Yet some go too far in trying to get their business, product or service to the top of the list, without going through the proper channels. They attempt to trick Google into listing them higher. These underhand techniques can result in being banned, or blacklisted from a search engine. Many networks such as Google have a strict policy of banning any company or person found to be trying to manipulate the system unfairly.

There are a number of techniques that you may think are good ways of tilting the table in your favour but the search engines don’t look too kindly on. Reasons for being blacklisted include:

• Cloaking – This involves inserting text full of keywords into pages and then hiding it by colouring the text the same as the background. Search engines know when this has been done and can result in being blacklisted. It also won’t result in a very good user experience when they highlight the text on the page and realise there’s a lot of text which is nonsense in terms of the subject of your website.
• Over-use of Keywords – You may think that if you create a page full of popular keywords, you may be able to hide it somewhere on your website where you don’t think your users will find it and this will raise your rank in the listings. Wrong. Google won’t take much notice of it if it’s not linked well to your site, and if the keywords you are using are nothing to do with your websites subject it will arouse suspicion and could result in blacklisting.
• Posting Too Much Material Too Quickly – Google notices the speed at which websites grow, and if they notice your site growing too quickly they may suspect that you are spamming your site with keywords. Search engines much prefer a slow release of material, with unique content, rather than a rehash of material that can be found on many existing websites.
• Using the Same Material More Than Once – It is not a good idea to use the same keyword-rich article in more than one place in your website. The search engines will notice that you have copied and pasted into different areas of your site and won’t look kindly on it.
• Link Farms & Cross-Linking – Link Farms are communities pages where people submit their website to be listed on a page, and in return they must have a link back to that page on their own website. Links into your site can increase your ranking, but if the source of that link contains hundreds of links to unrelated websites search engines will notice this and make the link virtually worthless. They won’t penalise you for who has linked to you, but they will ban you if you have a link to a link farm.
• Phishing – Phishing websites are ones that pretend to be a credible organisation such as a bank or building society. They create a login page which can sometimes look identical to the real thing, and ask the unsuspecting user to enter login information. Phishing sites farm these details which can be used in identity theft and credit card fraud, and the practice is therefore illegal. Google blacklists these sites whenever it finds them.
• Doorway Pages – These are specially designed web pages designed for only the search engine to find, and are generally full of keywords in order to boost the position on search results.  Most doorway pages are looked upon negatively and will result in being blacklisted from search engines. If these pages are full of keywords that don’t relate to your website, letting them through would make the search engine a lot harder to navigate, making it difficult for users to find what they’re looking for.
• Resubmitting Your Site – Some web designers submit their websites to search engines in order to get them listed onto Google, thinking that this will get them onto search listings quicker. There really isn’t much need to submit your site in the first place as it will be indexed naturally and resubmitting a site will not help the process go any faster. It is not a blacklisting offence, but it may annoy the search engines and some believe it actually lowers your chance of getting a high page ranking.
• Having Numerous Virtual Hostnames – Virtual hostnames can help your users find you quicker if you have a URL that is long and difficult to remember. This practice is not unreasonable, but having many different virtual hostnames can be misleading and are not looked on kindly by the search engines.

Achieving a high ranking on search engines without being blacklisted

It may seem that it is impossible to achieve a high ranking on a search engine without falling foul of a blacklisting offence. But there are totally legitimate ways to achieving a good listing on search results. The search engines love good, interesting, keyword rich copy in websites. Remember, when writing your website think about what users would type into a search engine to find your site, and add those words intermittently throughout your copy.

Also, keep on adding new content to your website. The search engines love websites that are constantly being added to. It gives them a reason to show your website at the high end of the charts if it sees that the website is constantly being updated.

If you are still struggling to get the most out of the search engine results and are disappointed with where your website is ranked, you should seek the help of a web designer or search engine optimisation specialist, such as the team at Active Image Web Solutions who are proven to get results in this area of expertise.

Posted by ActiveImageAlex