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What will be the next Google’s algorithm change? Many webmasters have already been affected by the latest Penguin update, and it is highly probable that your website will be the next to be affected by Google’s algorithm change. We don’t know when it will happen, yet. But, it is a wise move for you to take a precaution to protect your website ranking. One of the best ways to protect your ranking is to avoid doing taboo things in SEO that will potentially drop your website ranking significantly. Here are 10 taboo things that will affect your website ranking negatively:
1.Focusing On The Search Engines
Search engines say, “Webmasters should focus on their readers, not us.” But bad webmasters say, “Like I care. We only want to rank high. Readers are not so important.” If you keep being a bad webmaster, your website will end up in search engines’ sandbox. Remember that search engines are the ‘rule makers’. Don’t follow your own rules if you don’t want to be kicked out of the field. Focus on your readers. Let the search engines reward you.
2.Putting Too Many Backlinks Too Early
Achieving the top ranking is a process. It is not a single point direction. That’s why it is illogical and strange if your website suddenly has 1000 backlinks within 3 days if it’s not supported by heavy marketing promotion. Trying to put too many backlinks too early will raise the suspicion of the search engines. It will affect your website ranking negatively.
3.Putting Affiliate Links Before Getting Indexed
Search engines hate affiliate links. At least, they hate websites who are created solely to make money from affiliate commission. Search engines want valuable websites that are designed for their readers. So, they will be reluctant to index your website if you put your affiliate links too early. So, only put your affiliate links once your website gets indexed. In this way, your affiliate links won’t prevent you from achieving good ranking in SERP.
4.Using Software Designed For Doing Black Hat SEO
Trying to trick the search engines using black hat software won’t give you any good result. Yes, your website might be able to rank highly for a short amount of time, but you rank will go down significantly after a few weeks. And worst of all, your website will get blacklisted, which means that you’ll never be able to raise your rank again. So, you’ll only get a short boost on rank, and then a very quick downfall afterwards.
5.Publishing Duplicate And Low Quality Content
What is the use of duplicate content for your website (for example, highly saturated PLR content)? Will it help you to attract more visitors? I think it won’t. Why? That’s because PLR articles are usually low quality and they’ve been used everywhere. They’re outdated and they’ll only add bad reputation to your website. Publishing duplicate and low quality content will only lead the search engines to slap your website ranking instantly.
6.Creating Only One Page Website
If you create only one page website, you have to depend on paid traffic. Why? That’s because you can’t rank this website high if you don’t really add any value to it. One page website, or usually a sales page, doesn’t have good ranking in the search engines. Of course, there are exceptions. Successful one-page websites attract organic traffic from affiliates as well as paid traffic. They have high ranking only for product-related keywords.
7.Letting Dead Links To Clutter Your Website
Search engines index your website by following your links. If there are any dead links inside your website, it will be a dead end for the search engine spiders in its effort to crawl your entire site structure. Thus, they can’t determine whether those links are relevant with your page or not. If you clutter your website with dead links, those links might be considered as spam links that don’t have any significant value for your website ranking.
8.Linking To Irrelevant And Low Quality Websites
Backlinks are important for your website, but link outs from your website are also important. Your website ranking depends heavily on relevancy of content. It means that the relevancy of your links will also affect your website ranking significantly. Linking to irrelevant and low quality websites will only make your website to be regarded as irrelevant and low quality. This will hurt your ranking.
9.Letting Your Website To Become Dormant
Updating your website regularly will help you to attract search engines’ attention because every time you update your website, you’ll ping the search engines, notifying them about the update. Then, they’ll index your website immediately. But, if you don’t update your website regularly, your website will be considered as a dead website and search engines won’t have any reason to revisit your website and rank it.
10.Using Free Website Template
If you are serious in your intention to achieve high ranking in SERP, then you have to use a website template that is designed specifically for this purpose. Using free website template will only give the impression that your website is amateurish and not valuable. Also, a free website template doesn’t have any power to help you to rank high.
Those are 10 taboo things that you need to avoid in your SEO campaign. Those things can affect your website ranking negatively.
Nicole McGrey is a teacher at Edinburg High School. Her writing includes few notes about Eric Schiffer. Follow her on Twitter @NicoleMcGrey
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