Once again there seems to be a proliferation of offers to "trick" the search engines and get website owners more business by way of better rankings. We all want a better ranking don't we, but is this worth it ? Here is an example of an ad seen recently - "Boost your website's exposure in the Search Engines. Get over 9999+ individual listings for your website the next time the spiders visit. Every page is dynamically created to target your personal keyword list." Before parting with your hard earned dollars I would urge you to read what the Search Engine people think of such techniques and how they are dealing with them. Representatives of the major Search Engines have given clear indication that the following practices are viewed as spamming - (1) Web pages that are built primarily for the search engines and not your target audience, especially machine-generated pages. (2) Link farming and link spamming, particularly free-for-all (FFA) links. (3) Pages that contain hidden text and hidden links. (4) Cloaking, a practice in which the search engine and the end user do not view the same page. (5) Excessively cross-linking sites to artificially inflate a site's apparent popularity. (6) "Great quantity and little value" pages. (7) Filling pages with irrelevant Keywords. (The above list is by no means comprehensive and policies for each Search Engine should be checked prior to site submission to ensure best results) Such practices are likely to result in the eventual demotion in rank of your pages at best, removal and banning or your pages at worst. Neither result will achieve much for your business! Worth noting that Major Search Engine management staff recently defined Search Engine Spam as "using techniques to artificially influence a search engine's precision or relevancy." Thus what is considered Spam by Search Engines is based on "effect rather than technique". Given the enormous benefits of good Search Engine ranking, clearly it is better to follow the recommendations and guidelines offered by the major Search Engines and achieve the desired ranking "legally". Whilst there may be minor differences in the recommendations made by the major search engines most have the following in common - (1) Focus on content. (2) Straightforward design. (3) Link to other relevant sites only. (4) Submit the URL of your main site only unless otherwise instructed. (5) Ensure your site is easy to use in simple browsers. Remember although there may be a high degree of cooperation and information exchange between the major Search Engines, they are still in competition with each other. The way a Search Engine succeeds is by giving you the user what you want - accurate and relevant results to your searches so that you return again and again. They following links offer guidelines to the content and Spam policies for two of the major Search Engines - http://www.google.com/webmasters/ http://www.google.com/contact/spamreport.html Inktomi http://www.inktomi.com/products/search/content_policy.html http://www.inktomi.com/products/search/spampolicyfaq.html It can only be recommended that great care be taken before parting with hard earned cash to try and obtain false rankings, you may simply be paying for your own demise! Caveat Emptor! (Let the buyer beware) By EKiwi About the author: 54 year old male, Owner of both online and offline businesses with many years of experience in management and sales & marketing. EKiwi's Business Opportunities and Resource Center at: http://clik.to/Ekiwi1 Copyright 2002 "Ekiwi's Hint's, Tips & Newstuff" mailto:newsletter16@ultimatementor.com http://trak.to/EKiwi/ http://clik.to/Ekiwi1 This article including this resource box may be used and reprinted in full. If you would like to redistribute this article click Here |