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Watch out: Google continues to penalize spammers
J. C. Penney was penalised by Google because they used paid links to advertise their website. Forbes.com has been penalised because they sell links. Is your website in danger? Which search engine optimisation methods are safe to use?
Paid links and other forms of web spam
Google's most recent activities focused on paid links spam. However, that's not the only form of spam that will get you in trouble with Google. Earlier this year, Google announced that they are going to fight web spam stronger than before in 2011.
In addition to paid links, Google considers the following spam:
- made for AdSense websites that consist of scraped content
- cloaking and false redirects (Google gets other pages than real web surfers)
- keyword stuffing and pages loaded with irrelevant words
- hidden text or hidden links
- misspellings of well-known websites
- fully automated, unrelated and centralized link farms
- other methods that try to trick search engines
All of these methods have once thing in common: they worked well in the past and they enabled you to quickly get high rankings on Google. However, these methods also have in common that Google can discover them.
Websites that use these methods will be penalized sooner or later.
Search engine optimization methods that are safe to use
Spammy search engine optimization methods will get your website in trouble. It doesn't help to have a big name (J. C. Penney or Forbes) and it also does not help to display AdWords ads on your website.
If you want to get lasting results, you have to use ethical search engine optimization methods that are beneficial to website owners, web surfers and search engines.
Ethical search engine optimisation leads to a symbiotic relationship:
Search engines: They win as they are provided with pages that are easy to understand and that contain the quality information that their visitors search for.
Searchers: They win as they are getting what they ask for from the search engines. They search for "green widgets" and get a page about green widgets.
Website owners: They win as they are getting quality visitors who are interested in what their website has to offer.
The following search engine optimization methods are safe to use and they lead to lasting results:
- optimization of existing web pages, HTML code and web page contents
- creating good content for your website
- organic link building to get high quality backlinks
If you use these methods to optimize your web pages, your website will get lasting results. It takes longer to get high rankings with ethical search engine optimisation methods but your website will be safe.
If you plan to build a lasting business, you must use ethical search engine optimization methods.
Matt Cutts from Google had this to say on the Forbes issue:
Google has notified Forbes.com that they have been penalized for selling links on their web site. Google's Matt Cutts commented on the issue in an online discussion forum:
"My recommendation would be that Forbes remove the paid links that pass PageRank. I should mention that I believe we have another example of paid links that pass PageRank on Forbes which is similar to forbes.com/ebusiness/ , so it probably makes sense to do a full check of your site for any links similar to that or powered by the same network.
After the links are gone, you can submit a reconsideration request and we'll move forward from there."
