Image copyright © Piutus, http://www.everystockphoto.com/photo.php?imageId=4193650

I get this call all the time. A client was just contacted by email or by a salesman on the phone. They were promised that they could get a higher ranking in Google if they paid some "service"... and the rate wasn't cheap. If you gave me half of what you're about to pay them, I'll increase your Google rank and keep you there.

That's really the key point here. Yes, there are ways to trick Google into giving you a higher ranking. But that's just it. They're tricks. The folks at Google are pretty big with the learnin'. How would you like to wake up one day and find that your site has plummeted in your Google listing, or worse yet... been removed entirely from the search engine?!

It is possible to get banned entirely from Google. How would *that* affect your business?

Here's an example of primitive tricks they used to pull in the "olden days" (circa 1995):

5 Ways to Get Kicked off Google

1. Use lots of keywords on your site that have nothing to do with your site. Lots of people use the words "sex" and "nude" and "Britney Spears" on search engines. Please don't be offended here, but if someone typed those things into a search engine and they found your website, do you think they'd be likely to stick around?

2. "Hide" keywords by putting black text on a black background. This is just silly, but you could (people did) hide text out of sight. That way, you wouldn't offend people, and "steal" a higher search engine ranking. This is much like the first way to get kicked off Google. Search engines actively look for "same colored" text on "same colored" background... they single them out to not be included on search results.

3. Use the same keywords over and over and over and over and... over. I sound like I'm repeating myself (I am), but if you sell tires and your competition sells tires, you might reason that you could get a higher ranking by using the word "tires" a lot. What if your keywords had the word tires repeated 25 times? Don't do it. Just don't. That's lame. How about a diversity of words? Pull out a dictionary. Pull out a thesaurus. They were introduced in grade school for just this point in your life. Seize the opportunity.

4. Create or link to a "link farm". At one time, your search engine ranking was based solely on how many sites were linked to you. Because of this, sites and services cropped up to merely link to your site. They would have links to hundreds of other sites, and this would boost your ranking, because you would be linked to hundreds of sites. Well, besides this being very dishonest, it just doesn't work anymore. Your search engine "reputation" depends largely on the "reputation" of the sites you are linked to. Link farm sites, once identified, are given a very low reputation. If you hang with the "bad kids" you become a "bad kid" as well. Be careful.

5. Allow hackers to manipulate your site. If you have a forum or take comments on your site, you will start to get spam comments. A lot of these are just mindless spam robots, but some of them are downright nasty. A hacker can put code into a comment field to try and attack computers that display the comment. Although this isn't something an SEO company will do for you (at least, I certainly hope not), this is another danger you need to look out for. Whatever software you are using for your forum or blog or content management system should have a way to filter/restrict/moderate comments. Use them. If you don't understand, either hire a webmaster or do some research. If you get booted from Google, it's hard to get back on.

Bottom line... you don't have to resort to hiring a "Search Engine Optimization" company to improve your ranking on Google. If a website is built the right way and properly maintained, it will naturally improve in the eyes of a search engine. If you offer relevant information or sell products people want, you will have no problem getting the traffic you need. Period. Get people talking. Interact with your peers online. Make sure your site has solid, standards-compliant code. Success will follow, both in and out of the search engines.

Next time you get this spam in your inbox or unsolicited call on your phone, ignore it and move on. Look there! I just saved you loads of money!

Bookmark It

Hide Sites