Article Marketing: Why 2 URLs Equal Pure Champagne
Writing articles today is becoming less about getting your message in front of readers and more about winning the search engine war. What many writers don't appreciate however is just what a powerful weapon they have in their article resource box when it comes to winning the war.
If you are using articles to promote your business then I don’t need to tell you that including the URL to your website in the resource box at the end of your articles represents payment for the hard work involved in writing and submitting those articles.
But, if you’re including just one URL, instead of the two allowed my many article announcement sites, then your reward could come in the form or orange juice instead of champagne.
One of the first rules of marketing, which applies whether you’re writing sales copy or an article to promote your business, is to give your reader one simple message and, having delivered that message, to clearly ask that reader to take one single action.
For this reason, people often believe that your article resource box should contain just one single call to action and, accordingly, just one single URL link. And I would agree wholeheartedly, if it were not for one simple thing – the search engines.
Yes, article marketing is indeed about getting your message out to as wide an audience as possible so that they can read it and, hopefully, click through to visit your website. But it is also very much about getting your article posted on websites across the internet and building links to please the search engines – particularly Google and Yahoo.
Now the subject of building links to please the search engines is a little beyond the scope of this short article, but I’d like to give you just one example of why I believe that you’re leaving money on the table if you don’t add a second link to your resource box.
Suppose your article is posted on a website and that the page containing your article has a PR (Google Page Ranking) of say 4, which is derived from a points score given to the page by Google. For a PR4 page this score could fall anywhere within a fairly broad range, but might for the sake of illustration be 3000 points.
This page, through your resource box link back to your website will pass some of that PR to your own website page. Exactly how much will depend on a number of factors, including the total number of links on the page that contains your article. But, If there are a total of 10 links, then your resource box link could pass somewhere in the region of 250 points back to your website page. Enough to give that page a PR3 ranking from this one link alone.
But suppose that instead of having just a single link in your resource box you have two. The page containing your article will now have a total of 11 links and each will pass a slightly lower score, of perhaps 230 points, but this is still enough to give not one but now two pages on your site a PR3 ranking.
Now take this small illustration and imagine your article being posted on hundreds of websites, many with little or no PR, but others adding your article to PR4, PR5 or even PR6 pages. If you think that getting your article on a PR5 or PR6 page is dreaming believe me it isn’t. I know from experience that this article will appear on several PR5 and PR6 pages within 24 to 48 hours of my submitting it.
Now, take this illustration one step further and image submitting not one article, but hundreds of articles.
While article writing is still very much about getting your message out to a wide audience of readers, it is also increasingly about building link popularity with the search engines and gaining PR to raise your profile in the search engine listings.
Love or hate the search engines they play an increasingly important role in promoting your business and your article resource box can play a vital role in ensuring that you get those champagne top listingsScience Articles, rather than those orange juice second page spots.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Donald Saunders is the author of a number of Internet Marketing guides including 20 Major Marketing Mistakes. Writing articles is one of the keys to your internet success, but submitting those articles is hard work. Follow this link and discover the secret to easy article submission
If you are using articles to promote your business then I don’t need to tell you that including the URL to your website in the resource box at the end of your articles represents payment for the hard work involved in writing and submitting those articles.
But, if you’re including just one URL, instead of the two allowed my many article announcement sites, then your reward could come in the form or orange juice instead of champagne.
One of the first rules of marketing, which applies whether you’re writing sales copy or an article to promote your business, is to give your reader one simple message and, having delivered that message, to clearly ask that reader to take one single action.
For this reason, people often believe that your article resource box should contain just one single call to action and, accordingly, just one single URL link. And I would agree wholeheartedly, if it were not for one simple thing – the search engines.
Yes, article marketing is indeed about getting your message out to as wide an audience as possible so that they can read it and, hopefully, click through to visit your website. But it is also very much about getting your article posted on websites across the internet and building links to please the search engines – particularly Google and Yahoo.
Now the subject of building links to please the search engines is a little beyond the scope of this short article, but I’d like to give you just one example of why I believe that you’re leaving money on the table if you don’t add a second link to your resource box.
Suppose your article is posted on a website and that the page containing your article has a PR (Google Page Ranking) of say 4, which is derived from a points score given to the page by Google. For a PR4 page this score could fall anywhere within a fairly broad range, but might for the sake of illustration be 3000 points.
This page, through your resource box link back to your website will pass some of that PR to your own website page. Exactly how much will depend on a number of factors, including the total number of links on the page that contains your article. But, If there are a total of 10 links, then your resource box link could pass somewhere in the region of 250 points back to your website page. Enough to give that page a PR3 ranking from this one link alone.
But suppose that instead of having just a single link in your resource box you have two. The page containing your article will now have a total of 11 links and each will pass a slightly lower score, of perhaps 230 points, but this is still enough to give not one but now two pages on your site a PR3 ranking.
Now take this small illustration and imagine your article being posted on hundreds of websites, many with little or no PR, but others adding your article to PR4, PR5 or even PR6 pages. If you think that getting your article on a PR5 or PR6 page is dreaming believe me it isn’t. I know from experience that this article will appear on several PR5 and PR6 pages within 24 to 48 hours of my submitting it.
Now, take this illustration one step further and image submitting not one article, but hundreds of articles.
While article writing is still very much about getting your message out to a wide audience of readers, it is also increasingly about building link popularity with the search engines and gaining PR to raise your profile in the search engine listings.
Love or hate the search engines they play an increasingly important role in promoting your business and your article resource box can play a vital role in ensuring that you get those champagne top listingsScience Articles, rather than those orange juice second page spots.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Donald Saunders is the author of a number of Internet Marketing guides including 20 Major Marketing Mistakes. Writing articles is one of the keys to your internet success, but submitting those articles is hard work. Follow this link and discover the secret to easy article submission
Articles - They really work
Several years ago I began an online business. At the time, the field I was entering was not all that crowded, search engine algorithms were much easier to manipulate, and links from relevent sites were not too tough to come by. In short - if you wanted traffic, and were willing to do a little footwork, you could get it. Over the past few years, things have changed.
Several years ago I began an online business.
At the time, the field I was entering was not all that crowded, search engine algorithms were much easier to manipulate, and links from relevent sites were not too tough to come by.
In short - if you wanted traffic, and were willing to do a little footwork, you could get it.
Over the past few years, things have changed.
Almost by accident, I stumbled upon a method for increasing, quite dramatically, the number of visitors to my website.
It turns out that almost everybody can design a really cool website...but very few people can write an interesting article. Writing is not a skill which is crucial in todays world, and very few can do it well.
(I, on the other hand, have the opposite problem...it's one of the few thing I can do well <-: )So, what is a webmaster to do if he wants to provide well written content to his visitors? Obviously, he needs to get somebody else to write it for him.
That leaves two options:
1. Pay cold hard cash to a professional writer.
2. Find a way to entice good writers to write good content for free.
3. Trade something of value for well written content.
My father once told me that there's no such thing as a free lunch. I believe he was correct, so option 2 is out.
That leaves paying or trading as the only viable options.
Most webmasters have opted for trading.
But what, you may ask, do they have to trade?The trading arrangement which has evolved is one of wriiten content in exchange for a hyperlink.
Hyperlinks are gold in today's Internet economy. The more links a website has back to it, the higher it will rank in the search engines.
Therefore, if I, as a webmaster, can obtain several hundred relevent links to my website, my search engine rank goes way up, and I end up with a ton of visitors.
Do you see the possibilites? If you're a decent writer, you can end up having your articles published all over the Internet, with hyperlinks galore pointing back to your website.
"But how" you ask, "do I hook up with website owners who will publish my articles?".
Basically, there are several large article repositories online which will allow you to post your articles. Some of these are:
Go Articles Article Beam iSnare Article Factory Ezine ArticlesThere are actually quite a few more, if you do a search in Google.
Write a few articles, post themFree Reprint Articles, and see what happens!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John Pierce is the webmaster of Article Beam Free Content Directory - http://articlebeam.com and the Customer Service Manager for Gold Zero Web Hosting - http://goldzero.com
Several years ago I began an online business.
At the time, the field I was entering was not all that crowded, search engine algorithms were much easier to manipulate, and links from relevent sites were not too tough to come by.
In short - if you wanted traffic, and were willing to do a little footwork, you could get it.
Over the past few years, things have changed.
Almost by accident, I stumbled upon a method for increasing, quite dramatically, the number of visitors to my website.
It turns out that almost everybody can design a really cool website...but very few people can write an interesting article. Writing is not a skill which is crucial in todays world, and very few can do it well.
(I, on the other hand, have the opposite problem...it's one of the few thing I can do well <-: )So, what is a webmaster to do if he wants to provide well written content to his visitors? Obviously, he needs to get somebody else to write it for him.
That leaves two options:
1. Pay cold hard cash to a professional writer.
2. Find a way to entice good writers to write good content for free.
3. Trade something of value for well written content.
My father once told me that there's no such thing as a free lunch. I believe he was correct, so option 2 is out.
That leaves paying or trading as the only viable options.
Most webmasters have opted for trading.
But what, you may ask, do they have to trade?The trading arrangement which has evolved is one of wriiten content in exchange for a hyperlink.
Hyperlinks are gold in today's Internet economy. The more links a website has back to it, the higher it will rank in the search engines.
Therefore, if I, as a webmaster, can obtain several hundred relevent links to my website, my search engine rank goes way up, and I end up with a ton of visitors.
Do you see the possibilites? If you're a decent writer, you can end up having your articles published all over the Internet, with hyperlinks galore pointing back to your website.
"But how" you ask, "do I hook up with website owners who will publish my articles?".
Basically, there are several large article repositories online which will allow you to post your articles. Some of these are:
Go Articles Article Beam iSnare Article Factory Ezine ArticlesThere are actually quite a few more, if you do a search in Google.
Write a few articles, post themFree Reprint Articles, and see what happens!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John Pierce is the webmaster of Article Beam Free Content Directory - http://articlebeam.com and the Customer Service Manager for Gold Zero Web Hosting - http://goldzero.com
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