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Created on: May 29, 2009 Last Updated: May 08, 2010
4 Onsite Factors That Will Get Your Site Banned From Google
How many people when asked if they would like their site banned from Google would say yes? Of course no one would - OK maybe you could find someone, somewhere out there that would answer yes, but no one seriously trying to promote his or her product would. Yet there are people out there who are using techniques that are sure to get their site banned from Google.
How do you clearly know when you're banned from Google? Well there are a few things that will give it away. First, go to Google and enter your entire URL into Google's search box, then click search. A successful search will return results for the site. For example, if your site is, oh lets say http://www.101cheesecakerecipes.com and you enter that address into Google and no search results come up, it's a good indication you've been banned. The only exception is if you're a brand new website, then you'll always get the message that no results have been found until Google has indexed your website. Another indicator is found on the Google toolbar, downloaded free off Google's site. On the toolbar there is a tab that's called PageRank, and below the words PageRank is a bar that indicates the status of your site. If this bar is gray, it's a good indicator that your site is banned.
Ok so now that you know that your site is banned, what could have caused this? Well there are a few onsite factors that will do this.
First is doing a thing called hidden text. This is where the Webmaster has made text on the site the same color as their background, so as not to appear visible to visitors. This will not in anyway help your search engine rankings, and is dangerous to do as at some point or another, the search engine spiders will pick up the hidden text and you'll be banned.
The second factor that can get you banned is doing what is called alt image tag spamming. This is where the Webmaster has gone in the site and for image alt tags, entered the keyword they were optimizing for repeatedly. This is considered spamming by the search engines, and is guaranteed to get you banned.
The third factor is similar to alt image spamming. This is where a Webmaster repeatedly enters the keyword they are optimizing for in the Meta code of the website. This is also considered spamming and will get you banned.
The last factor is probably one of the more popular factors that get people banned by search engines. This is called title tag stuffing. It is where a Webmaster enters the keywords they are optimizing for repeatedly in the title tag of the page. It is also considered spamming and will get you banned.
So there you have it: 4 onsite factors that might have been the reason for your getting banned on a search engine. If you are currently doing any of these factors, please reconsider, as it will harm you.
Learn more about this author, Daniel Rusu.
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