SEO - A Few Ways to Get In Trouble with Search Engines

Some Ways to Get in Trouble with Search Engines

Search engines are fickle, and there is a lot of competition for the top spots on their SERPs. This combination makes for a fairly volatile marketplace where web sites generating great traffic from a search engine one day can be dropped from their index the next. Businesses relying heavily on search engine traffic often watch their revenues dry up when they unexpectedly get banned from the SERPs for unwittingly engaging in practices that search engines find unacceptable.

So how can developers avoid getting on the bad side of search engines? There are several practices that can cause a major search engine to raise the flag on your site, and your only real protection against being banned is knowing the rules.

Learn a Search Engine's Terms of Service

Every search engine has a "Terms of Service", which is typically a vague document that outlines general rules for using their service, their service being providing an index of web pages to the users of the web. These "terms" include guidelines regarding what is considered spamming a search engine, and what kinds of techniques can be interpreted by a search engine as deceptive tactics.

On the whole, if you feel like a particular practice might be against a search engine's terms of service, it probably is. However, not everything you might think of as legitimate will be considered so by the search engines.

Search Engine Problems May Be Way Down the Road

Keep in mind that search engines will not find violations on your site right away, rather a particular event will trigger a search engine to investigate your site. This means that you could be using certain tactics for years before you ultimately get the cut.

Search Engine Bans

What happens when you're banned?

A web site can operate for years using tactics a search engine finds unacceptable before it is banned. The reason this can happen is that most modern SEO techniques are not visible to search engines, meaning that a web site must be manually reviewed by an actual human in order for the search engine company to determine if a web site is doing something wrong.

It goes without saying that with billions of pages on the web, it is impossible for a search engine company to review every page. Typically the company will not review a web site manually for terms of service violations until another party brings it to their attention. Usually this other party is a competitor who would like to see your web site shut down. Since competitors won't really notice your site until it starts bumping them down in the SERP's, it could be a while before bad SEO techniques translate to an unexpected kiss of death.

A Search Engine Ban Can Come Without Warning

When a site is banned from a search engine it typically happens without warning, and the site developers don't get any notice or explanation from the search engine as to why the ban took place, or who was complaining about it. The majority of the time, any solicitation to the search engine in the form of e-mail, direct mail, faxes or phone calling does not receive a response.

Considering that a search engine could feasibly ban thousands of spam web sites a day, it makes sense that they don't allow their resources to be tied up by allowing the creators of spam to investigate further. Also, by refusing to offer details about a ban, they avoid revealing details that may allow spammers to improve their techniques.

Average Web Site Owners Get No Relief from Search Engine Bans

For the average web site owner, a ban is typically a harsh penalty for a single accidental error caused by a misunderstanding about how search engines work. While each search engine has a formal contact form for filing an appeal, filling the appeal out and sending it in is typically a futile effort that in the end bears no fruit. Once a site is banned from a search engine, there is not much that can be done.

While such severe action on the part of search engines seems unwarranted, it is their right to refuse their service to anyone violating their terms of service. Because search engine traffic can be such a powerful business generator, the success of a business can hinge on their placement in SERPs, giving the search engines extreme power over a web-site-based business.

However, by carefully following the rules of a search engine's terms of service, a web site can greatly reduce the risk of rubbing the search engine the wrong way, and in turn rubbing out their own business.

Below I cover some of the most commonly used tactics that could result in negative action from a search engine: using hidden links, selling PageRank and having outbound links to non-reputable sites.

Watch Out for Hidden Links

Beware the Hidden Links

A hidden link is a link that can be seen by a search engine, but not by a human web surfer. They are typically used to direct robots to certain pages or areas "hidden" from direct visitors. Developers might employ this tactic for several reasons:

The area being linked to is unrelated to the rest of the site
The area being linked to is being "rented" by a third party and could have anything on it
To confer PageRank to pages that are not yet ready for viewing
To pass PageRank on to another web site without running the risk of losing traffic to that site

A link can be "hidden" using different methods:

The color of the link is made the same as the background color
The font size of the link is too small to be legible
The link is added to an invisible image
The link is added to punctuation, like a period or comma
The link is located in a div (layer) that is positioned outside of the visible browser window by using style to apply a negative margin. For example, the style "margin-left:-1000px" will render the link virtually invisible.

Good Reasons for Hidden Links are Bad Reasons

While there are sometimes logical and compelling reasons to use a hidden link, none of them are condoned by search engines. Search engines see the tactic as destructive to their goal of providing quality search results, since the links are "deceiving" the search engine into indexing pages that an actual surfer might never visit following traditional hyperlinks.

If a search engine finds a single hidden link while investigating your site, it is cause enough to ban your entire site from their SERPs. I've seen it happen before and the result is not pretty.

Selling PageRank and Bad Links

Selling PageRank is Wrong!

In a perfect world according to search engines, web sites link to other web sites because they think the content on that other site is worth linking to. In practice, links can mean a number of other things. In particular, web sites with high PageRank can "sell" links to other sites, either to 1) generate traffic to the site or 2) pass on some PageRank.

Links created to generate traffic to another site are really considered advertisements. However, an identical-looking link that is sold in order to pass on PageRank is considered a violation of a search engine's terms of service. They consider it a device that skews the importance of certain pages, thus causing inaccurate search results.

The fuzzy line between selling PageRank and advertising

The line here is thin. It is fairly easy to veil the selling of PageRank as selling an advertisement, but understand that if a search engine interprets your actions as selling PageRank, even if you don't explicitly state that you are doing so, they reserve the right to ban or penalize your site.

Linking to non-reputable sites

If your site links to another site that has been banned or penalized by a search engine, some of that penalty will flow down to your site. This system makes sense to a search engine that considers it likely that the friends of an enemy probably share some of the enemy's standards, but to the average web developer the system is unfair.

Imagine that you sell Widgets on your site, and you find a complementary site that offers reviews on Widgets. You add a link on your site to these reviews because you think they will be useful to your customers. Unbeknownst to you, this web site that you linked to is selling some of their PageRank, in some area of their site you didn't even see.

The Search Engine Police Investigate

The search engines, tipped off by a disgruntled competitor, start investigating this site and decide to ban it. Because your site links to theirs, they consider it likely that you are part of the problem as well, and while you don't get completely banned, you get a penalty which reduces your visibility in the SERPs, ultimately slicing your business by a certain percentage.

This scenario happens all the time. Once it happens, there's not much you can do to rectify it, so the only real solution is to make sure it doesn't happen at all.

The Solution To Bad Linking Problems

The solution? Be very careful about who you link to, and check their sites periodically for anything fishy. By linking to a site, search engines consider you their partner. If your partner goes down, you will be guilty by association. Remember that most of the time, site owners don't even know they're doing anything wrong when they get banned, so it's up to you to keep tabs on the sites you link to.

In extreme cases, you may want to consider not having any external links at all, or at least adding a rel="nofollow" attribute to them to avoid search engines considering you a partner in crime. I say only in extreme cases because the backbone of the Internet is hyperlinking. If everybody chose to remove their outbound links, the Internet would no longer exist as we know it. So for the sake of karma, consider allowing a few external links to web sites you trust, and removing or guarding the rest.

Lesson Summary - Trouble With Search Engines

Search engines typically only give your site one chance to follow the rules, to it's critical that you understand the rules and work with them from the very beginning.

First we covered the importance of avoiding hidden links, which search engines consider a form of deception. Next we discussed the selling of PageRank, which is also considered deceptive. Finally, we discussed how the actions of those sites you link to can result in penalties for your own site, and how you can avoid incurring these penalties.