Don’t Get Banned by Google
by Sharon Hassler, President, Go Get Experts
After providing tips on how to improve your search results position in Google last month, I thought a few tips on what not to do were in order.
I was recently reminded of a “black hat” technique when reviewing a friend’s new notary website. Along with the website’s content, the meta tags (title, description and keywords) are important, so I selected Page Source under View in the browser menu to see if these meta tag elements were complete. What I found in the home page code was a surprise: a paragraph that had the color of the background and the color of the font set to the same code, i.e., white on white, blue on blue, black on black. That means the text would be hidden from a site visitor but would be recognized by search engine “spiders.” (Spiders crawl websites to collect info for their databases.) Hidden text is an old trick—and a deadly one—that search engine companies caught onto a long time ago. Their spiders still pick up the hidden text but the site may be blacklisted for using it which means that site won’t show up in any searches. Imagine working hard to get your site on page one or two of Google, then waking up one day to find you’re not in Google at all, anywhere… you’ve been banned! If your webmaster is recommending hidden text, just say “no.” If you thought hidden text was a clever trick, think again and remove it.
Another potential problem is using a service to submit information about your web site to thousands of so-called “top directories and search engines.” Beware this tempting offer because you may find your information has been submitted to sites that are loaded with keywords repeated over and over again or jammed full of links of unrelated sites. These free-for-all (FFA) sites with no real content often get blacklisted, and your site could get caught up in the ban.
Don’t fall into the trap of stuffing keywords on your site either. You’ve seen that done. You land on a home page and at the top or bottom are lines of keywords. This rambling list of words is there to appeal to spiders but it’s a red flag and can get your position in search engine results bumped so far back no one will ever dig deep enough to find you. This is true for your GoGetNotary web page, too. List the counties you cover and no more than 15 or 20 cities and zips. Remember, if it doesn’t look good to humans, it doesn’t look good to spiders either.
If your site does get into trouble from black-hat techniques, all is not lost. You can make the corrections needed, email the search engines and beg them to reconsider. But why take the risk and put yourself in that position? Afterall, Google, MSN and Yahoo are just asking you to play fair. For instance, let’s say your competition has had a website online for a few years, provided good content for visitors and has slowly, consistently developed quality backlinks through valid link exchanges, directories, press releases and articles. The search engine gods don’t think it’s fair for a newcomer to cheat and jump in front of that established site. Anyone who’s ever waited patiently in line knows what “no cuts” means, and when it comes to the Internet, using unethical techniques to cut in line can result in the search engines moving you to the back of a very, very long line or completely ignoring your existence.
Instead of black hat tricks, put your effort into moving ahead legitimately by determining how your competition is using search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) and then doing it better. Stick to your ethical principles and you’ll avoid being banned by Google.
©Copyright Sharon Hassler. All rights reserved. Sharon Hassler is president of Go Get Experts, LLC, owner and operator of GoGetRealEstate.com, GoGetLoan.com, GoGetNotary.com and GoGetEscrow.com. A former loan officer and real estate agent in Southern California, she served as Communications Manager for First American Title-Arizona for 11 years. For more about Sharon, visit GoGetNotary.com/Get/Sharon.