Will You Add? - 13 Deadly Google Sins - Is Your Website Committing Any of These?

Here's a list of my top 13 sins (in no particular order) that will see your advances spurned by Google:

1. Flash-only sites

No matter what people tell you, getting any sort of decent ranking for Flash-based websites is always going to be far tougher than for the HTML-based equivalent. Flash may look great and often offer a great user experience, but from a Search Engine point of view Flash is a death-trap.

2. Canonical URL issue

It's quite well documented that Google sees the non-www and www version of any website as different pages. If your site is accessible via both www and non-www URL you may have some indexing and supplemental issues with Google (to test this type your website address into your browser using first the www.yoursite.com and then yoursite.com and see if either redirects to the other). You can find an entire post about this over on Matt Cutts' blog [www.mattcutts.com/blog/seo-advice-url-canonicalization/].

3. Zero backlinks

I am yet to see Google index any site that has no backlinks from an external website. While Google may crawl your site (e.g. if you use Google's submission tool), your site must have at least one backlink to get any pages indexed. The higher the quality of any backlinks the quicker your site will be indexed. (Oh, and just a quick mention that Google's link: operator only displays a sample of the backlinks your site has. If you want a more complete listing head over to Yahoo SiteExplorer.)

4. Nothing or little to index

By their nature Search Engines love text. They really love text. Text contained in images cannot be indexed by Google so that beautiful page you just created in Photoshop and uploaded to your webserver as an image file won't get much lovin' from Google tonight. Similarly, if your pages contain little text you shouldn't expect Google to attach much importance to them. (Flash sites also come under this heading but are so notoriously difficult to rank that they deserved their very own listing :))

5. Duplicate content

Google has a thing for original content. It just eats it up. On the other hand it particularly likes spitting out content which the filters think has been ripped off. So when you copy someone else's website word-for-word Google isn't going to think you're too clever. Duplicate content issues can also occur when pages on your site are accessible via more than one URL (the canonical URL issue in #2 above can also come into play here).

6. Where's your server? What's your ccTLD?

If you are thinking about what TLD domain to use and where to host your website consider this: a site hosted in the US with a .com TLD will not show up in the 'pages from Ireland' index. Only sites which Google deems Irish will appear in the Irish search index. The same holds true for all country level Google indices. In a nutshell, your server IP and ccTLD are the two determining factors for geo-targeted results in Google.

7. Linking to 'bad neighbourhoods'

Google tries very hard not to penalise sites based on where their backlinks come from (which makes sense). They do however come down hard on sites that link out to bad neighbours. What constitutes a bad neighbour? Well you can be pretty sure that if you link to adult sites, drugs (pharma) sites or gambling sites that Google isn't going to look favourably on you.

8. Dead-end objects

Have you ever clicked on a link to be taken to page with no links? Doesn't make for a good user experience and search engine spiders aren't too hot on these pages either. Spiders like to be able to move from one page to another via links. When there are no links on a page the spider is likely to head off elsewhere. So be friendly to the Googlebot and give him as much direction as you can.

9. Cloaking/doorway pages

Now this is a really big no-no. If there's one thing Google dislikes it's when a website displays one version for human visitors and another for the Googlebot. Commonly referred to as a black-hat technique, cloaking is becoming far less prevalent. Do you remember what happened to BMW [www.google.com/search?&q=bmw+doorway+pagesBMW]?

10. Artificial link networks

When your site goes from having a handful of backlinks to having several thousand overnight you can be quite sure your site is going to be flagged by Google's quality algo. Google is constantly on the lookout for link networks and rapidly devalues links found to be less than genuine.

11. Hidden text

Another big no-no is hidden text. As with cloaking, Google likes to see exactly what your human visitors see. If you hide text via CSS or otherwise on your pages you risk the wrath of a Google ban. (If you want to quickly check a page for hidden text press CTRL+a to highlight all text. FireFox users can click CTRL+Shift+s do disable external style sheets.)

12. Build it and they will come

Well no, they wont actually. If your content has no link popularity then don't expect to come top of the SERPs for anything other than the most off-beat search queries. The most important variable required to achieve good rankings for any page in Google is the link swarm pointing at that content (note: this is my opinion and relates to all but the least competitive search terms). This variable is measured across both the quality and quantity axes - the right links are far more powerful than a mulitude of 'wrong' links.

13. Session id's in your query string

Google previously stated that placing anything similar to a session ID in your URL was going to hurt your site. Now while that guideline has been eased up somewhat recently, my view is that you're better off removing session IDs from your URL. If your URLs use anything that looks like

www.mydomain.com/index.php?sid=234523353 E Mail Writing the Perfect Email To Get Attention
Is there something to writing the perfect businesses email, or should you just sit down and write as your ideas come to you?There is something special about writing a good and effective (thus perfect) email, and if you wish yours to be read and acted upon, read on.The Email FormEmails can be letters, or memos, whatever you wish, and delivered instantaneously to your recipient.Therefore, if you are not careful, and write in a sloppy and bad form, you will most likely have an ineffective and thus unsuccessful email.The proper form must be adhered to, and that is stating a subject, and has one and only one subject, following the subject with support information, and a summary re-stating and clarifying the subject at the end.The SubjectIf at all possible, hold to one subject per email. You may have several topics ie Google index any site that has no backlinks from an external website. While Google may crawl your site (e.g. if you use Google's submission tool), your site must have at least one backlink to get any pages indexed. The higher the quality of any backlinks the quicker your site will be indexed. (Oh, and just a quick mention that Google's link: operator only displays a sample of the backlinks your site has. If you want a more complete listing head over to Yahoo SiteExplorer.)

4. Nothing or little to index

By their nature Search Engines love text. They really love text. Text contained in images cannot be indexed by Google so that beautiful page you just created in Photoshop and uploaded to your webserver as an image file won't get much lovin' from Google tonight. Similarly, if your pages contain little text you shouldn't expect Google to attach much importance to them. (Flash sites also come under this heading but are so notoriously difficult to rank that they deserved their very own listing :))

5. Duplicate content

Google has a thing for original content. It just eats it up. On the other hand it particularly likes spitting out content which the filters think has been ripped off. So when you copy someone else's website word-for-word Google isn't going to think you're too clever. Duplicate content issues can also occur when pages on your site are accessible via more than one URL (the canonical URL issue in #2 above can also come into play here).

6. Where's your server? What's your ccTLD?

If you are thinking about what TLD domain to use and where to host your website consider this: a site hosted in the US with a .com TLD will not show up in the 'pages from Ireland' index. Only sites which Google deems Irish will appear in the Irish search index. The same holds true for all country level Google indices. In a nutshell, your server IP and ccTLD are the two determining factors for geo-targeted results in Google.

7. Linking to 'bad neighbourhoods'

Google tries very hard not to penalise sites based on where their backlinks come from (which makes sense). They do however come down hard on sites that link out to bad neighbours. What constitutes a bad neighbour? Well you can be pretty sure that if you link to adult sites, drugs (pharma) sites or gambling sites that Google isn't going to look favourably on you.

8. Dead-end objects

Have you ever clicked on a link to be taken to page with no links? Doesn't make for a good user experience and search engine spiders aren't too hot on these pages either. Spiders like to be able to move from one page to another via links. When there are no links on a page the spider is likely to head off elsewhere. So be friendly to the Googlebot and give him as much direction as you can.

9. Cloaking/doorway pages

Now this is a really big no-no. If there's one thing Google dislikes it's when a website displays one version for human visitors and another for the Googlebot. Commonly referred to as a black-hat technique, cloaking is becoming far less prevalent. Do you remember what happened to BMW [www.google.com/search?&q=bmw+doorway+pagesBMW]?

10. Artificial link networks

When your site goes from having a handful of backlinks to having several thousand overnight you can be quite sure your site is going to be flagged by Google's quality algo. Google is constantly on the lookout for link networks and rapidly devalues links found to be less than genuine.

11. Hidden text

Another big no-no is hidden text. As with cloaking, Google likes to see exactly what your human visitors see. If you hide text via CSS or otherwise on your pages you risk the wrath of a Google ban. (If you want to quickly check a page for hidden text press CTRL+a to highlight all text. FireFox users can click CTRL+Shift+s do disable external style sheets.)

12. Build it and they will come

Well no, they wont actually. If your content has no link popularity then don't expect to come top of the SERPs for anything other than the most off-beat search queries. The most important variable required to achieve good rankings for any page in Google is the link swarm pointing at that content (note: this is my opinion and relates to all but the least competitive search terms). This variable is measured across both the quality and quantity axes - the right links are far more powerful than a mulitude of 'wrong' links.

13. Session id's in your query string

Google previously stated that placing anything similar to a session ID in your URL was going to hurt your site. Now while that guideline has been eased up somewhat recently, my view is that you're better off removing session IDs from your URL. If your URLs use anything that looks like

www.mydomain.com/index.php?sid=234523353 Mortgage Broker Training Article: What Do You Think?
Mortgage brokers, I have a fun test for you. This test will give you an idea of your ability to think through situations. Believe it or not, no matter how fun it is to answer these questions, this exercise is still relevant to generating realtor business. Are you ready for this? Here we go:Question #1 – There are 6 eggs in a basket. 6 people each take 1 egg. How can it be that 1 egg is left in the basket?Question #2 – Acting on an anonymous phone call, police raid a house to arrest a suspected murderer. They don’t know what he looks like, but they do know that his name is John. Inside, they find a carpenter, a cab driver, a mechanic and fireman playing cards. Without asking his name, they arrest the fireman on the spot. How did they know they had their man?Question #3 – A man escaped from prison and is making his way home on foot. After w. So when you copy someone else's website word-for-word Google isn't going to think you're too clever. Duplicate content issues can also occur when pages on your site are accessible via more than one URL (the canonical URL issue in #2 above can also come into play here).

6. Where's your server? What's your ccTLD?

If you are thinking about what TLD domain to use and where to host your website consider this: a site hosted in the US with a .com TLD will not show up in the 'pages from Ireland' index. Only sites which Google deems Irish will appear in the Irish search index. The same holds true for all country level Google indices. In a nutshell, your server IP and ccTLD are the two determining factors for geo-targeted results in Google.

7. Linking to 'bad neighbourhoods'

Google tries very hard not to penalise sites based on where their backlinks come from (which makes sense). They do however come down hard on sites that link out to bad neighbours. What constitutes a bad neighbour? Well you can be pretty sure that if you link to adult sites, drugs (pharma) sites or gambling sites that Google isn't going to look favourably on you.

8. Dead-end objects

Have you ever clicked on a link to be taken to page with no links? Doesn't make for a good user experience and search engine spiders aren't too hot on these pages either. Spiders like to be able to move from one page to another via links. When there are no links on a page the spider is likely to head off elsewhere. So be friendly to the Googlebot and give him as much direction as you can.

9. Cloaking/doorway pages

Now this is a really big no-no. If there's one thing Google dislikes it's when a website displays one version for human visitors and another for the Googlebot. Commonly referred to as a black-hat technique, cloaking is becoming far less prevalent. Do you remember what happened to BMW [www.google.com/search?&q=bmw+doorway+pagesBMW]?

10. Artificial link networks

When your site goes from having a handful of backlinks to having several thousand overnight you can be quite sure your site is going to be flagged by Google's quality algo. Google is constantly on the lookout for link networks and rapidly devalues links found to be less than genuine.

11. Hidden text

Another big no-no is hidden text. As with cloaking, Google likes to see exactly what your human visitors see. If you hide text via CSS or otherwise on your pages you risk the wrath of a Google ban. (If you want to quickly check a page for hidden text press CTRL+a to highlight all text. FireFox users can click CTRL+Shift+s do disable external style sheets.)

12. Build it and they will come

Well no, they wont actually. If your content has no link popularity then don't expect to come top of the SERPs for anything other than the most off-beat search queries. The most important variable required to achieve good rankings for any page in Google is the link swarm pointing at that content (note: this is my opinion and relates to all but the least competitive search terms). This variable is measured across both the quality and quantity axes - the right links are far more powerful than a mulitude of 'wrong' links.

13. Session id's in your query string

Google previously stated that placing anything similar to a session ID in your URL was going to hurt your site. Now while that guideline has been eased up somewhat recently, my view is that you're better off removing session IDs from your URL. If your URLs use anything that looks like

www.mydomain.com/index.php?sid=234523353 You Can Easily Create Your Own Ebook And Make A Fortune
Selling information is one of the most popular and successful business types on the Internet. It is a very low-cost, high-profit business.The vast majority of people use the Internet to seek information that will help solve their problems. This creates a unique opportunity for you to make money by creating and selling your own ebooks.Ebooks are so easy to market because there is no inventory to keep, no packaging and delivery. They are obtainable in the form of downloadable files. So buyers can have instant access to your ebook after payment is made. You only have to keep one copy of the ebook in your website. Your buyers will continually download as many times as required from this copy.You don't have to be a literary genius to create a hot money making ebook. Everyone already has valuable knowledge which others would love to learn aboutclicked on a link to be taken to page with no links? Doesn't make for a good user experience and search engine spiders aren't too hot on these pages either. Spiders like to be able to move from one page to another via links. When there are no links on a page the spider is likely to head off elsewhere. So be friendly to the Googlebot and give him as much direction as you can.

9. Cloaking/doorway pages

Now this is a really big no-no. If there's one thing Google dislikes it's when a website displays one version for human visitors and another for the Googlebot. Commonly referred to as a black-hat technique, cloaking is becoming far less prevalent. Do you remember what happened to BMW [www.google.com/search?&q=bmw+doorway+pagesBMW]?

10. Artificial link networks

When your site goes from having a handful of backlinks to having several thousand overnight you can be quite sure your site is going to be flagged by Google's quality algo. Google is constantly on the lookout for link networks and rapidly devalues links found to be less than genuine.

11. Hidden text

Another big no-no is hidden text. As with cloaking, Google likes to see exactly what your human visitors see. If you hide text via CSS or otherwise on your pages you risk the wrath of a Google ban. (If you want to quickly check a page for hidden text press CTRL+a to highlight all text. FireFox users can click CTRL+Shift+s do disable external style sheets.)

12. Build it and they will come

Well no, they wont actually. If your content has no link popularity then don't expect to come top of the SERPs for anything other than the most off-beat search queries. The most important variable required to achieve good rankings for any page in Google is the link swarm pointing at that content (note: this is my opinion and relates to all but the least competitive search terms). This variable is measured across both the quality and quantity axes - the right links are far more powerful than a mulitude of 'wrong' links.

13. Session id's in your query string

Google previously stated that placing anything similar to a session ID in your URL was going to hurt your site. Now while that guideline has been eased up somewhat recently, my view is that you're better off removing session IDs from your URL. If your URLs use anything that looks like

www.mydomain.com/index.php?sid=234523353 Quality Activity Achieves Quality Results
Failing to focus salespeople's activity reduces efficiency and consequently reduces results, because there is not a salesperson alive that believes they have enough time in their working week to complete all the activities they want to achieve! Time is a huge constraint on their activities so that when their manager asks them for more, it is no wonder that they are overwhelmed.Poor Quality Activity:Secondly, but equally important, salespeople often are not clear about how to identify the prospects most likely to have a genuine need for their product or service. Without an objective way to prioritise which prospects to contact first and/or an efficient strategy for contacting them, salespeople are doomed to waste a large percentage of their time. Another huge dilemma for many salespeople is how to divide their time between servicing existi. If you hide text via CSS or otherwise on your pages you risk the wrath of a Google ban. (If you want to quickly check a page for hidden text press CTRL+a to highlight all text. FireFox users can click CTRL+Shift+s do disable external style sheets.)

12. Build it and they will come

Well no, they wont actually. If your content has no link popularity then don't expect to come top of the SERPs for anything other than the most off-beat search queries. The most important variable required to achieve good rankings for any page in Google is the link swarm pointing at that content (note: this is my opinion and relates to all but the least competitive search terms). This variable is measured across both the quality and quantity axes - the right links are far more powerful than a mulitude of 'wrong' links.

13. Session id's in your query string

Google previously stated that placing anything similar to a session ID in your URL was going to hurt your site. Now while that guideline has been eased up somewhat recently, my view is that you're better off removing session IDs from your URL. If your URLs use anything that looks like

www.mydomain.com/index.php?sid=234523353

you might want to consider revising your page names. The other issue to consider is that any more than 2 variables in the query string IS likely to cause problems with GoogleBot. My view? Keyword-rich SE friendly URLs all the way.

Concusion

If you avoid these sins you will increase the likelihood of Google showing your site quite a lot of love. While not meant to be a comprehensive guide to Google indexing problems, I hope this list covers some of the issues that I see occurring most frequently on many webmaster forums and the Google Webmaster Group. (I post under the nickname RedCardinal on quite a few forums and the Webmaster Group.)

P.S. If you are looking for Google's webmaster guidelines they can be found at www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html

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