Netpaths Guide to SEO & Web Design » bad seo

Hilarious Search Engine Optimization “Technique”

CVOS — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 05:12:14 +0000

I love seeing what other webmasters do to try to improve their rankings. This SEO technique (used extremely loosely here) demonstrates why SEO’s have such a bad reputation in the online marketing industry.

This webmaster makes no effort to hide the keyword stuffed text, and trys to direct search engine spiders to his special content.

I give this is a search engine optimization blooper a 10.

Please excuse me while I increase our chances of getting to the top of the engines. I will repeat myself.

see this in action (warning do not try this SEO technique on your own website)

http://www.bajabigfish.com/

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How To Always Spot Search Engine Optimization Spam

CVOS — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 17:43:17 +0000

This post will examine different kinds of search engine optimization spam and the shady SEO’s who create them. The easiest way to spot a beginner search engine optimizer is to examine pages for keyword stuffing, text in odd places, an over abundance of links, long gratuitous keyword stuffed filenames,

Hidden text at the top or bottom of the page
In the past, a company would try to use questionable search engine optimization to stuff pages with more keywords, inserting barely readable text in odd places and coloring this keyword stuffed text nearly the same color as the background. Apparently even churches need to falsely manipulate their search engine placement.

Extraneous links

After looking at thousands of web pages, these tricks and techniques stand out extremely well. It is very easy for an experienced SEO or spam engineer such as Matt Cutts to find unethical search engine optimization.

My advice is to create pages with information that will help another user and provide real value. Creating 5 pages that repeat the same text dozens of times will never garner any links. However a page that shows a person the 5 key steps to get social media traffic will gather lots of links.

Advanced SEO’s are master linkers. They know that the key to long term top 10 search engine placement is by getting lots of quality links. Acquiring links is hard, boring, and tedious. But after getting dozens of links from authority sites the Google Gods will smile upon your site.

Extra Long Footer Links
Beware of sites with 20+ links in the footer. This is very easy for search engine algorithms to detect, and it looks unprofessional for your users. The footer is a good location to place secondary links and additional resources. Listing all 100 cities in the state you serve is a bad idea.

Selling & Buying Links for PageRank
Link brokering is the oldest profession on the internet. Some websites have the goods, and people are always willing to get a piece of high net work link action. Resist the urge to succumb to your carnal desires and take a shortcut to backlink heaven. Buying links is expressly forbidden by all the search engines and the penalties can be severe.

Penalties for uncontrolled link buying range from mild (link is given no value) to strong (your links loose the ability to pass pagerank). Many professional sites such as Findlaw have tried to sell links while claiming they don’t.

If you sell links, setup a quality directory. I have compiled a list of directories that should be on every search engine optimization checklist.

There are many ways to do bad SEO.

To ascertain whether you should do a particular change ask yourself this question and you will never make bad decisions: Will my users be better off for this change, will it make my message clearer, will users be better able to find what they are looking for and will it make my site easier for search engines to index?

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No Hope SEO

CVOS — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 23:24:25 +0000

If you are looking for advice on how not to begin a search engine optimization project, the user SEO Quick Project just created a case study for you.

this job has a 100% chance of failure.

Here is the title of the job listing:

SEO Quick Project – See original job posting at Elance »
Hello, We are looking for help with our SEO project and need someone who can quickly update our site to maximize our upcoming marketing campaign. Cost is a concern but we have two additional projects and would like to use the same provider for each. Our budget for this SEO project is $120.00. We are hoping to complete this within the next week or so. thank … view or apply to job view or apply to job

Problems with this SEO proposal: no budget, no tools, no content to work with, no realistic schedule, no provision for acquiring links.

It is impossible to have anything resembling useful SEO for $120 except an hour of consulting.

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Bad SEO at Dell

CVOS — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 11:57:21 +0000

Sometimes big companies just never learn. Dell.co.uk has been generating doorway pages in an attempt to SEO their way back to 1999. They must have received one heck of a powerpoint presentation from WebPosition Gold.

Some of the offending webpages that provide little unique content with extra helpings of keywords

http://laptops.dell.co.uk/laptop-computers/66/

http://laptops.dell.co.uk/notebook/63/

http://laptops.dell.co.uk/cheap-laptop/69/

http://laptops.dell.co.uk/laptop/70/

http://laptops.dell.co.uk/cheap-laptops/62/

There are 2 reasons why this unscrupulous Search Engine Optimization is terribly bad

This is a Fortune 500 company and they should have better marketing teams. Really, if Dell sent any of their marketers to a search engine marketing conference this SEoops could be avoided.
Dell will get away with it, while small webmasters never will. There have been countless cases of quality websites getting burned while large sites never face a penalty.

This paragraph isn’t spam, but it sure is awkward and has a lot of forced keywords

Laptop computers can be kept safe and secure with ease. As alarming as the threat of hackers and viruses and the like may sound, securing your laptop is simple with Dell. And keeping your information safe needn’t break the bank either. There are various affordable options for protecting your new laptop through Dell’s security partners. Laptop computers feature a range of security options, so whether you’re buying a new Dell laptop and want to add security software to your purchase, or you want to update your current home system, check out your options with Dell. We’ll take the hassle out of your laptop security – giving you one more great reason to buy at the Dell laptop sale!

From the page footer – related articles? Seriously Dell is trying to follow the article directory trail? Did they outsource SEO to India?

Code screenshot from Dell Computer pages shows SQL calls picking out keywords from database fields. This brings new meaning to the phrase “commenting your code”!

Dell doesn’t have to worry about HP as their main competitor, they are rapidly loosing marketshare to other laptop manufacturers. Dude, drop your Dell and get a Macbook Air! Dave Naylor was the first person to spot this.

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